Drumroll, please! Facebook recently dropped Premiere, which is Facebook Live plus all the benefits minus the shaky spontaneity of a live video. Forget about an impromptu stream – Premiere is yet another step towards carefully curated content designed to reap engagement, and that’s always a good thing in our book. With Facebook Premiere, brands can now debut exciting event announcements or videos without all of the stress and unpredictability of a live stream. Of course, you could just post or schedule your video – but trust us, this new feature can be your hypeman. Did we stutter? Facebook is giving you the option to send notifications and countdowns on social in addition to having users tune in and comment versus just posting and hoping for the best (like in the good ol’ days, ha). Why worry about ensuring things go off without a hitch when you can post content that’s pre-approved AND allows users to interact as they watch?

Fidji Simo, Facebook VP of Product for Video, puts it simply: “People will be able to experience Premieres of videos like movie trailers or new content from their favorite creators, alongside other fans together in real time — just like watching a Facebook Live video.”

So spread the word – tell your friends, tell your fam. Who doesn’t want to tune in to see how something plays out? Loyal viewers can subscribe to notifications so they won’t miss out on your Premiere video. Don’t forget, your video should be at least 30 seconds long and scheduled at least 10 minutes in advance. And if you’re into time management, you can schedule your Premiere at most 7 days ahead. When it’s all said and done, the video will live on your page like a published post. Good looks, Facebook!

For a full list of Premiere requirements, click here: http://bit.ly/2KBkxI7

Sources: Digital Trends and Marketing Land

On Wednesday (July 11, 2018,) Twitter announced that they’re finally going to deal with the locked accounts that have plagued follower counts for years – being dubbed the “Twitter Purge.”

If you’re not exactly sure what I mean by a locked account, it’s a handle that Twitter has flagged for sudden and drastic changes in behavior. Twitter, supposedly reaches out to the owners of said locked accounts to request validation and a password reset – which if that’s not followed through, the account remains locked.

Attention all content creators! Where are you putting your video content?

Got something to say in 15 seconds or less? Throw that up on Instagram Stories where 400 million daily users are looking to consume content quickly.

Need a little longer? You better keep it to 1 minute on Facebook where its 2 billion monthly users want to watch something snappy that they can like or share before scrolling down to the next piece of content.

Our industry has always been plagued by controversy over social media privacy settings, especially its real-world implications. Thanks to being primed by pop culture and real life, we all knew this was going to happen eventually. You know the classic “Has technology gone too far?” trope, but now we’re seeing it more prevalently in all aspects of our lives – security issues, political influences, Black Mirror episodes, etc. It’s hard not to worry about the consequences of a technology boom like the one we’ve had in the past ten years. Now with social media’s technological ramifications looming over our quotidian lives, we’re getting closer and closer to the world of Black Mirror.

Ashes to ashes, dust to snapstreaks.

While a eulogy might be premature, it’s safe to say 2018 has been a whirlwind for the popular social channel Snapchat. In February, the app rolled out a controversial update to a majority of its users. An update that, to say the least, was very unpopular among the vast global userbase the app had built in the 5 years it has been live.

Boasting 187 million daily active users worldwide at the end of 2017, Snapchat was touted as one of the most important social networks among its younger audience. It is a platform for individuals to both connect directly with their friends and consume media via the app’s branded “Discover” stories. Users share short (up to 10 second) photos and videos – or “snaps” —with their friends, either directly or through the ‘stories’ feature. Living for either the duration of the snap, or 24 hours, respectively, snaps provided an authentic way to both share and view authentic views into friend’s daily lives.