Welcome to our weekly edition of “This Week in Social Media” where we bring you the latest happenings in the exciting world of social media.

What’s New in Social Media (Aug 2nd Week)

Twitter Opens up Moments to More Creators

Twitter announced this week that it would “extend the creative format of Moments to more people, and eventually to everyone on Twitter, giving people a new and dynamic way to tell their stories.” When Moments was added last year, the content under Moments was added by a handful of curators at Twitter and a small group of partners. Moments will now be extended to influencers, partners, and brands before it’s finally released to everyone on Twitter.

Read the whole story here: Opening up Moments to More Creators (via Twitter Blog)

Pinterest Launches a New Webinar Series on Pinterest Ads

Pinterest is launching a new webinar series called “Getting Started with Pinterest Promoted Pins” on August 16. The focus of the webinar will be to learn “how Promoted Pins can drive more website traffic, signups and sales your for your business.” You can register for the webinar here.

Facebook Gives More User Control Over Ad Preferences

Facebook has expanded its Ad Preference Tools to allow users to gain more control over the ads they see on their news feed. Users can now add or remove interests from their ad preferences and also stop seeing ads from businesses who have added them to their customer lists.  In addition to this, Facebook also announced that ad-blocking software will no longer work when accessing the social network on desktop.

Read the whole story here: A New Way to Control the Ads You See on Facebook, and an Update on Ad Blocking (via Facebook Newsroom)

Our Take on the News

Clearly the big news this week was Facebook’s stance on ads and ad blocking. In an attempt to combat ad-blocking software, Facebook is rolling out new ad formats and giving more control to users over ad preference to improve their experience with ads online. It’s a controversial move, given the popularity of ad-blocking software among users. Facebook is the first social network to address ad-blocking issue which is most definitely cannibalizing their ad revenue. Many publishers have already taken a stand against ad-blocking software. We just have to see if these ads really are engaging enough to improve user experience. It will also be interesting to see how ad-blocking software brands respond to these changes announced by Facebook.