Are you looking for new ways to grow your business opportunities on social media? We give you a round-up of the trending social media news from June, to ease your day and fill your mind with useful and effective ideas.

Come and read about Twitter’s new animated GIFs, Facebook’s page redesign and Pinterest’s Guided Search. In case you missed them, there are 10 new photo editing tools, courtesy of Instagram; multi-product image carousel ads on Facebook; and a helpful Google+ ‘Insights’ dashboard waiting to be explored.

Twitter facilitates sharing and viewing animated GIF images

#BrilliantMachines: Now in #GIF form. http://t.co/ma58anRPP6

— General Electric (@generalelectric) June 18, 2014

Brands can now add GIFs to their tweets to creatively stand out and own Twitter feeds more effectively. A GIF is a collection of images merged together into a short clip. Until now, Twitter users were only able to post and access GIFs via third-party platforms. This new update introduced the ability to upload and view them directly on Twitter, where they can be played at the touch of a button. Tweeting animated GIFs is exactly the same as tweeting an image. To send a GIF, the user selects ‘Add Photo’, finds the GIF and clicks ‘Open’. Remember: the file size must not exceed 3MB.

The animated GIF images can become a great way of maximising the effectiveness of Twitter presence while expanding marketing opportunities. See how brands have been using them so far.

TIP: Try to avoid white background for your GIFs, so that the white ‘play’ button on the GIF is easily visible to other users.

Facebook introduces new redesign

Facebook’s new page timeline is now available to all businesses, and with the new layout some new tweaks have been introduced. So far this redesign is desktop-only, which means that mobile users can still access the older version.

This new interface and its functionality might be worth taking some time to explore:

• Now on the left-hand side you can find: page information, apps and custom tabs, photos, post-to-page links and reviews.
• All the posts are now displayed on a one-column design instead of a mosaic style, although the feature to ‘Pin to top’ remains.
• Admins can access their tools from the top menu and right-side menu and analyse their competitors’ pages with a new comparison tool.

If you want to learn more about this update and find out what it means for business pages, take a look at Buffer’s review of Facebook’s redesign.

Google+ introduces Insight report

Google released Google+ Insights for pages which aim to help page managers understand their page performance, and provide them with rich analytics. You can easily access these data from the ‘My Business’ dashboard on desktop, Android app and iOS.

The tool will provide you with insights like Visibility (pageviews), Engagement, and Audience (gender, geographic, location). Before you start chewing on some stats, learn more about what this tool has to offer.

Study the study

In June few interesting reports and studies have been released which reveal the efficiency of social media, the latest Pinterest statistics, and the most effective days and times to post status updates:

• Neustar Q1 2014 Media Intelligence Report – Social Media The Most Effective Channel
• TrackMaven Study – Facebook Posts See More Engagement on Weekends and After Hours
• RJMetrics Study – 4 Statistics About Pinterest Users You Need to Know

Instagram adds 10 new photo editing features

Instagram recently released 10 new editing tools for iOS and Android which give users more control over their photos. While previously filters were the only way to enhance imagery, now the wider variety of parameters allow adjusting anything, from brightness and contrast to saturation warmth and shadows. Each effect can be controlled with a slider to create a more subtle effect and appropriate intensity. This reduces the need to use other photography apps on top of Instagram to create the perfect pic.

Facebook launched multi-product image carousel ads

Businesses which are using Facebook ads can now promote their offerings with multi-product image carousel ads. These allow them to showcase not just one, but three products within a single ad unit. Each product will get its own image, description and target while displaying on desktop or mobile.

Going forward, multi-product ads can be combined with Custom Audiences from websites, to target people who haven’t visited their website, or attract people who visited certain pages based on their purchase or activity history.

Pinterest brings Guided Search to web

Guided Search, previously launched in April for mobile, is slowly being introduced for the web as well. This exploration-focused search, which helps to narrow down the search enquiries, aims to turn web into a more visual search engine. A new search bar for web will soon be available to Pinterest users, which will turn their searches into descriptive guidelines allowing them to scroll through the recommended keywords while better specifying what they are looking for.

Editing Facebook post available from Page Manager mobile app

Page admins can now edit their posts and correct the not-so-welcomed typos with the updated Page Manager app. If you are an iOS or Android user, you can quickly access your page to edit posts, post new ones, and upload or change photos.

Also new in this month:

• Instagram plans to expand its advertising offering to a wider range of countries
• Twitter Counter launches new Chrome browser plug-in that recommends how to improve your tweets
• Pinterest Releases A Self-Service Dashboard For Promoted Pins & Upgraded Analytics
• Add a computer to your Dropbox account with the iOS app
• New Twitter Test Allows Users To Embed Tweets In Their Tweets

By Kasia Piekut