Social media tools are constantly changing and updating. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed! Not to fear though, I’ve pulled together the most important and coolest updates from the past six months so you don’t have to.
- New profile pages: Includes a larger profile photo and customized header. Details on this.
- Best Tweets: Tweets that have received more engagement will appear slightly larger, so your best content is easy to find. Read the Twitter blog announcement.
- Pinned Tweet: Pin one of your Tweets to the top of your page, so it’s easy for your followers to see what you’re all about. This is a great way to extend your short bio—pin a tweet that has more info about you or your interests. Read the Twitter blog announcement.
- Filtered Tweets: Now you can choose which timeline to view when checking out other profiles. Select from these options: Tweets, Tweets with photos/videos, or Tweets and replies. Read the Twitter blog announcement.
- Link shorteners no longer needed – A URL of any length will be altered to 22 characters, even if the link is less or more than 22 characters long. –Twitter Support
- Premium profile expansion – Similar to Twitter, if you have a premium account on LinkedIn, you can now post a larger, background photo. There are also features helping you craft your profile with the right keywords, helping you be found more easily. Read more.
- LinkedIn Connected App – This iPhone app, recently announced July 10, helps you stay in touch with contacts when important events like job changes, promotions and birthdays occur. Find out more.
- Long form “blog post” publishing: Rolling out over the next several months, LinkedIn members will be able to write longer updates, more like a blog post. More details here.
Google+
- No more photos in Google authorship: According to Google, authorship still exists, but instead of the previous headshots, posts will instead feature “bylines” with your name and published date. Read the Please Advise blog post on this topic.
- Redesign of news feed launched in March: Small changes include fonts, larger photos and buttons. Read more here.
- Mobile version of graph search: About a year ago Facebook launched its Graph Search bar, where users can type in queries like “Friends of friends who are single.” Non English-speaking Facebook users will see ordinary search results, like people, places, and Pages. This year they added it to the mobile app. Read more about the uses here.
- Anonymous login: If you’re a fan of logging into apps across the web easily using log in with Facebook, now you have the option to do so anonymously so you can check out that app without sharing your personal information. Announced by Facebook in April.
- Categories now have sub-categories: When you visit your favorite category, you can drill down into more detailed options.
- Follow topics: When you find a topic where people are Pinning lots of stuff you like, click or tap the Follow button and a selection of those very Pins will start appearing in your home feed. Read more about these two updates.
Did I miss any? Are you a fan of any of these? My personal favorite is no more link shortening in Twitter, I love saving that step!
Image via Flickr Commons from mkhmarketing Post originally published on the LexBlog Please Advise blog