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Social Media News

Social Media News Roundup: February 2019

In social media news this month, Instagram is creating a new tool for its Stories feature that will let you donate to non-profit organisations, LinkedIn are giving businesses the ability to live stream and Facebook adds to their Groups feature.
Donate with Instagram

Instagram have been working on a new tool this month for their Stories feature. The social media app has been looking into a ‘Donations’ sticker for users who want to raise funds for any non-profit organisations.

The new Donations feature comes of no surprise as Facebook’s own donation and fundraising tools have been so successful over the last year, offering users the chance to even raise funds for charities on their own birthdays. During its first year, Facebook’s birthday fundraisers raised $300 million for non-profit organisations, with over 750,000 of them having access to the social media platform’s tools.

The Donations sticker will be in the same place as the other Stories features, alongside Location, Mention and Hashtag, meaning you can add to your posts before you share!

Go Live with LinkedIn

As LinkedIn steps up in the social media game, so does its video content abilities. Video is becoming increasingly popular on the networking site and it seems it now wants to up the engagement levels for business even more. This month, LinkedIn have announced their LinkedIn live feature, which going by live streaming on other social media sites, should be extremely useful. Live streaming has contributed to a lot of engagement on sites like Instagram and Facebook and have helped businesses interact with their audience in a different way.

Businesses can use the live feature to showcase new products, talk about news and events and hold Q&A sessions for clients and customers. It’s currently only being tested in the US, but if successful will make its way to the rest of the globe.

Facebook Makes Improvements to its Groups

Facebook has continued to update its Groups feature, adding several new tools to help admins create more meaningful posts and informative content. The first is a new formatting feature, which will allow admins to create more structured posts with the ability to add block quotes and bullet points. There’s also a new tool which will let admins tell users why their post into the group was unacceptable and removed and how it violated the group’s rules. Also, the mentor programme mentioned back in August’s social media news is now being implemented in groups, offering users personal and professional development.