We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #687

Mashup

Threads adds new insights and expands drafts

Thread’s is rolling out a new Insights screen that will show the age, gender and location of users who engage with your posts or profile. The data will also show the total views and interactions filtered by followers and non-followers. And, after testing drafts earlier this year, Threads has extended the feature to allow users to now store multiple drafts on the platform. Users are now able to save up to 100 drafts per account. Threads is also making changes to its multi-feed feature, allowing users to reorder their feeds. 

Image credit: Meta

Instagram tests vertical grid 

Instagram is testing a new vertical grid, switching from the square-shaped thumbnail to longer stills. The change comes from the type of content users are posting on the app. Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri said, “The vast majority of what is uploaded to Instagram today is vertical; it’s either 4:3 in a photo or 9:16 in a video, and cropping it down to a square is pretty brutal, so I’m hoping we can figure out a way to manage this transition.”

Image credit: Lindsey Gamble

YouTube expands its AI features

YouTube is expanding its AI chat summaries feature to live streams. A banner will be displayed at the top of a live stream chat on streams that have “sufficient chat activity” when users join. The summaries are created from published chats so will not use text that is being reviewed, contains blocked words or was sent by blocked users. 

Image credit: YouTube

YouTube is also testing a new feature on the “Join” button for channel memberships. The feature uses audio/text recognition to trigger a highlight on the button whenever the creator mentions phrases like “join my channel”. When said, the “Join” button lights up with an animated colour ring.

Image credit: YouTube

In other news

WhatsApp is adding new stickers to its GIPHY library. X is rolling passkeys on Android. Telegram adds new ways for creators to earn money. TikTok adds group chats to messaging. Snapchat has seen an 85% increase in SMB advertisers in the app. YouTube is testing more long ad breaks on CTV. Reddit reveals updates to its agency partner programme. Universal Music partners with Meta. X tests conference calls. Threads adds ‘Get embed code’ option on posts.