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The ever changing world of Social Media.

In this continually updated blog we’ll be rounding up the latest platform changes in social media.

We’ll be predominantly looking at the big 4 (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn) with occasional forays into other platforms.

Alex McCann, owner of Altrincham HQ, has guided thousands of businesses in social media strategy over the last 15 years. With a client list featuring BBC, Manchester City, Selfridges, and Costa Coffee, his Manchester-based company manages over 200 hours of campaigns monthly, adapting to social media shifts in real time.

A former journalist with blogs reaching over half a million readers, Alex also led a 15,000-capacity arts festival. With 700+ customer reviews, Altrincham HQ is ranked the UK’s top social media marketing service on Freeindex, working with businesses nationwide on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

More info on our Social Media Training and Social Media Management

NOVEMBER’S SOCIAL MEDIA UPDATES

LINKEDIN SEES RECORDS LEVELS OF ENGAGEMENT

Key takeways from LinkedIn

“Member growth continues to accelerate, with markets like India and Brazil both growing at double digits. We are also seeing record engagement as we introduce new ways for our more than one billion members to connect, sell services, get hired, and share knowledge. “

“Weekly immersive video views increased 6x quarter-over-quarter and total video viewership on LinkedIn is up 36% year-over-year. “

Full press release here

https://news.linkedin.com/2024/October/LinkedIn_Business_Highlights_from_FY25_Q1_Earnings

TIKTOK INFLUENCES LANGUAGE
The word of the year is … Brat

As in a Brat Summer and Charlie XCX … and the endless TikTok Trends.

Other words shortlisted for WOTY include
– ‘era’
– ‘yapping’
– ‘brainrot’
– ‘delulu’
– ‘Rawdogging’

We’re not expecting you to jump on every TikTok word or trend as it wouldn’t be on brand.

But it shows TikTok’s dominance on cultural moments.

THREADS TO OVERTAKE TWITTER / X MY MID 2025
We said we would mainly talk about the big 4 on here.

And neither Twitter or Threads make the big 4>

But this is interesting

The app has surged to 275 million users, a sharp increase from 200 million in August. Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Threads is attracting more than a million new users each day. At this rate, Threads could be right alongside X in monthly active users by June next year.

OCTOBER’S SOCIAL MEDIA UPDATES

THE BEST TIME TO POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Hootsuite analysed 1 million social media post and found that the best time to post on social media in 2024 overall is 8:00 AM on Wednesdays.

But every social media platform is different.

The best time to post on TikTok is 3 PM on Thursdays.
The best time to post on Facebook is 7 AM on Saturdays.
The best time to post on Instagram is 5 AM to 7 AM on Wednesdays.
The best time to post on LinkedIn is 7 AM – 8 PM on workdays.

Read the full report here https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-social-media/

(As always every business is different do check your insights and test and experiment)

INSTAGRAM STORY REACH DECREASES THE MORE YOU SHARE
An older update from earlier in the year – but an important one for people to know

There is a limit to how much you can share on Stories before the impact and reach decreases.

  • On Facebook if we post more than once every 4 hours we get penalised
  • On Instagram if we post more than a couple of stories a day we get penalised

That’s the reality.

There are people who still share 5-10 stories a day, but those days are gone

1-2x a day for stories is now the sweet spot and 90% of people polled found the same.

Less is more sadly on the Meta Platforms.

CAROUSELS GET THE MOST ENGAGEMENT ON INSTAGRAM
Buffer – the social media scheduling platform – has analysed the data from more than 4 million posts sent from Buffer from January 2022 to October 2024

A pretty comprehensive data set I’m sure you’ll agree

Despite that fact that Instagrammers still post more single image photos than any other content type, data shows Reels Are Best For Reach — But Not Engagement

You might want to look at Carousels for engagement

  • Reels get 1.36 times (36%) more, reach than carousels
  • ⁠Carousels get 1.12 times (12%) more engagement than Instagram Reels
  • ⁠Carousels get 2.14 times (114%) more engagement than Instagram single-image posts

Which would you like more?

Reach or community engagement

Adjust your content type accordingly

INSTAGRAM CAROUSELS WITH MUSIC GET ARE ELIGUBLE TO BE SHOWN IN THE REELS TAB
One of those quick tips direct from Instagram

“Using music on carousels and photos now makes them eligible to be shown in the reels tab, which can also help with reach.”

Have you tried this?

INSTAGRAM CLARIFIES YOUR OWN LOGO ON VIDEOS IS OK

Instagram Clarifies That Including Your Own Logo on a Reel is OK

“The answer is no, that’s actually good to go. What we try to do is not recommend Reels with logos from other apps, but if it’s your own logo, don’t worry about it.”

That quote is direct from Adam Mosseri of Instagram

So – your own logo – go for it

TikTok Logos – avoid

LINKED EXPLAINS HOW THE ALGORITHM WORKS
Rishi Jobanputra (Senior Director, Product Management) at LinkedIn has explained in a LinkedIn post how the LinkedIn Feed (algorithm works)

Here are a few factors that influence what appears in your Feed.

Your Profile: Your experience, your skills, and your education help us determine your interests, and the most helpful content to you.
Your Network: The people and organizations you connect with or follow directly impact the content in your Feed.
Your Actions: When you like a post, join a conversation in the comments, or repost an article, it helps us understand what content is helpful to you. On the flip side, when you scroll past a post, mark it as “Hide,” or indicate you don’t want to see a certain type of content, we learn from that too.

And from that it moves into Connected and Un-connected Content

“Connected Content” refers to posts, videos, newsletters or articles shared by people or organizations you’re connected with or follow. This could also include content they’ve created or reposted with their perspective.

“Un-connected Content” refers to content surfaced based on your interests, professional experience, and what your network is engaging with, shared by people and organizations you haven’t followed

Importantly you are encourage to hide clickbait content

“What you won’t see as much of? More personal posts from people that you aren’t connected to or follow, or posts that fall into “click-bait” territory (designed to get you to click with no substance). We’ve heard from members that these posts aren’t helpful, so we’re continuing to iterate and test how to surface only the more relevant content from outside your network. We encourage you to tap the “hide” button on things you don’t want to see in your Feed. “

Full Info: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-how-linkedin-feed-works-rishi-jobanputra-tshdc/

TWITTER / X BLOCK BUTTON MADE REDUNDANT
2 years of Elon Musk’s Twitter and X and this could be the final straw

X’s engineering page announced recently that, for users with public accounts, blocking someone will prevent that person from interacting with the blocker’s posts but will not stop them from viewing the posts.

At present, the block function prevents users from both interacting with and viewing posts from those who have blocked them.

This month, we reached 451,128 people on social media for Altrincham HQ.

An impressive figure considering we were out of town in Lisbon, Benalmadena, Birmingham and London a lot of the month




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NEED HELP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA TRAINING FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Looking for authentic ways to grow your social media

Chat to us about Social Media Marketing for YOUR organisation , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation

We can chat about whether online or Face 2 Face is better for you

We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you

Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services

We offer Social Media Training on
* LinkedIn
* Instagram
* Facebook
* Twitter
* TikTok
* Blogging

We can do this
* 121
* Corporate Workshops
* Group Workshops
* Face to Face or Via Zoom / Skype

Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Alex McCann

Author Alex McCann

More posts by Alex McCann