Social media platforms are continually evolving in line with people’s lives, demands and busy schedules. If we are to look back now on the way Facebook™ looked when it was first launched, or on the fact that Instagram was only accessible from mobile phones and had tons of restrictions in terms of image size and shape, we would find it nearly impossible to re-adapt to them.
But this comparative look is great, on a theoretical level, to see how many features and functionalities have been added to help both private users and companies share various types of content in different media forms, and to connect with each other in a meaningful and priority-wise manner. Some of these new features are prominently promoted across the world wide web, others are quietly implemented and users find out about them during the daily interactions.
Today we will present you some useful and little known features of the most important social media platforms. These features are useful not only for your work, but also for your personal interactions, helping you save time and avoiding unpleasant situations in relation to other people in your friends and followers lists.
Facebook™
Save – have you just come across an interesting article on Facebook™ but you do not have the time to read it right now? Then save it for later. That’s right, you can do that. Click on the down pointing arrow at the right side of the post and click on the Save Link option. Once your work day is finished, you can go to the Saved section under your personal profile and leisurely read the respective article.
Unfollow – when you are in business, you find yourself in the position of adding various people as friends for business-related purposes. However, you do not quite like what they share, either because it contradicts your views or that your news feed is flooded by their endless posts. Unfriending them may affect your business relationships. Instead, hover your mouse over the Friends button on their profile, and select Unfollow. You will still be friends, but their posts will no longer appear on your news feed.
Reorder Page Sections – The only two Facebook™ page sections which cannot be moved from their positions are People and About. All the others – Apps, Photos, Videos, Posts to Page, etc. – can be reordered by the simple drag and drop motion with the mouse. Thus, you can customise your page to showcase the most important sections for your business. All you have to do is access the Settings option and go to the Edit Page tab.
Mute – just like the Unfollow option in Facebook™, you can mute various followers’ accounts. While you are still connected, their tweets will no longer appear on your timeline. You can also mute a specific conversation, not a complete user account. When you decide to allow the person’s tweets on your news feed, you can go to the respective profile page and select Unmute. They will never know of these changes.
Create a Collection of Tweets – if you have a number of top favourite tweets, you can place them in a special collection and have them always accessible. This can be done from Tweetdeck, a free account management app offered by Twitter. In Tweetdeck, select the Custom Timeline option and create your collection by dragging and dropping individual tweets into this specific timeline.
Embed Slideshare Presentations – when you share a Slideshare link, the presentation will be available for your followers directly in the Twitter platform. Quite nifty and useful, isn’t it?
Twitter via SMS – by activating this option in your Twitter settings, you can use various keyboard shortcuts to send direct messages in Twitter, update your location, or follow a specific user (when you know their username).
Create a Secret Board – this is a very useful feature when you are planning to launch a marketing campaign and are building your board with images as soon as they are fully edited. Once your board is complete, you can make it public. To access this feature, click on your profile icon and go to the bottom of the page.
Rearrange Your Boards – it makes sense to change the order of Pinterest boards, especially during the various holidays. Plus, this will keep people interested to revisit your Pinterest profile and see what’s new. You can do this from your profile page by a simple drag and drop motion with the mouse.
Apply for Rich Pins – Rich Pins are customised with the pieces of code you use in your own website for Facebook™ and Twitter content. In order to use them, you have to apply for them using the Pinterest Validating tool.