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The Status Update is a weekly post where we cover the social media news from the past week.

Here’s what happened this week, starting with Instagram.

 

Instagram Adds New Safety Features and Control for Comments

In the interest of keeping things safe and welcoming Instagram has added new control features for comments.

Soon users will be able to turn off comments on any post.

This was already available for a very small number of posts. Now it?s going to be available for everyone.

To use this feature simply tap ?Advanced Settings? before you make a post and select ?Turn Off Commenting?.

Instagram Comments

You can also tap the ? menu at any time later to turn commenting back on.

In the coming weeks Instagram also plans on adding the ability to like comments. Users will be able to like a comment by tapping a heart icon next to any comment.

Some users have private accounts which must approve each follower. In the past there was no way to un-approve someone without blocking them.

Now private accounts can remove followers. Simply view your list of followers, click the ? menu next to a person?s name and they can be removed.

They will receive a notification that they have been removed though.

The final safety feature just added is the ability for users to anonymously report self-injury posts.

Instagram will connect the user to organizations that can offer help no matter what time or day it is.

 

New Custom Profile Frames on Facebook

Facebook recently unveiled a new tool that lets users create their own custom profile frames.

With some basic graphic design skills anyone can design and submit frames that can be used by others on Facebook.

Facebook Frames

The frames can support teams, causes, businesses, events or anything else you might want to promote.

All you need to do is create a frame in a program like Photoshop and save it as a PNG with a transparent background. Then you simply upload it to Facebook.

At launch this feature will only be available in Colombia, Mexico, Taiwan, the U.K. and Ireland. Apparently these are the countries where the most profile frames have been used in the past.

 

Facebook Updates Metrics Reporting

In Facebook?s new Metrics FYI blog they announced some updates to how they report metrics.

Firstly they?ve updated how they calculate the estimated reach of ads.

Estimated Reach

Now when creating a campaign Facebook will report both the potential overall reach and the estimated daily reach.

This update will not reflect the reach for campaigns that have already run however.

The second change involves the reporting for Live videos.

The Page Insights column for ?Reactions on Post? now shows one reaction per unique user.

Live Video Post Metrics

Previously they misallocated the extra reactions per user to the ?reactions from Shares of Post? section instead of counting them in the ?Reactions on Post? section.

Facebook insists that the total counts were and are still correct, they were just reported in the wrong column.

In mid-December this issue will be fixed. It is expected to increase ?Reactions on Post? by around 500% and decrease ?Reactions from Shares of Post? by around 25%.

Finally Facebook noticed a discrepancy between the counts for the Like and Share buttons when you enter a URL into the mobile app.

The Like and Share button metrics are supposed to pull:

  • The number of likes of a URL on Facebook
  • The number of shares of a URL on Facebook
  • The number of likes and comments on stories about a URL

Apparently theres a difference between what these metrics count and what the mobile search query counts.

Mobile Shares

The numbers being reported in the mobile app could be either higher or lower.

Facebook isn?t sure what?s going on but they?re looking into. They will make an announcement as soon as they?ve figured it out.

 

Periscope Now Lets Users Safe HD Broadcasts on iOS

The Persicope Help Twitter account announced this week in a Tweet that you can now save high definition version of your broadcasts to your iOS devices.

This is perfect if you want to save your broadcasts to later use as podcasts or upload to sites like YouTube.

 

LinkedIn Adds Conversation Starters to Help Break the Ice

LinkedIn recently added conversation starters to their messaging.

For example users will be able to send pre-written messages to congratulation a connection on a new job or anniversary, connect with a shared experience or mention a person that both of you know.

If you?re trying to get in touch with a user on LinkedIn and you?re not sure how to break the ice these conversation starters should be a big help.

 

Pinterest Adds Stamp of Approval and Pinterest Explore

Pinterest has added a new stamp of approval for ?tried-and-true ideas?.

When someone has tried an idea they can stamp it with either a green happy face or a red frown face.

Pinterest Stamp of Approval

You?ll be able to see a total of how many people tried the idea and how many gave it their stamp of approval.

Pinterest Explore is a new rotating crop of surprising food and gift ideas that?s updated daily.

This is a special selection of curated pins by Pinterest tastemakers.

 

Search Google for Local Results with an Emoji

Google announced in a Tweet that you can now tweet a single emoji to them and receive local search results.

For example tweeting a burger emoji to @Google will show you nearby burger restaurants. Tweeting an umbrella emoji will tell you if it will rain in your location.

You must have location services turned on for this to work.

 

Reddit Adjusts Its Upvote Algorithm

Reddit admin KeyserSosa recently announced in a post on r/announcements that scores on posts are about to start going up.

They?ve done a complete overhaul of their voting algorithm to more accurately reflect a post?s popularity. They?ve cleaned up ?outdated, unnecessary rules? and recalculated the vote counts for all past posts.

The new scores are expected to increase by a lot and for the next couple of days post scores might be a bit weird until everything adjusts.