Have you been keeping up with changes to your favorite social media platforms? Between the GDRP rules taking effect last month and the importance of social media in the news landscape, there’s a lot going on. That means it’s time for another social media news roundup!

Instagram

Instagram rolled out a new feature that allows users to embed other user’s posts in Instagram Stories. AAMA recently embedded a post from member company Sierra Pacific Windows to commemorate Memorial Day. Embedding their post alerted Sierra Pacific Windows that we did so, so they’ll see we were amplifying the message of their original post. It’s a feature that Instagram actually didn’t borrow from Snapchat, unlike many of its other tools! Speaking of Snapchat, they’re testing six-second unskippable ads and calling them what they are: commercials.

If you want to learn more about Instagram, I’ll be hosting two sessions of a 30-minute workshop on the platform during the AAMA Summer Conference, taking place June 11-14. An AAMA webinar offering this information will take place August 14, for those unable to attend the conference.

Twitter

Due to the popularity of secure messaging apps like Signal and Whats App, Twitter is testing “end-to-end encrypted direct messaging in the Android version of its app.” This means that messages sent between two users could only be read by those two people and not by Twitter, or anyone else trying to intercept communications. In other Twitter news, the social media giant experienced a privacy breach last month. If you haven’t already changed your password, you should.

Facebook

It’s been a tough year for Facebook, which has been in the midst of some privacy and advertising scandals making headlines. Still, they’re trying to make things right, including banning all foreign ads pertaining to issues impacting only one specific country, and also readjusting the algorithm for populating user’s newsfeeds. Will it be enough to win back users’ trust? It might take some time to tell for sure.

Things change quickly in social media, but you can keep up by following AAMA on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, and by getting up to speed about what’s new in the next social media news roundup right here.