ICYMI: LinkedIn's testing an FYP-style video feed?!
Coming to you from DC this week 🦅
Greetings from Washington, DC! I was in town this week to meet with the White House Digital Strategy team — Marion Dimaano, Morgan MacNaughton and Patrick Steven — and diplomatic influencer and Public Affairs Officer at the Italian Embassy, Andreas Sandre (aka @WeAreDigitalDiplomacy). I don’t usually feature myself in the newsletter but this was a pinch me moment, to be in the nation’s capital talking about creators, social platforms and communication strategies as if it were any other day. I’ll try to share some of the conversations in the following weeks. Just know that everyone is going through the same thing — people at the highest levels of power are grappling with the same social struggles and hard-won successes as you are!
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
LinkedIn is testing a FYP-style vertical video feed
Instagram is testing comments on a specific photo or video within a Carousel
Meta is limiting political content but you can turn off the default moderation feature
LTK Report: Beauty is the top shopped category from creators across all generations
ByteDance’s Lemon8 and CapCut would likely be affected if the TikTok bill passes
15 live and online event dates that need to be on your radar for Q2
💻 ROADMAP
📲 LinkedIn Updates
LinkedIn is testing a dedicated video tab. During the beta testing phase, select users will see a video tab — versus a post tab — in the app's navigation bar. The tab launches a vertical video feed, similar to TikTok’s FYP experience.
Users in the test group who upload their own vertical video during this time have the potential to be distributed beyond their immediate network — landing them in front of a wider audience.
A recent report suggested 85% of LinkedIn users preferred watching video to reading text so this has a good chance of a universal roll out. But it’s still too early to tell whether the platform warrants its own video strategy instead of repurposing your educational and informative Reels, TikToks or Shorts.
The video feed showed up for me on Thursday — watch an example here — and the videos that made it into the feed look exactly like what you’d expect from short-form edu-tainment:
LinkedIn announced that messaging capability is rolling out to all LinkedIn Pages starting this week. The messaging feature for LinkedIn Pages can be enabled or disabled through your “Inbox Settings” from your admin view and will be supported, initially, by API integration partnerships with Bird CRM, Brandwatch, Hootsuite, Oktopost, Sprinklr, and Zoho.
📲 Meta Updates
Instagram is testing an @ mention on a specific photo or video within a Carousel post. This allows you to @ tag and comment on a specific slide number.
Instagram’s “link history” is rolling out more widely to people. Located under your activity tab, the link history option allows you to view all the links you clicked on through the Instagram browser over the last 30 days.
Ever since Meta announced it would limit the political content people see on Instagram, there have been countless articles on how to override this option. Since everyone’s settings look slightly different, there are a few paths to try if you want to turn off the content-moderation feature:
On mobile, tap the hamburger menu on the top right of your profile page to access the Settings and Activity page.
Scroll down to find ‘Content Preferences’ or ‘Suggested Content.’ This is where you can disable the moderation feature for ‘Political Content.’
*This is also where you can “Snooze suggested posts in feed” — a game changer for your Feed.
📲 YouTube Updates
YouTube’s product lead Todd Beaupre told creators not to delete old videos because it disrupts the connection you’ve made with the audience: keep your videos public or unlist them if you must.
📲 Snapchat Updates
Snapchat announced users will be able to create longer videos (up to three minutes) and upload longer videos (up to five minutes) for Chats, Stories and Spotlight.
📲 Twitter Updates
Twitter has increased its group chat limit to 256 people. While that sounds like a DM nightmare, people are pointing out that it’s a move toward broader group discussions similar to a Discord server.
This is a soft launch of me exploring the concept of a quarterly check-in looking at broader trends and key dates that need to be on your radar for the next quarter. Let me know what you think?
🌐 PLATFORM POV
▶️ YouTube
It’s been a year since YouTube expanded its YPP (YouTube Partner Program) and introduced revenue share on Shorts.
To mark the one year anniversary, the company revealed that more than 25% of channels in YPP are now earning through Shorts.
And of the creators who joined YPP by meeting the Shorts eligibility thresholds, more than 80% are now also earning through other YPP monetization features: longform ads, fan funding, YouTube Premium, BrandConnect, Shopping and more.
So even as you think about Shorts — which are now averaging over 70B daily views — it’s worth considering all the formats available to you as a creator or brand.
After all, in his 2024 address, CEO Neal Mohan said the livingroom was YouTube’s next frontier. And Nielsen ratings show YouTube is America’s number one streaming platform.
As I’ve said before: Brands and creators need to imagine a space for their videos beyond mobile and optimize their content for living room viewing, aka the TV. This is hybrid content that pairs the best of lo-fi social video with with television-style programming concepts (think reality series, docu-series, game shows, dramas and comedies).
🟣 Instagram
Is anyone else picking up on the Carousel bread crumbs Instagram is dropping lately?
As of 2024, the platform has:
Launched a test to increase the size of Carousels by allowing creators to add up to 15 to 20 photos or videos in a carousel;
Launched a test giving users the ability to @ tag a special slide in a Carousel, producing a more interactive experience between creator and viewer;
Dropped a surprise “hold and scroll” stop motion feature. Since being spotted on Disneyland’s feed, Target has also used the format in a seasonal update.
And — based on a conversation I had with a contact at Meta — they seem to hold Carousels on a par with Reels in terms of growth potential for content recommendations.
I don’t think Reels are being sidelined. There’s too much at stake to ignore the creator, brand and audience appetite for short-form video — especially with the competition in the space to be the destination for video content.
But — and this is just my opinion — Instagram needs something to set it apart. Every platform does. And between the Carousel tests on Instagram and the superior Carousel experience they’ve developed on Threads, this offers an alternative to the video experience we’re seeing blanketed cross platform.
Try It: It’s time to step up your Carousels. But think beyond the photo dump. Focus on the opportunities of extended storytelling with demonstrations, guides or how-tos playing out over several slides; test the “hold and scroll” feature; or have fun with a seamless panaroma.
⏰ TikTok
Gen Z doesn’t Google (verb), they search social media.
Now, TikTok’s ramped things up — giving creators the key to win at social search. They’re spoon feeding creators potential video topics with their latest tool, Creator Search Insights. And then they’re rewarding creators based on the search value of the content they create with the new Creator Rewards Program.
How it works: Creator Search Insights will allow people to see what search terms are trending on the platform in categories such as Fashion, Food, Sports, Tourism, Gaming and Science. Creators can also take advantage of content gap categories — topics that are being searched often but have few relevant videos available on TikTok.
Why this matters: The financial incentive puts a huge emphasis on search-friendly content. When bloggers began to benefit from Google’s Ad Sense, they adapted their content to rank more highly in search results. If creators are rewarded for producing TikTok-recommended content, that will have a huge influence on people’s priorities.
We’ve already seen the app shift from dancing, lip-syncing teens to multi-generational entertainment that’s less reliant on trending tracks. This could signal a new focus on search-optimized content: produced and titled based on what people are searching for versus hooks that stop them scrolling.
🗓️ Save the Date
APRIL 2024
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Pinterest Academy: Meet Your Measurement Goals
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Dash Hudson Social Marketer and Creator Meetup
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AdWeek’s Social Media Week
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April 13-17
NAB Show
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ANA Brand Masters Conference
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International Creator Day
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Creator Economy NYC's Mixer & LIVE Creator Interview
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MAY 2024
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Social Commerce Summit
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Canva Create
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-With research from Rebecca Gann
👀 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Beauty is the top shopped category from creators across all generations -LTK Beauty Consumer Study
Influencer posts are the most popular choice to get Americans under age 45 to try a new product -Izea
A new study suggests Instagram nano influencers and TikTok mega influencers outperform in engagement -EMarketer
How creators make their money is changing even as sponsored content remains in the top spot -The Information
The FTC is investigating TikTok over privacy and security -CNN
The TikTok bill isn’t just about TikTok — Lemon8 and CapCut would likely be affected as well -The Washington Post
Florida’s HB3 bill will ban Florida children under 14 from joining social media starting in 2025 -Passionfruit
America is splintering into more than a dozen news bubbles based on ideology, wealth, jobs, age and location -Axios
This tweet is a good example of having fun with ALT text beyond simply describing the image in question -Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation
See the e.l.f. Cosmetics x Liquid Death collab that sold out in 45 minutes -@elfyeah TikTok
Two brands dropped spelling bee videos on Instagram this month — they’re both great -Loewe & Ssense
The Platform Creator Conference launched a Slack community to keep the connection going with platform updates, brand partner highlights, castings and more: Join the community
Thanks for reading! How do you feel about LinkedIn’s video feed? What else is on your mind? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
What we really need is more video on LinkedIn - do they want to turn it into TikTok for Adults?