Social space

Every month, Fadi Khater provides an overview and analyses the latest social media news and trends in the GCC

The top three most discussed topics were politics, education, and entertainment in that order followed by health and sports. Political discussions revolved around the GCC Summit in Riyadh and India’s Citizenship Amendment Bill. Educational discussions were about praise for Apple’s coding lab in Dubai and Jeddah’s international book fair. Entertainment conversations included mixed reviews about YouTube’s 2019 Rewind video and Spotify’s 2019 Wrapped.

Health mentions included discussions about Philip Morris cigarettes in Saudi Arabia and sports mentions included Bahrain winning the Arabian Gulf Cup.

Other hot topics included the launch of the new Xbox Series X.

The latest updates to social media platforms include:

LinkedIn:

Allows company page admins to invite connections (re-introduced feature)

Twitter:

Rolls out ‘conversation insights’ that will show users specific data on tweet mentions, engagement and influencers Starts sending push notifications for suspicious logins

Allows all users to hide replies; however, it will keep the option to reveal hidden tweets

Tests native tweet scheduling feature

Facebook:

Rolls out new ad personalisation enhancements based on machine learning

Revamps ad reporting to show crossaccount performance analysis Announces new brand safety controls by adding a safety section to its business manager

Simplifies look-alike audience creation by automatically filling in the ad location from your ad sets

Launches a new feature called ‘favorites’ allowing users to restrict who can view their stories

Is enhancing its crisis response features with WhatsApp integration, and first-hand information sharing

Is testing ‘whale’, a meme generating app

Adds a new media transfer tools allowing users to transfer their photos and videos to Google Photos

Allows users to personalise the in-app navigation bar by editing tabs and removing the red notification dots

YouTube:

Removes closed and banned accounts from subscriber counts and metrics

Instagram:

Is making all like counts private globally to relieve social pressure

Is introducing age checks for new users to restrict access for those under 13 years

Snapchat:

Expands mid-roll ads time limit to three minutes long, although users can skip it after six seconds

TikTok:

Launches ‘link in bio’ and e-commerce URLs in videos

Google:

Shames websites through badges warning users that the sites don’t comply with user experience standards Introduces new ad tools and map features to help local businesses be found online

Is adding a chat feature to its Photos app

Includes Nielsen TV data in its reach planner

Launches new feature to fix pronunciation; it will allow people to upload a voice note pronouncing a certain word and gives them feedback