State of Social: Your essential news bulletin

Most of us have recently enjoyed a period of deep Christmas hibernation.

A time to hunker down, a time where it’s okay to do absolutely nothing – to gently nod off on the sofa with a hand in the quality street tin. But we can’t say the same for the world of social media. In fact, it’s safe to say we have entered 2025 with a bang; social media is getting political. TikTok ban, anyone?  

And if last year taught us anything, it’s that trends can change quicker than the wind. So hold on tight as we jump right in!

Instagram tests… tests.

Our Christmas present from Mosseri was of course, another Instagram Reels feature. This time, in the form of test Reels.

In the desperate attempt to follow cooler sister TikTok, where OG Instagrammers can spread their content wings in front of a fresh new audience and a brand-new algorithm to impress, Instagram have introduced Trial Reels.

The feature allows users to flex their creative muscles and post content to the masses, but somewhat hidden from their existing followers. We’ve tested it out – so you don’t have to!

To create a Trial Reel – simply go ahead and film, edit, and create a Reel (adding the caption, location, sound etc as normal) but before sharing, tap the toggle to Turn on Trial. Your Reel will then be posted out and shown to non-followers first. You can find your Reel alongside any drafts you have, but the content will be completely hidden by any followers. However, if you’re happy with the numbers and how it’s performing, you can then share it with everyone where it becomes a part of your published, public Reels.

We’re a big fan of having the option to try out new content, measuring success and how the Reel resonates with your current audience. And see this as a new lease of creative freedom for creators and businesses alike. Especially as performance insights are enhanced – you can even test the performance of trial Reels compared to previously posted trial Reels!

You can also programme the Trial to automatically ‘go live’ and be shared with all followers based on its performance within the first 72 hours of posting, which is smart.

We’re constantly told to ‘pick a niche’ on social – especially when sharing short form video. But what happens when you want to switch things up and diversify your content? Some content creators are sceptical of the algorithmic push of these ‘Trial Reels’ – whereas some are relishing in the new-found freedom and less pressure of posting content to reach new audiences and appeal to current followers too.

Will they won’t they?  

Only time will tell! (excuse the pun ⏰)

The TikTok clock is Tik’ing on the biggest news of 2024… the TikTok ban.

What’s really going on you ask? Well, this month sees the US social media landscape at a complete crossroad (spaghetti junction, if you will).

If Chinese tech giant ByteDance don’t sell TikTok by the 19th of January, the platform will become unavailable in the US. Meaning creators, businesses and influencers will lose everything (quite literally). The Supreme Court will be reviewing the case and ultimately making a decision by this Sunday, where creators hope the outcome will be to overturn or delay the law that could lead to TikTok being banned in the Untied States.

This is one of the biggest cases involving social media, free speech and national security ever – as approximately half of the US population use the platform for entertainment, education and community.

The debate is made up of those who support the ban – claiming that TikTok has the potential to be manipulated by the Chinese Communist party, and those who are state the ban would violate the free speech of millions of Americans. Oddly, the latter include ‘late to the party’ Donald Trump – who first proposed a TikTok ban almost five years ago. Someone can’t get to sleep without their nightly doom-scroll routine? We feel you hun.

Unravelling the latest Threads updates

Firstly, let’s start by congratulating the highest-ranking Twitter-competitor out there… Threads! On a whopping 300 million monthly users 🥳

The end of last year saw many a Thread update, both to UI, API, and new features aplenty.

The first comes pretty much directly from hot-off-the-press rival Bluesky (see last month’s blog for all the lowdown of them here) in a move that we predict/are calling downright plagiarism… “Starter Packs.”

On the Bluesky, Starter Packs are specially-curated lists of people to follow, based on topics and areas of interest, designed to enable newbies to build their homepage feeds and populate their experience.

Although Threads isn’t actually using the name 'Starter Packs' it kind of may as well be (side note, it’s actually taking more inspo from TikTok naming it a “For You” feed. If you’re too millennial for either of these platforms… it’s basically Twitter ‘Lists’ not very imaginatively, reimagined). It seems the update is still in test-form, and only available to US users right now.

It’s not the first time we’ve caught out Meta for ultimately being a late-to-the-party-copy-cat – but history shows, it works. When Instagram replicated Snapchat’s “Stories” feature – it genuinely affected Snapchat’s growth for some time. And we saw the same when Reels were introduced to rival TikTok’s rapid expansion (especially with those older millennial users). Sob.

As well as a recent redesign, the platform is trialling a new privacy option, aimed at improving user control and visibility on the platform. The sneaky new feature allows users to customise their profiles by removing the tab that displays their replies to others’ posts.

We’ve also heard through the social media algorithmic grapevine that Threads is also stepping up its search functionality. Expect to see new tools to help users find posts more efficiently by refining searching by date, and profiles. They seem to be going HAM on improving user experience, with enhanced analytics coming soon in 2025. Well, they need something to stay ahead of the competition it seems!

Fancy a natter?

Want to get your hands on the very latest updates fresh for this new year? We always love to chat, so drop into our DMs – don’t be shy!