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Jack Shepherd Co-Founder & Marketing Director
Updated on 22 Aug 2022

Social Media Industry Round-Up #1: TikTok's Search Engine, Scheduling Facebook Reels & Pinterest Shopping

Every week, the Marketing team at The Social Shepherd puts together all the relevant industry updates in a round-up newsletter sent every Monday morning. This way, we keep our team, clients and interested marketers up to date with what's going on in the social media industry :)

Want to be the first to know about the latest industry updates? Sign up for our newsletter to get them delivered to your inbox every Monday!

TikTok Is Becoming a Search Engine for Young Audiences

Young audiences are not using the typical search engines like Google to search for shops and restaurants but social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

This is why knowing how to make the most of TikTok SEO is key to appearing in those searches and getting a more significant reach.

We recommend having in-platform shopping set up and using localised keywords if you have physical shops users could potentially go to.

“In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.” - Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s Senior Vice President.

Facebook Reels Scheduling In-Platform

Last week we announced that Instagram was testing scheduling content in-app between 20 minutes and 75 days time.

There are still no updates regarding the test, but Facebook has just announced that scheduling Facebook Reels has become possible via Creator Studio.

This completes the whole circle of creating, scheduling and publishing Reels from one same place, which might be just a tester of what Instagram could be doing in a few months.

Watch the presentation video

TikTok Launches New Shopping Ads

TikTok has released three new ad formats to make shopping in-platform more simple:

  • Video Shopping Ads (testing globally)

  • Catalog Listing Ads (testing in the US)

  • LIVE Shopping Ads (testing in selected countries, including the UK)

They’ve also released a document that works as a checklist to guide you step by step when testing Shopping Ads.
Download the checklist here

Meta Releases New Reels Features

Meta has now expanded the ‘Add Yours’ sticker from Stories to Reels, which will help improve the content’s engagement. They’re also launching ‘auto-created’ Reels clips.

On top of all this, Instagram will allow Reels to crosspost from Instagram to Facebook and is introducing Facebook Reels insights.

As a little bonus, Meta has released a ‘Cheat Sheet’ with tips and tricks based on advice from a selected group of creators.

Read more about these ‘tips & tricks’

Pinterest Launches In-Platform Shopping

Pinterest is releasing in-platform shopping for those brands with Shopify accounts and catalogues linked to their Pinterest account.

This will provide users with a more streamlined purchase process as they won’t have to leave the platform to check out, increasing conversion chances.

YouTube Will Add Watermarks to Downloaded Shorts

When downloading Shorts to post across other social media platforms, creators will find a watermark added to the content.

The main reason YouTube has given is that this way, audiences will see that the original content can be found on Shorts, and that they’ll be expanding it to desktop and mobile downloads in the upcoming few weeks.

New Google Algorithm Improvements

Google is committed to improving its displayed search results' accuracy to avoid spreading misinformation.

The company has added improved contextual data matching for Search Snippets that will facilitate users to decide which of the results is the most accurate for their search.

Find out more here

We've launched a new Strategy Team!

Watch our latest podcast here.

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