So, Google Authorship might be over but step up: Facebook Authorship! Facebook has released a new “authorship” feature that’s powered by the Author Tag. By implementing the Author Tag on your website, you can make it easy for Facebook readers to start following the author of an article they just read and enjoyed. This is a web development tool that connects the byline in a story preview in the News Feed to the writer’s Page or Profile with Follow:

Source: Facebook

It’s big news for bloggers and anyone trying to build their personal brand on Facebook. Looking for instructions on how to implement it? This article from Mike Allton gives a great breakdown.

For those of you that think Facebook is passé these days, let’s not forget that Instagram is FIVE YEARs OLD this year. Yep, five years … where has the time gone??!! But it’s a good reminder that with 300 million users, Instagram is still growing and its users are getting older, wiser and a lot harder to impress with a funky filter. Even Hilary Clinton signed up this month with a tongue-in-cheek bit of patriotism:

‘Hard choices’         @hilaryclinton

Not using it for your business yet? You’re missing a trick, not least because Instagram have just launched Layout, a new app that lets you easily combine multiple photos into a single image. Great when you’re trying to tell a story and just one photo won’t cut it! Don’t miss out on any more of those digital PR moments…

Source: Twitter

And finally, Twitter are continuing to push video, with autoplay now in action in your feed. Like Facebook, native videos, Vines and GIFs will begin to play back automatically as you scroll, only needing one tap for sound. They’re also testing hearts instead of stars when you favourite a tweet – not something I’d be keen to see but Twitter seem keen to push ahead regardless. Watch this space…

As ever, I’d love to hear your thoughts!