Another month has come and gone and we’re now in the home stretch of 2015!
As usual, our favorite social networks debuted numerous updates and changes, the majority of which were from Facebook.
YouTube and Pinterest each announced major adjustments to their platforms with Pinterest integrating seamlessly with Google Maps while YouTube introduced an ad-free experience called YouTube Red.
Here’s a recap of the top 10 social media updates from October 2015:
Facebook’s ‘Other’ inbox is being replaced with more noticeable Message Requests.The Other inbox used to contain messages from people you have no connection with on Facebook. These would often end up being spam accounts, but occasionally a message from someone you know would end up there.
Learn More: Facebook to Replace ‘Other’ Inbox With More Visible ‘Message Requests’
Facebook has made its entire index of public posts searchable. Previously, conducting a search on Facebook would return results from friends, family, Pages you like, and other sources you had some affiliation with. Now, just like Twitter and other social networks, conducting a search on Facebook will return results from everyone who published a post containing that keyword.
Learn More: Facebook Introduces Universal Search, Indexing All Public Posts
Everyone with Facebook’s iOS app will have access to content published via Instant Articles. Instant Articles will be highlighted in News Feed with a lighting bolt icon in the top right corner of the post. Articles with the lighting bolt icon are said to load 10 times faster than a standard article.
Learn More: Facebook’s Instant Articles Now Available to All iOS Users
Several of the key features native to YouTube’s mobile app are now coming to Facebook videos. Perhaps the most notable new feature is the ability to collapse a video into a floating window.
Learn More: Facebook Enhances Video with Multitasking, Suggested Vids, and More
It’s possible that someone on the Facebook design team is a Snapchatter as some recent profile enhancements are straight out of Snapchat’s playbook. The three main enhancements provide further opportunities for people to express themselves on the world’s largest social network.
Learn More: Facebook Introduces Snapchat-Like Enhancements to Mobile Profiles
Instagram launched a new official account, appropriately titled @instagramforbusiness, with the express purpose of sharing business tips and case studies.
Learn More: Instagram Launches Account For Sharing Business Tips and Case Studies
Place Pins on Pinterest can now provide directions to pinned locations via Google Maps.
Learn More: Google Maps Comes to Pinterest Via Integration With Place Pins
Twitter’s organic search traffic on desktop is up 20% in the six months since Google started reindexing tweets in real-time.
Learn More: Twitter’s Organic Search Traffic up 20% Since Being Reindexed in Google
Twitter’s support team announced the number of accounts you can follow has increased from 2,000 to 5,000.
Learn More: Twitter Increases Follow Limit From 2,000 to 5,000 Accounts
YouTube
To meet the demands of YouTube viewers, the company launched an ad-free subscription service on October 28th. The new experience, called YouTube Red, is said to be designed to give viewers “exactly what they want” — offering ad-free and offline viewing capabilities.
Learn More: YouTube to Launch Ad-Free Subscription Service on October 28th
Featured Image: Image by Paulo Bobita
