What’s MGHappening in Social Media: October 8, 2018

The Verge – Facebook has extended the grace period for account deletion, meaning that users will now have up to one month after deleting their account before the account is truly gone. Previously, all user data was removed after 14 days, and during the grace period, an account could be reactivated if a user logged back in. Facebook claims that this change is to allow users to have more time to make an informed decision, but as distrust of the platform continues to grow, skeptics believe this is a way for Facebook to hopefully avoid losing more users. (Full Story)

The Verge – Just weeks after Instagram’s co-founders left the company, Facebook is testing a new, seemingly intrusive feature of the Instagram app. As an opt-in option, Instagram can gain the ability to share precise location data with Facebook, even when users aren’t using the app. Some other tests and changes of late include Facebook using this and other location data to potentially introduce a map view to find friends, similar to SnapMap, along with badged notifications inside Instagram that encourage people to open the Facebook app. (Full Story)

Mashable – Instagram is taking another page from Snapchat’s playbook and rolling out its own version of Snap Codes, called “nametags.” Users can customize their nametag with different colors, stickers and emojis, and other users can scan them view the Story camera or by selecting the option on their profile. Just like on Snapchat, users will have the option to follow another user when they scan their nametag. (Full Story)

TechCrunch – A 6,000 word memo from Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was recently leaked, detailing Snapchat’s plan for a comeback. Spiegel admitted that the company rushed its botched redesign earlier in the year, and pointed out that chat is the core of the product. The memo also announced Snap’s focus on Discover content. Year-over-year, the audience for Publisher Stories has increased 20 percent, which currently equates to a monthly audience of about 10 million watchers. Beyond this, the company aims to focus on fixing problem areas of the app and conquering developing markets and older demographics (which in turn should make the platform more advertiser friendly). (Full Story)

Independent – When Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014, the agreement included that WhatsApp would not contain ads for five years. Facebook has skirted around this by adding Facebook ads that drive to WhatsApp, but the app itself has experienced a lack of monetization over this time. In late 2017, Brian Acton left the company he had founded after disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg about targeted advertising on this platform, and he was also a proponent of the short lived #DeleteFacebook campaign from earlier this year. With the five-year mark coming up in 2019, Facebook is planning to finally introduce targeted ad types to WhatsApp, initially in the Status feature (its take on “Stories”). (Full Story)