Snapchat launch Lens Studio and Instagram tests recommended posts

Your social media weekly update

Welcome to our weekly summary of what's happened in social media. We highlight the top stories to help you stay up to date with social media, here is what caught our attention this week.

Snapchat launches augmented reality developer platform Lens Studio

Snapchat have released the Lens Studio, a free desktop app for students, creatives, and developers to help bring their Snapchat creations to life. When developers have created a Lens they are given a special Snapcode that they can share anywhere, which anyone can scan to unlock the Lens. Snapchat reported:

With the launch of Lens Studio, we’re excited to make Lenses more accessible to creators, and experiences within Snapchat more personal and diverse. We’ve seen how much more fun Geofilters have become since first inviting the community to create their own three years ago — and can’t wait to see what you build with Lens Studio!

Facebook Introduces New Resources and Tools for the 360 Community

Facebook has launched a new centralized hub for all things 360 called the 360 Community Page. It offers educational resources and tools for all 360 creators such as tutorials on getting started with 360 cameras, 360 video editing workflows, and much more. Facebook announced:

Since launching 360 video on Facebook, we’ve seen more than 1 million 360 videos shared on our platform. As use of 360 has grown on Facebook, we’ve spent more time this year talking directly with the 360 community to learn about how we could make capturing and sharing 360 content even easier.

Instagram tests recommended posts from users you’re not following

Instagram is testing a new feature called Recommended to You, meaning Instagram will now let you follow hashtags in addition to individuals. The new Recommended Posts feature is within in a new section of your Instagram feed and highlights images from users that either your friends have liked or have been chosen for you by an algorithm.

Facebook opens AR platform to all developers

Facebook is allowing all developers to start building AR experiences for its Facebook Camera. That includes “World Effects” — Facebook’s copy of Snapchat’s World Lenses — that augment your environment with 3D objects rather than just your selfies. Facebook announced:

One of our goals with AR Studio is to put the power of augmented reality in the hands of all creators. Over the last few months, we've expanded the AR Studio toolset for even more creators to build and share AR experiences with the Facebook community.

Facebook crackdown on engagement bait

Facebook is cracking down on engagement bait. If you're unsure what this means you may have seen phrases such as 'Like this if', 'Share if you' and 'Tag a friend who'. Facebook will downrank these posts in users news feeds. As a result post such as these will be seen by fewer users and receive lower rates of engagement. In addition to downranking individual posts, Facebook says that pages that continually use engagement bait tactics will be penalized.

Facebook announced the following:

To help us foster more authentic engagement, teams at Facebook have reviewed and categorized hundreds of thousands of posts to inform a machine learning model that can detect different types of engagement bait. Posts that use this tactic will be shown less in News Feed.

Therefore business and brands that are using these tactics will need to reassess the quality of their content and find new more meaningful ways to engage with their audiences.

What do you think of Snapchats AR platform? Would you use Facebooks 360 community? Let us know what you think and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Don't forget to join us next week for another weekly roundup.

 

Contributer : Smart Insights