Welcome back to our Social Media News of the Week section. This time we’ll be digging deeper into these stories:
New Report Shows Clear Decline of Facebook And Instagram
Report On Emoji Use And Opportunities For Brands
And
Instagram’s New Media Kit To Help Creators Show Their Value To Brands
New Report Shows Clear Decline of Facebook And Instagram
It all started when Instagram decided to be the next TikTok by introducing content from accounts you don’t follow into your feed. The introduction of such changes to personal feeds has even caused people to sign a petition which also attracted some of Instagram’s biggest stars’ attention, too.
And it seems that everyone’s in the same boat agreeing that Instagram is far less engaging now than it used to be before these changes in the algorithm. According to a new report from Wall Street Journal, Instagram engagement is steadily declining, with Reels suffering the most.
In the report, Wall Street Journal highlights that TikTok users spend ten times as many hours in the app as Instagram users currently spend viewing Reels. This also reveals that Reels engagement is diminishing, dropping 13.6% recently, while most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever.
Meta, of course, did not want to comment on these statistics, as they usually do when things aren’t going as they’ve planned. Now, we’re not the ones to speculate on the topic, but take, for example, the time spent on Meta’s apps. In 2016, they noted that people, on average, spent around 50 minutes a day on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. That was the last time they gave such a report because we all know that the time spent on their apps is declining and has been for years now. Because it doesn’t look too good for Meta, they just decided not to report on it.
So, besides numerous and frantic attempts by Meta to regain their ground and attract their users’ attention and time, it seems that it just isn’t working out anymore. Will TikTok take the ultimate reign of social media, leaving Meta to bite the dust? I guess we’ll see in the near future.
Report On Emoji Use And Opportunities For Brands
Who doesn’t like emojis? The tiny little characters seemingly take away most of the awkwardness of e-interactions, providing much more context than plain text and adding in a dash of emotion otherwise lost. And soon, you’ll be able to expand your emoji vocabulary by using a moose, a goose, and even maracas if you feel the need for it!
Seriously, though, Unicode Consortium just announced they’ll be adding new emojis to the roster:
Besides this exciting news, Adobe has released its annual Emoji Trend Report. The research was conducted by surveying 5,000 US emoji users to learn how and why they use these characters. The Emoji Trend Report is merely 100+ pages long (you can download it in the link provided above), so we’ll only be looking at the keynotes here.
First, the most popular emojis in the US are:
Nothing really surprising here – all of them are pretty universal and can totally be seen in everyday use.
The use of these characters is also evolving – respondents indicated that the right emoji used at the right time could also be a valuable professional addition.
This makes more sense when you take a look at this graph showing emoji use by generation:
While to some, it might still not seem appropriate to end a professional email with a smiley, it looks like this is exactly the route things are taking. This also shows a cool new way emojis are used in sales:
And this is important information for brands to consider – not only are the younger generations more open to emojis as a communication device, but they are also willing to shop with them. And if you can get the use of these characters just right, you’ll also reap these nice benefits, too:
But be careful because not all the emojis are equal, and people tend to misunderstand some of them:
It’s probably best to avoid these characters because people don’t exactly know what they mean, and it can get a tad bit confusing.
With other emojis, the situation is a bit clearer on the meaning, but since they’re so disliked by people, it is best to avoid them, too:
And as for where the emojis are mostly used, text messages take the crown. Then comes Facebook comments, with other social media platforms going down the list.
The whole Emoji Trend Report truly is an interesting read providing all sorts of insights for businesses. Whether it be brand communications or engagement, it seems like emojis are here to stay and to help us convey our emotions and provide context to otherwise plain texts.
Instagram’s New Media Kit To Help Creators Show Their Value To Brands
So this is Instagram’s plan – roping in new creators to post more often to their platform to keep their fans coming back for their content and restore engagement stats.
To make this plan a reality, IG is already testing revenue share and creator funding options, providing supplemental income for IG creators. And now, they’ve added another feature to their roster to help creators showcase what they offer to brands for potential promotional partnerships.
It’s called a ‘media kit,’ and it will guide the creators in the process of building their pitch to brands.
This will help creators to write compelling bio, show their top posts, and point to the example of past collaborations. It will also add key analytics and audience stats. Basically, condensing your IG presence into one package, highlighting the points of becoming a promotional channel. If this feature seems somehow familiar, think about Meta’s Creator Marketplace platform, which is basically the same thing.
Not without its differences, though – unlike Meta’s Creator Marketplace platform, where the creators have their profiles generated automatically, IG’s media kit will let them be their own voice and comprise the portfolio as they wish. And it’s truly an interesting consideration, which may help IG to reel in more talent or win them over competing media channels.
So, that’s it for this week’s Social Media News. Stay tuned as we bring you the latest stories and the most interesting news.
