Instagram Launches Reels and Instagram Shop Tabs

Many of us noticed Instagram’s app update when we woke up to an Instagram Shop in place of our notifications tab. On November 12, Instagram unveiled its new Shop and Reels tab on the retooled navigation bar at the screen’s bottom. Instagram’s goals with the updates are to make shopping on Instagram and discovering Reels easier for its users. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, had this to say about the updates: “We don’t take these changes lightly — we haven’t updated Instagram’s home screen in a big way for quite a while. But how people create and enjoy culture has changed, and the biggest risk to Instagram is not that we change too fast, but that we don’t change and become irrelevant.” 

Now that the Reels tab and Instagram Shop tab are where notifications used to be, users quickly shared their criticism of the new app update. Many believe Instagram is prioritizing Reels content and shopping over main feed content that users actually want to see. Popular accounts like James Charles along with others Tweeted about the update claiming they wish Instagram would go back to being simpler and focused on users’ main feed content. 

Twitter Introduces New Stories Feature

Another one of our beloved social platforms is changing *sigh*. Twitter introduced their new Stories feature, “Fleets,” where users can post content that will disappear in 24 hours. Fleets appear at the top of the mobile app like most apps with a Stories component, and users can view the Stories/Fleets of the accounts they follow and vice versa. However, because of the high demand, Twitter suffered some performance issues, including Fleets lagging and struggling to load and the mobile app continually freezing and closing.  After several users Tweeted their concerns, Twitter acknowledged the problem and assured the community that they were working to fix it. The already high demand for Fleets is considered an early sign of success for the new feature. 

Mark Zuckerberg Confirms Biden's Presidency and Ensures that the Election Was Fair

On Thursday, November 11, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged Vice President Biden’s presidential win to his employees at a company-wide meeting. His comments come almost a week after major news sources on Saturday, November 7, projected and confirmed a Biden/Harris win to the public. 

Zuckerberg is subject to criticism from many of Biden’s staffers for Facebook’s interference with elections in past years. In recent reports, employees at Facebook say they are mostly relieved that the 2020 Presidential election is over and without any claims of “foreign interference or rampant misinformation.” Zuckerberg also reported at the meeting that no fraud took place. “It’s important that people have confidence that the election was fundamentally fair, and that goes for the tens of millions of people that voted for Trump.” 

Spotify Rolls Out New Podcast Feature

Spotify’s new feature aims to give podcast listeners a better way to organize and save the podcasts they’re listening to. The new feature called “Your Episodes” allows users to bookmark individual episodes and add them to their new “Your Episodes” playlist. Find the playlist pinned to the top of a user’s Spotify music library and podcast episodes. This new feature is useful for saving episodes of podcasts users don’t subscribe to. For example, when a podcast has an episode featuring a favorite celebrity or if a user wants to sample a new podcast without subscribing to it yet. The playlist can hold up to 10,000 episodes. 

Miley Cyrus's Party in the U.S.A Makes the Charts

Miley Cyrus’s 2009 hit “Party in the U.S.A” returned to the charts hours after Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris secured their 2020 White House win. Miley Cyrus herself even Tweeted, “Now THIS is a PARTY IN THE USA!” with a video montage of Biden and Harris that included the song. Many others posted videos of people celebrating in the streets with the popular song playing in the background. 

Emily in Paris is Returning for a Second Season

Our favorite show about our favorite social media manager or marketing expert—who even knows—Emily in Paris is returning to Netflix for a second season! The show quickly became a trending topic on social media as it was subject to several mixed reviews from fans, meme and parody accounts, and articles picking apart its legitimacy. Some even leaned into its online narrative and released a spoof letter announcing the season two renewal. 

The “letter” written by Emily’s boss Sylvie was shared by Netflix and reads, "We hope that by extending her time in Paris, Emily will further the relationships she has already made, delve deeper into our culture, and perhaps pick up a few words of basic French.” If you missed our last update on Emily in Paris, check it out here!

New South Wales Countryside Becomes a COVID-19 Retreat for Australian Instagrammers

The pandemic put a damper on most of 2020 as you could imagine. More than a few influencer photo ops were put on hold to help stop the spread of COVID-19. And Australian Instagrammer Ridzkhi Andhini was no exception. Like many others worldwide, Adnhini stayed home for most of the quarantine until she traveled locally to the New South Wales countryside to discover the lush Canola blooms where she ended up taking Instagram-worthy photos. The canola fields have since caught the eye of many other Australian Instagrammers looking to travel safely during the pandemic. The increased number of visitors has made the New South Wales town lively once again.

That’s it for this week’s Social Sphere. Check back with us next time to get the latest updates and catch up on our past editions here!