Instagram has announced it is building a Usage Insights feature, a tool which will give the Instagram community greater visibility of how they are spending their time on the app. The push is to support positive social media usage and protect user mental health and avoid ‘zombie scrolling.’ It is clear that the social platforms are shifting their approach, opting to compromise page views for more meaningful interactions with their channels. For businesses, greater focus on quality content needs to be a priority to ensure high engagement with audiences. With social channels ‘encouraging’ less time scrolling and more time interacting, businesses will need to continue revisiting their social media strategy on a permanent, regular basis.

Snapchat rolls-out ‘redesign’ of its app following user backlash

Snapchat rolls-out ‘redesigned’ version of its redesigned app following consistent user backlash. The sudden change in the new ‘redesign’ follows a petition signed by 1.2 million users asking for the platform to revert the app to its original form. Evan Spiegel (Snap CEO) said, “We learned that combining watching Stories and communicating with friends into the same place made it harder to optimize for both competing behaviors. We are currently rolling out an update to address this (redesign backlash)…” The new layout places Snaps and Chats back in chronological order and moves Stories from your friends back to the right-hand side of the app.

Instagram looks for new engagement metrics with Emoji Slider sticker

Instagram releases new sticker update with Emoji slider. The Emoji slider works similar to the current poll stickers, providing a new interactive way to engage with friends and followers on the platform. By opting for an emoji as your question, a new added layer of emotional context can help followers answer questions stated, understand the tone and answer correctly. You can pick from the most popular emoji’s within the app, or select any emoji from your mobile library for something more specific.

How Facebook wants to win back our trust – Step 1. Remove fake accounts

Facebook releases new report outlining the number of fake accounts and offensive material they have removed from the platform in the last three months. Currently the removal totals are:

• 837 million spam posts
• 583 million fake accounts
• 5 million hate speech posts
• 9 million terrorist propaganda posts

Currently fake profiles account for 4% of all profiles on the platform. This is a significant improvement on previous years. Previously fake account profiles have totalled 9% in 2012 and up to 11% in 2013. It is clear Facebook are committed to combatting spam and fake profiles on the platform and is a positive step forward in re-establishing trust on the network.