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the week in social: Polling Stickers, business geofilters, and Jeff Koons

08 Oct 2017 Cassandra Megraw

Do you love Instagram Stories’ latest additions? Yes/No

In case you haven’t noticed Instagram Stories’ most recent offerings, the photo sharing app has added polling stickers, among a few other helpful lil’ tools. Polling stickers give users the ability to ask a question and have their audience vote on two possible outcomes. Users will be able to see who voted for what, and responders will see the tally once they submit their vote.

Along with polling, Instagram has also added an eyedropper tool that lets users take colors from the picture to use on text and brushes; and an alignment tool (limited to iOS for the time being) that helps with alignment of stickers and text within the story. All make for even happier ‘grammin, if you ask us!

LinkedIn gets in on the geofilter game

LinkedIn is taking a leaf out of Snapchat’s book, using custom geofilters to add a dose of ‘social’ to business events and conferences. Videos that event attendees create within the LinkedIn app can be overlaid with a location-based filter, an extra addition to the business-networking site’s video creation feature. The geofilter graphics are styled to look like conference badges, and also show whether the person sharing the video is a speaker at the event.

LinkedIn’s product manager for video Peter Roybal says the new filters are meant to encourage users to share “their authentic first-person views of work.”

Messenger projected growth stunted (and not all is lost for Snapchat)

Perhaps it’s that it already has 1.2 billion monthly users globally, but eMarketer recently lowered its growth projections for Facebook Messenger through 2021 due to low interest from Gen Z. Though it dominated the US chat app market in 2016, looks like teens and people 18 – 24 are engaging less with Messenger and more with rivals Snapchat and Instagram. This has seen eMarketer lower its projections for Messenger growth by 9.4 million users from its first-quarter numbers. In good news though, looking like Snapchat is still in the game!

Snapchat launches first location-based augmented reality lenses

Snapchat is rolling with the social punches and bouncing back to bring users even more sweet offerings. It’s latest: a collaboration with artist Jeff Koons to launch virtual art installations featuring some of his most recognizable sculptures tied to specific locations across the globe. The project was announced by Snap CEO Evan Spiegel at the 2017 Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, where he said it was “just an example of the way Snapchat is trying to remove the friction in the creative process.”

To discover Koons Lenses, users much be within about 300 meters of the Lens and have the latest version of Snapchat installed. If nearby, the lenses will appear in the first slot of the carousel.

Facebook is about to get even ‘facier’

It seems that in the near future, one thing you could use to log on to Facebook will be just that: your face. The social giant recently confirmed that it’s following in Apple’s footsteps and testing out its own Face ID-like program.

Here’s what a Facebook spokesperson had to say about the move: “We are testing a new feature for people who want to quickly and easily verify account ownership during the account recovery process. This optional feature is available only on devices you’ve already used to log in. It is another step, alongside two-factor authentication via SMS, that we are taking to make sure account owners can confirm their identity.”