Social Media Digest: Instagram Updates, Stop Phubbing and Twitter acting Tutu Harshly?

1. A month after launching its video feature, Instagram announced yesterday another major update to its app. Features include the ability to import videos from your phone’s media library and automatic straightening for iOS. Opening the doors to great new content without any of the previous limitations, users can now share their video moments regardless of when they were captured. Instagram has also developed brand new technology that will, with one tap of a button, correct any crooked photos.

2. One of the world’s most famous peace campaigners and Nobel Prize winner, Desmond Tutu, had his Twitter account suspended yesterday for “aggressive following behaviour”. The @TutuLegacy account was suspended within hours of its creation after the first tweet was posted; an ode to Nelson Mandela’s words: “I am elderly and decrepit. Don’t tweet me, I’ll tweet you!” A statement released by the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said: “Twitter has not explained how following 30 people could be construed as “aggressive following” or whether the number of people who followed @TutuLegacy in a short space of time was to blame.” Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama and Barack Obama were among the 30 users Tutu chose to follow. Twitter has since apologised and unsuspended the account, but has given no explanation for the initial ban.

3. Would you admit to being a ‘phubber’? Otherwise known as snubbing company in favour of a mobile phone, research emerged this week that reported a third of Brits polled admitted to being phubbers, and more than a quarter said they would answer their phone in the middle of a face-to-face conversation. Phubbing also relates to updating your Facebook status, snapping Instagram pics, sending tweets and foursquare check-ins. This phenomenon has inspired a ‘Stop Pubbing’ campaign in Australia where companies can download posters to discourage phubbing in their places of business.

It looks like the vast majority of users have voted against phubbing – which camp are you in? Cast your vote here.

4. O2 has announced that it’s launching a new service that will allow customers to check their account information including remaining data, minutes and texts, by tweeting a specific hashtag. Feilim Mackle, sales and service director at O2, said the customer service innovation comes from the insight that customers are increasingly opting to interact with the brand through social media. Interestingly, O2 claims its digital channels have seen a five-fold increase in customer interactions over the past two years.

5. US upscale fashion retailer Nordstrom has now introduced a section in its brick and mortar outlets that promotes some of the most-pinned products on its Pinterest page, updated on a weekly basis. In a move to mesh its physical and online presence together, shoppers in store will find the most-pinned items labelled with the Pinterest logo. Cleverly, the campaign also takes into consideration regional preferences, meaning that the products being promoted in one store may not be the same as another in a different location. All in all, a very simple and inexpensive way to engage customers in their offline environment to promote their online presence and ultimately boost revenue.

Nordstrom currently has over 4.5million Pinterest followers, by far surpassing the following of all its competitors.

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