We have a love-hate relationship with social media — and we bet you do too. We love connecting with family, friends, and our virtual communities. We don’t enjoy how cranky some of the social platforms can be. So, dear social media platforms, here is what we would like you to change this year.
Instagram is the platform where we would like to see the most changes. As much as we love Insta, it’s not the most user-friendly platform. We really, really want to be able to re-gram, or share Instagram posts from others, within the app. Right now, you have to go through a lengthy process of copying the image and reloading it or use a third-party app that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Being able to re-gram in the app would help build community and allow really great content to be seen by more people.
We would also love to be able to have all of Instagram’s functionality available on the desktop version. Right now, you can search hashtags, follow others, and comment — but you can’t post or add to stories, and we would love to be able to do that on our computers from time to time. Come on, Instagram, you can do it!
Facebook’s algorithm is famously difficult for brands and we would love to see that suppression stop. Forcing all brands, big or small, to advertise or languish in obscurity doesn’t encourage advertising, it just encourages smaller brands to go elsewhere. Help thought leaders out, Facebook — and in the process, make our news-feeds more diverse and interesting!
We also want more transparency from this platform about how they are monitoring content, using our data, and selling information. Facebook made some progress in 2018, but there is much more to do.
LinkedIn has always stressed that individual users should not have someone else login to their accounts, and in 2018, they started enforcing that edict. Logins from different IP addresses resulted in accounts getting temporarily shut down. It shows a complete lack of understanding about how the platform is used. While scheduling tools can still access accounts, individual community managers cannot. LinkedIn, it’s time to get a clue about how we use the platform and give us some sort of management access for individual accounts.
While we are big supporters of LinkedIn ads, we really do not like sponsored InMail messages. LinkedIn, feel free to make this sponsored spam go away.
Twitter has become a platform where we see less and less growth and engagement. It’s time Twitter figured out what it wants to be when it grows up, and start moving in that direction. That means shutting down hate speech, abuse, and bullying, and giving legitimate content more support and visibility.
These are a few of changes we would like to see on social media in the coming year. What’s on your wish list?
Christy Kirk, Vice President of Client Services, is a social media strategist, writer, and former television journalist, who’s done everything from launch a news department to create social content and strategy for Fortune 500 companies and brands including Pampers Diapers, Pantene, Luvs Diapers and Carlson Rezidor Hotels. Now, Christy manages marketing projects for Weaving Influence, with an emphasis on social media marketing. She is also a wife and mother of three children, one dog, and one cat. She loves reading, baking, running, hiking and exploring new places.