In this month’s digital round-up, we’ve covered new features and updates from LinkedIn, TikTok, and Canva, as well as Google’s new helpful content algorithm update. Keep reading to stay up to date:
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Twitter’s New Feed Options Look To Help Users Discover More
Twitter will be introducing new timeline options that will integrate Tweets and other media around specific themes.
Users will be able to follow custom timelines via an in-app prompt. Upon being clicked, users will be shown posts about specific topics, allowing them to scroll through conversations around them. This will help enhance user experience on Twitter while at the same time enabling brands to create content themes catering to different target audiences.
TikTok Adds Downvote Button For Comments
TikTok is rolling out a downvote button, allowing users to flag irrelevant or inappropriate comments. TikTok further elaborates-
“We’ve created it as a new way to hear feedback directly from our community. This allows us to identify better irrelevant or inappropriate comments, which helps us foster a comment section for genuine and authentic interactions”.
The downvote button doesn’t impact a comment’s likes count. It’s more of a way to send feedback to TikTok moderators.
Google Introduces 9 New Shopping Features
Google Shopping experience for users is getting upgraded. Google has announced nine new features and tools to help improve the user experience. The overarching theme of the updates is visualisation and personalisation.
The updates include:
Search with the word “shop”. By starting your search with “shop” followed by what you’re searching for, you will now be able to access a visual feed that covers products, research tools, and nearby inventory
Shop the look. For the clothing category, users will now be able to “shop the look” which showcases specific products to help create an entire outfit.
See what others are saying. Specifically, in the Google app, Page Insights will be available now. This feature bridges content on a website and users along with ratings, pros and cons, in one single view.
Three New LinkedIn Page Updates To Help You Connect With Your Audience
LinkedIn rolled out three page updates that allow businesses to create more meaningful communication with their audience.
Businesses can now post engaging content easier without additional tools with LinkedIn templates, guide the conversation with pinned comments, and highlight their most important values with a new ‘commitments’ section.
The featured commitments section will allow your business to showcase its most important values for potential new employees, clients and partners.
You can include up to five commitments in your featured commitments section, such as:
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Career growth and learning
- Work-life balance
- Social impact
- Environmental sustainability
LinkedIn will feature your commitments in the About section of your Page.
You’ll be able to add to the section by hosting content that demonstrates your company’s values, including videos, reports, certifications, and blog posts.
These updates have been rolling out throughout the month so you may have access to them already.
Canva’s Updates for Content Creators in 2022
At the Canva Create 2022 conference, some of the biggest updates were revealed for the content creation platform since it was founded 10 years ago. For most digital marketers, Canva has been a revelation for creating visuals and videos across all online marketing channels. Some of the most exciting releases include:
Background Remover for Video
The Background Remover tool has been around for a while for use on still images. It can be really helpful for removing any unnecessary or unattractive backdrops to replace with more visually pleasing image layers. The tool is now available to use for video creation which will open up a multitude of future possibilities.
AI Image Creator on Canva
In May’s Digital Round Up, we mentioned the AI visual generator that is being developed by Google but has not yet been fully released to the public. Canva has come up with their own version of a text-to-image app within the platform. It is still in its beta phase of development, but it has the possibility of being revolutionary in the hunt for the perfect image for blogs, emails and social media posts. Soon the days of regurgitated stock images will be a thing of the past, and we will be able to create unique visuals to exact specifications – how exciting!
Collaborative Whiteboards for Cross-Team Workshopping
Who doesn’t love a mood board or visual flowchart when developing ideas for campaign or strategy planning? Canva released whiteboards initially back in August 2022, but the expanded features and examples of use were discussed at the Canva conference in September. They can be used to build visual rapport and understanding internally and with your client base across upcoming digital projects.
Upcoming Canva Docs to Rival Google Docs
The yet-to-be-released Canva Docs will be a sure rival for Google Docs as they will have the additional user-friendly features to develop more visually stimulating and refined documents.
You will be able to embed videos and use interactive features to effectively communicate and report on any marketing campaigns. This will hopefully be a recipe for simplified and inspiring workflows for digital specialists and their client base.
TikTok Copies BeReal Image Format
BeReal has become a popular social media platform for people of any age with its simple and unfiltered process to stay connected with friends. The premise is to be alerted at some point in the day to take a front-and-back camera photo of what you are up to in the moment.
Its features are rather one-dimensional though, which may become its downfall if it is unable to maintain the interest of its users. TikTok has jumped on the chance to develop its own version of this spontaneous component across its platform.
This may be attractive to people wanting to share their au naturel daily update with an already-developed following, in comparison to BeReal’s user count which is still building up.
