The week in social: FB Away Messages, Tumblr reblogs, and WhatsApp

Facebook testing Away Messages for Page admins

Some Facebook users are reporting seeing a new feature for the Page administration options. The new feature allows the admin to show that they are away, for up to 12 hours, and it can be toggled off if the admin returns sooner. When they Page admin is away, message received will not count towards the Responsiveness rating that Facebook applies to Pages, a feature that was introduced earlier this year.

Facebook launches TV ads in key US cities

Facebook has introduced a new ad campaign on TV in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco that will be running on networks through September. The advertisements are videos that animate the posting of status updates and photos to a users feed, and are meant to advertise the individual use of Facebook to share important moments, rather than appeal to businesses to spend money. A Facebook rep confirmed that they want to reach their potential audience through a variety of key touch-points, when asked why money is being spent on network TV.

More information on Recode.net.

Instagram direct messages receive new features

Straight on the heels of the announcement by Instagram that users would be able to post photos in both landscape and portrait shapes, new features for direct messaging have become available. Detailed on a new blog post, users are now easily able to share photos in their feed through direct messaging, with a share button right next to the Like and Comment buttons when they view a photo. Clicking on the share button will open up a menu of contacts, and the user can choose who they want to send the photo to, and if they want to add a caption. If the shared photo is private, the user receiving the image will have to follow the original poster.

MTA VMA’s are most tweeted program ever

According to new data from Neilsen, the MTV Video Music Awards, hosted this past Sunday, was the most tweeted about program on record, since Nielsen started tracking in 2011. Over 21 million tweets were posted by over 2 million people, providing a reach of 12 million individuals, with 676 million impressions, with a 69% engagement increase over 2014. On Facebook, there were 39 million interactions from 16 million users. In an interesting twist for a pop culture event, the age group creating the most engagement online was above the age of 35.

More information on Social Times.

Sprinklr integrates with the Instagram Ads API

Earlier this week through a blog post, Spinklr announced that they have integrated more deeply with Instagram, to provide organic scheduled posting, and advertising. Users of Spinklr can access ad-buys on the same network with all major social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Instagram. Spinklr currently has what is called early access to the API, and self-serve ads for Instagram are expected to roll out in the coming months.

More information on Sprinklr Blog.

Meerkat introduces live hashtags

Users of Meerkat have access to a new feature that allows them to add a hashtag to the title of a stream, which will then also be added to the user generated feed of tags at the top of the app screen, according to a new blog post from the company earlier today. The intent of the new feature is to create communities around both seasonal and year-long subjects, so it becomes easier for users to find what they are looking for.

Facebook testing new ads format for mobile

Facebook is testing a new content-focused version of mobile advertisements that functions as a combination of many different Facebook ad formats, including carousel ads and auto-play videos. The ad will take the form of a Facebook in-feed post, but when clicked it will bring the user to a full screen version of the ad experience, meant to function as an in-Facebook version of the advertiser’s site. Facebook is currently testing this format with Michael Kors, Gatorate, and a few other companies, but it is not open to all advertisers.

More information on Recode.

Google+ brings its Collections feature to iOS

Collections, the feature that Google+ launched earlier this year in May, to act as a competitive feature to Pinterest, has been brought to iOS. The feature allows admins to create sets of photos and other content under a specific title, and the Collections can be made private, semi-private, or public. The feature was previously only available for the web and Android. A few other changes have been made based on user feedback, including the ability to add tag lines, and search for specific collections.

WhatsApp hits 900 million monthly active users

This week, WhatsApp’s founder Jan Koum announced that the the popular messaging service reached 900 million monthly active users. This shows an increase of 100 million MAU in the time since April, when Koum announced the 800 million milestone. This also comes after the announcement that the app has been installed on over 1 billion Android devices alone.

More information on Engadget.

Tumblr updates the look of re-blogs

Tumblr has updated the way its re-blogging feature works to make added comments more readable by all users. Previously, comments in a Tumblr reblog appeared in the same way that some email clients thread conversations, indenting the next conversation adding to the chain. For popular re-blogs, this made it difficult for users to follow the conversation. Moving forward, comments added to re-blogs will appear in a consistent column so users can read the separate conversations easily and chronologically. This new feature will appear on the website and the mobile app.