How FB knows what you listen and Twitter shows what you like?

The big two of the social media circle are on a constant re-inventing spree. While Facebook intends to snoop on what you are listening, Twitter is ready to make video sharing a more engaging experience for its users. Here's an overview of their latest updates.

Facebook has added a new auto recognition feature which enables it to monitor what you are listening or viewing. When turned on, it uses your phone's microphone to recognize the sounds around and either posts them automatically or add them in the 'feelings' tab for you to update. It can apparently identify millions of songs and TV shows from 160 channels. Your friends who'll see your update can listen to a 30 second preview of the song within the feed, without being directed to another link.

The new optional feature is an extension to the 'feelings' feature and would make sharing updates an enjoyable experience for the users. For Facebook, it is an insightful tool because even if you don't share what you are listening to, Facebook knows it.

It however does not record or save the audio being played to the company's server. Sounds are used only to find a match.

Kapil Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder, OMLogic who extremely liked this feature added, "This is social as social is. Facebook has constantly been evolving and innovating to make social engagement easier. I am sure that Brands would love to get their hands on this humongous user preferences data."

Twitter on the other hand, wants to encourage its users to share more videos. It’s still in a testing phase which would eventually make video sharing an easier option.

The feature is currently limited to the Twitter iOS app. Anybody with Twitter installed in their iPhone can try it. Just begin typing the hashtag “#AMillionWaysToDieInTheWest” and in the search results an option would appear prompting the users to click on a video "provided by A Million Ways to Die in the West." It is a notable point that it says 'provided by', and not 'promoted by'. This however, is just the testing phase and Twitter might use this in the future to en-cash on it.

Another extension of the video viewing feature is the one-click video ad product on Twitter, which is just a month old. The one-click video feature makes it possible for users to see video inline. This means users would not be directed away from Twitter. A latest addition to this feature is the 'view more videos' option at the end of the played video which acts as a call-for-action button. Brands can leverage from this feature by creating a story around the videos for brand engagement.

With such dynamic changes, it is clear that social media platforms are looking to keep their users hooked and ensuring the brands end up doing the same.