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April 2025 Social Media Platform Updates

Thursday 1st May 2025

Blog Author Beth Perrin by Beth Perrin

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April was another busy month in the social media world, with new features arriving on WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and more, that will benefit both brands and individual users. Keep reading to discover which recent updates might help you boost your business results, stay in touch with friends and family, or find the content you’re looking for.

 

New Business Messaging Tools on WhatsApp

WhatsApp began the month by introducing a couple of updates to its business app, which aim to help businesses connect more effectively and directly with both existing and prospective customers:

• Business broadcasts

Businesses can now use a new tool called ‘Business broadcasts’, which will allow them to send promotional messages to people who have interacted with them in the past. This will be a paid feature to ensure businesses are thoughtful about what they send.

• Limits on the number of business messages a user can receive

WhatsApp says it wants messages from businesses to be “helpful and expected”, which is why the platform has introduced limits to the number of marketing messages people can receive, in order to minimise inbox overload.


Smartphone screens showing WhatsApp's new business tools

 

Community Notes on Facebook, Instagram & Threads

Meta’s Community Notes feature, which will replace its previous third-party fact-checking system, is now available for all users across Facebook, Instagram and Threads (although it’s currently limited to the US only). This means that notes written and rated by Meta’s growing community of contributors will now be shown underneath content instead of the fact-check labels seen before. Community Notes will have a limit of 500 characters and will need to include a link to support what they’re saying - and to safeguard against bias, notes won’t be published unless contributors with a range of different viewpoints broadly agree on them.

 

 
 

WhatsApp Updates

As part of its new monthly feature round-up on its blog, WhatsApp provided an overview of all of its most recent updates and improvements, which include:

• Online indicator in group chats

You can now see how many group chat members are online in real-time, just under the group name.

• Highlight notifications in groups

You can now select either ‘Highlights’ to limit notifications for @mentions, replies, and messages from saved contacts, or ‘All’ to receive all notifications.

• Tappable reactions

Quickly view everyone else’s reactions to a message and simply tap the one you want to send.

• Document scanning

Scan and send documents directly from WhatsApp (only on iPhone). Simply select ‘Scan document’ from the attachment list and follow the steps to scan, crop and save a document.

• Pinch to zoom in video calls

iPhone users can now pinch to zoom in while on a video call in order to get a closer look at small details.

• Smoother video calls

WhatsApp has upgraded its technology to make video calls more reliable and higher quality.

• Video notes for Channels

Channel admins can now instantly record and share short videos (60 seconds or less) with their Channel followers.

 

 
 

Share 100MB Files on Messenger

Messenger has updated its file size sharing limit from 25MB to 100MB, which will make it easier for users to distribute video clips and other large files through their chats. Word documents, Excel sheets and PDFs are all included, and files can be sent on both mobile and desktop.

 

 
View on Threads

 
 

Business Location Reviews on TikTok

In order to make business listings more effective in the app, TikTok is rolling out business reviews that will appear in a new ‘Reviews’ tab within the comment sections of selected videos that have been tagged with a location. Some of these are for general locations and tourist attractions, while others are for specific businesses, with viewers being able to upvote each review directly if they agree with the reviewer’s thoughts on that place.

TikTok continues to be a big source of search and discovery - especially for younger audiences - so it makes sense for the platform to introduce a tool that has the potential to compete with Google’s business listing and review features, and could be a good way for businesses to build credibility and trust via real visitors.

 

 
View on Threads

 
 

TikTok Footnotes

TikTok has become the latest social app to implement crowd-sourced fact-checking, with the arrival of a new tool in the US called ‘Footnotes’ - essentially its own version of X’s Community Notes. According to TikTok: “Footnotes will draw on the collective knowledge of the TikTok community by allowing people to add relevant information to content on our platform. Whether the content discusses a complex STEM-related concept, shares statistics that could misrepresent a topic, or updates about an ongoing event, there may be additional context that could help others better understand it.”

To apply to be a Footnotes contributor, users must have been on the platform for more than 6 months, be 18 or over, and have no recent history of violating TikTok’s Community Guidelines. Only Footnotes that have been ranked as ‘helpful’ will become visible to other users, after which the broader community can then vote on their legitimacy too.

 
 

Instagram Reels Blend

Instagram has launched a new option for Reels called ‘Blend’, which enables users and their friends to create a unique feed of Reels based on content suggested for each participant. Blends can be found within DMs, and when you invite an individual user or a group chat to a Blend, they’ll be asked to accept your invitation. Blends are updated daily with new content based on the Instagram activity of the users involved, and each Reel will be labelled with the name of the person or people it was suggested for.

 

 
 

Verification Checkmarks on Bluesky

Rising social app Bluesky has introduced a new user-friendly, easily recognisable blue checkmark for verified accounts. The platform says it will “proactively verify authentic and notable accounts and display a blue check next to their names”, and, through its Trusted Verifiers program, it will allow certain independent organisations to verify accounts themselves (for example, the New York Times can issue blue checks to all of its journalists directly in the app).

These verifications will be periodically reviewed by the platform’s moderation team to ensure authenticity, and when you tap on a blue check, you’ll be able to see if the verification was provided by Bluesky itself or a Trusted Verifier.

 

We’re introducing a new layer of verification on Bluesky — a user-friendly, easily recognizable blue check. In addition to account verification issued by Bluesky, we're also introducing Trusted Verifiers. Select independent organizations can verify accounts directly.

April 2025 Social Media Platform Updates

— Bluesky (@bsky.app) April 21, 2025 at 5:02 PM

 
 

Edits: Instagram’s Video Editing App

Instagram has launched a separate video editing app called ‘Edits’, similar to TikTok’s video creation platform CapCut. According to Meta: “The process of making and editing videos can be challenging, often requiring multiple apps and complicated workflows, [but] with Edits, you now have a dedicated space with powerful capabilities for video creation.”

The app’s features include a frame-accurate timeline, auto-captions, video overlays, AI image animation, a high-quality camera with a built-in green screen, and the ability to share directly to both Instagram and Facebook (or export and post on another platform without a watermark). Meta says that more tools including keyframes, collaboration, new fonts, text animations, sound effects and filters will also be coming soon.

 

 
 

New Elements for Meta Verified Businesses

A year on from the arrival of verification for businesses on Meta, the company has introduced some new features that are being tested “to help subscribers protect their accounts from impersonation and build confidence with new audiences.”

• Tag content as ‘Original’

Meta Verified profiles will be able to request that an ‘Original content’ tag is added to their posts, in order to show that the original idea belongs to them. Any subsequent usage of that content in other posts, including Reels, will then include a link back to the original creator’s profile.

• Non-verified business alerts

A new pop-up label will warn users when they’re interacting with an account that is not yet verified, which will likely encourage a lot more businesses to consider signing up for a blue tick.

• Audience engagement benefits

Content from Meta Verified subscribers is now more likely to show up within users’ in-feed recommendations and appear near the top of search results, boosting its visibility and reach.

 
 

Advanced Chat Privacy on WhatsApp

WhatsApp has added a new layer of data protection called ‘Advanced Chat Privacy’, a toggle that users can switch on in both single chats and group chats in order to prevent others from taking content outside of the app. When the setting is on, other users will be blocked from exporting chats, auto-downloading media to their phone, and using messages from the chat for AI purposes.

Explaining where and why the tool might come in handy, WhatsApp said: “We think this feature is best used when talking with groups where you may not know everyone closely but are nevertheless sensitive in nature, like talking about health challenges in a support group or organising your community about something important to you.”

 

 
 

Summary

Whether you’re a casual scroller, an influencer or a brand marketer, we’d love to know if you’ve tried any of these updates yet, and which ones have been beneficial for you or your business. Tag us on X @3sixfivepro and share which new features you’re excited to use, and tell us which social media platforms you’re currently enjoying the most.


 
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