Social media has evolved over the years and continues to grow and change. Today we are coming to a point where new platforms are taking the lead and you absolutely have to stay up to date if you want to maintain your audience. Below are some recent changes to some of your favorite social media platforms.

5 Major Social Media Updates: Spoiler Alert! Everything’s Changed

1. Facebook Changes

There is no doubt that Facebook is still a very popular social media platform. People use Facebook to learn about what’s currently happening around the world and share their likes/dislikes. Here are some recent changes:

Reactions

Facebook has always had the “like” button. However, recently Facebook introduced reactions, in addition of the Like button.  Now you can easily and quickly express how something you see in News Feed makes you feel. To add a reaction, hold down the Like button on mobile or hover over the Like button on desktop to see the reaction image options, and then tap either Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry.  I think I “like” these.

Facebook Live

The News Feed is where you get the latest information from the friends, family, and Pages you’ve connected to such as status updates, photos, videos, and links. You can now add Facebook Live videos to the list. Facebook introduced Facebook Live on iOS back in December, but they recently began showcasing it on Android in the US. Over the last several months Facebook Live video has become more and more popular and there has been an increase in people and Pages creating and watching live videos.

To share live video, just tap “What’s on your mind?” at the top of News Feed and select the Live Video icon (you will see “New! Record and share live video” at the bottom). You can write a quick description and select the audience before going live. During your broadcast, you’ll see the number of live viewers, the names of the friends who are watching, and respond to a real-time stream of comments. When you end your broadcast, it will be saved on your Timeline like any other video, which you can then delete or keep for your friends to watch later.

You can see live videos from your friends and the public figures you follow right in news feed. Additionally, while watching a live video, you can tap the Subscribe button to get notified of the next time the contributor goes live.

2. Instagram Changes

Feed Order

According to Instagram “the average Instagram user misses 70 percent of what’s in their feed”, including photos with lots of Likes and posts by their friends. So, in case you haven’t heard, Instagram is changing things around and has announced that it will start repositioning the order of posts in its feed and you will no longer see your feed in reverse chronological order. Instagram will order posts “based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post.” This is basically how Facebook’s feed works, and how Twitter recently rearranged it’s social media feed to work.

[RELATED: How to Succeed With the New Instagram Algorithm]

How do I turn push notifications on or off?

You can choose to get push notifications when someone likes or comments on your post. If you have notifications turned on, you can also choose accounts that you want to receive notifications about. To turn push notifications on or off:

1. Go to your profile

2. Tap Settings (which may look different on Android and iOS) in the top-right corner > Push Notification Settings

3. Adjust your settings

To receive notifications about specific accounts that you follow, go to their profile, tap   (Android) or (iOS) > Turn on Post Notifications.

Account Switching: Now Available on Instagram

If you didn’t know, now you can quickly and easily switch between multiple accounts on Instagram! Go from your personal account and feature account in seconds. No more logging in and out of multiple accounts.

How to add an account

Go to your profile settings to add an additional account. From there, tap your username at the top of your profile to switch between accounts. Once you have multiple accounts added, you’ll see your profile photo appear in places throughout the app so you can always tell which one you’re using at the moment. I love it!

View Counts on Videos

You can now see how many times people have watched a video on Instagram. Views are the most commonly popular form of feedback on video. You will see your view counts underneath videos where before you would normally see likes. You’ll be able to see likes by tapping “views.”

3. Twitter Changes

Twitter’s Algorithmic Timeline

Okay, you follow hundreds of people on Twitter but when you open Twitter to check the statuses, you may feel overwhelmed at the amount of tweets you see and you could have missed some important Tweets as well. So, you may have noticed by now that Twitter added a timeline feature that helps you catch up on the best Tweets from the people you follow.

When you open up Twitter after being away for an extended amount of time, you will see that the Tweets you’re most likely to be interested in (the service’s algorithm determines) will appear at the top of your timeline. However, they still appear in recent, reverse chronological order. The rest of the Tweets will be shown below that, also in reverse chronological order.  Just refresh to see all new Tweets at the top of your social media page.

4. Periscope Changes

This month the Periscope app, another great social media tool, was updated on the Android Platform.

Here are some of the changes being done:

1. Teleport – takes you to a top live broadcast from around the world

2. Easier to see if you’re watching a broadcast with your mutual followers. They will appear at the top of the viewer list.

3. Message Carousel that helps you navigate through recent messages to reply, view profile, or report.

4. Broadcaster’s local time in the info panel for broadcasts with location enabled

5. Fix: Viewing a broadcast may end earlier than it should

6. Fix: Loading live broadcasts remain in a loading state

Periscope on Twitter for iOS

Since their launch, Periscope has had millions of broadcasts created. However, when a broadcast was shared on Twitter, you would have to tap the link to open the Periscope app. However, Periscope has replaced those links with the broadcast itself, autoplaying right within the Tweet. And when you tap the video, it goes full-screen and shows Periscope comments and hearts from other viewers. Now, you don’t need the Periscope app or even a Periscope account. Great right!

5. Snapchat Changes

Recently, Snapchat made a change that everyone instantly noticed—a different font. The Snapchat app now defaults to the font –Avenir.  I am new to Snapchat so this change has not had an impact on me but for some it was a major change.

Additionally, Snapchat made some navigational tweaks to the Stories section of Snapchat. When you scroll through your Stories, the app will show how long ago they were posted in the recent updates section or where they fall alphabetically in the all Stories section. Before, the app would let you navigate between stories with an alphabetic scroll bar in the right-hand side of the screen.

So, what do you think of all of these social media updates? Share in the comments below whether or not you like these changes. I’d love to hear which ones you’re using and what your thoughts are!