Welcome to the latest instalment of our weekly social media news series – The Week in Socials.

We’ve hand-picked the most interesting social media news of the week and smooshed them all into one bite sized blog, giving you your Friday socials fix to enjoy with a well-deserved end of the week cuppa.

Snapchat add ‘Catalog-Powered Shopping Lenses’ for improved AR eCommerce

 In the latest move to up its eCommerce game, social media snap app, Snapchat have introduced new Shoppable AR Lenses.   

Users will be able a selection of goods through virtual try-ons. The move is set to particularly benefit beauty brands, with Snapchat explaining:

“We’ve now made it so brands can generate a commerce Lens in as fast as two minutes and Beauty brands can do so in just a few clicks. At launch, this quick click accessibility in Lens Web Builder will be available to Beauty brands and will roll out to other product verticals in the coming months.”

It’ll be interesting to see which companies take up the AR offer, and whether help will be made available to smaller brands who may not have the budget to stretch to advanced AR.

Instagram adds option to display scheduled Instagram Lives on user profile

Another move to advance social media discoverability after last week’s announcement of re-mixable videos, Instagram have announced a new update, allowing users to now display scheduled livestreams on their creator profile.

🎉 New Features 🎉

Some fun ones this week:
– Live in Profiles
– Remix Video

Let me know what other features you’d like to see 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/Y0QIR7PgPF

— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) January 26, 2022

Users can promote upcoming livestreams underneath their profile information section. A link will be displayed which, when tapped, will allow users to find out more info via a pop-up prompt with an additional option to sign-up for a livestream reminder.

Added discoverability is never a bad thing, and in the current format, Lives can be seen as somewhat sporadic, so this latest feature is bound to help creators reach a wider audience.

TikTok experiments with new video avatar features and audio-only live streams

TikTok are set to branch out into the world of social media avatars, testing a new feature that will allow users to create their own digital characters.

⚡️ New TikTok Features Thread

1. TikTok is working on a TikTok Avatars feature

The feature lets you use your phone's camera to take a selfie with a fun facial expression which your avatar will match.

You would be able to fully customise the look of your avatar. pic.twitter.com/DzJ2soRBDi

— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) January 24, 2022

Using their phone camera, users can take a selfie, with the app picking up on facial expressions which the avatar will then match.

Avatars are fully customisable, similar to Apple’s ‘Memeojis’ and look to be a fun new way to engage on the platform (not to mention they might come in handy in the metaverse).

Instagram updates Stories Poll options

We LOVE a good Insta Poll at M.A.D, and it seems other users of the social media giant do too, with Instagram implementing brand new response options to make the poll experience a bit more dynamic.

#NewToMe // New poll options for Instagram Stories! Finally we can add more than 3 options… (up to 4)

Do you have this yet? pic.twitter.com/w4ZxEfpecl

— Meg Coffey (@TexanMeg) January 26, 2022

Currently rolling out across selected profiles, it isn’t clear when the feature will be available to all users. Instagram themselves have kept the update on the down-low, but users can now select up to four response options, (HUGE news for fellow social media managers).

It’s a great way to experiment with new engagement ideas and we hope to see more Story interactivity features rolled out in 2022!

TikTok tests new opt-in option to show who views user profiles

A controversial update, TikTok have recently announced that they are currently working on a feature to allow users to see who had viewed their page at any point within the past 30 days.

TikTok is working on a LinkedIn-like Profile Views feature

The feature will let you view who visited your TikTok profile in the past 30 days.

h/t @adrianokev1 pic.twitter.com/eMnYtgyUq0

— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) January 23, 2022

The feature mimics that found on professional social media platform LinkedIn, where both you can view who has visited your own page, and others can see your activity on their profile.

In the early days of TikTok, the app used to provide users with a list of people who’d checked out their profiles with an aim to boost discoverability. However, the platform removed the feature last year thanks to investigations into potentially sketchy data sharing processes.

The feature seems to be opt-in, so don’t fret if you value your privacy on social media!

That’s all from us for our top story picks for this week

Make sure to come back next week for the next instalment of The Week in Socials!