There have been a whole bunch of updates made to a whole bunch of social media platforms and apps in recent weeks. Many of them are not post-worthy on their own, yet there have been so many social media changes that it can be hard to keep up with them all.

Here’s a run-down of many of the recent social media platform and app changes:

• Facebook Adds Photos to Comments Because sometimes words alone just aren’t enough. Click on the grey camera icon on the right side of the comment area to upload your image. This is currently just a feature for personal profiles. 
• Instagram Introduces Video To compete with Vine? Why, of course! But Instagram’s video function is 15 seconds long (vs Vine’s 6 seconds) and does not endlessly repeat. You’ll see videos in the same stream as photos (and might not even realize it).
• YouTube Changes Channel Design If you have a YouTube channel but haven’t checked it out lately, I highly recommend you do. YouTube has dropped the branded background it once had, has added a “cover photo” and has rearranged many of its channel features.
• Facebook Allows for Comment Sorting If you found yourself getting aggravated because Facebook comments weren’t in chronological order, get excited! You can now choose to sort comments by “top comments” or by “recent activity”.
• Facebook Graph Search Continues to Roll Out We discussed Graph Search last week, including how and why to use it.
• Facebook (Finally!) Adds Hashtag Functionality Welcome to 2009! Then read more about hashtags on Facebook and what they could mean for your social media marketing integration.
• Google Plus Auto-Inserts a Related Hashtag Google Plus has added a hashtag “tag” on the top right corner of updates, and will auto-insert a hashtag even if you haven’t included one yourself. You have the option to choose a different hashtag for your own post than the one selected for you. Also, you can click on a hashtag to see more Google Plus posts about that same topic. 
• Twitter Introduces Analytics From your Twitter.com page, click on the gear icon on the right, then “Twitter Ads”. You’ll be asked for your login information again (don’t worry – you don’t need to pay for ads). On the next screen, click on the Analytics drop-down menu. 
• Facebook Improves its Fan Page Analytics Facebook metrics as we know it are changing, and hopefully in all great ways. For a detailed break down of the new analytics and example graphs and charts, check out HubSpot’s article.

Of these 9 recent changes, which is the most needed improvement? What other change would you love to see?