ICYMI: Instagram 60-Sec Reels Edition
Here's what happened on social media this week, July 30
💻 Roadmap
⏳ Instagram announced it was extending Reels to 60 seconds — so, essentially a very short IGTV video. But not. Instagram’s competing (and confusing?) video options are a little like Starbucks’ efforts to gaslight you into replacing Small, Medium and Large with Tall, Grande and Venti — there’s video for Stories, for Feed posts, Live, Reels and IGTV. But as long as video views continue to grow, we will never see the end of this.
📲 TikTok is increasing its effort to get us to create and watch live videos, including scheduled events, Q&As, picture in picture support and group livestreams.
📍 Finally, Pinterest creators will be able to tag products in their Idea Pins to make their content “shoppable.” Other new monetization features for Pinners include support for affiliate programs and brand sponsorships.
🙃 Instagram: We’re launching new safety settings for teens.
Also Instagram: We’re actively coming for your kids 13 and under.
👆🏼 Click Thru
🏆 This is the Tiktok Olympics as athletes share their Tokyo journey on the app. But the person who seems to be having the most fun is rugby player Ilona Maher (it’s pronounced Elona Mar). Honorable mention goes to her sisters (liviemaher and thedoctordoctor) cheering her on Stateside.
🎓 Should social media managers have masters degrees? This Wall Street Journal article and accompanying tweet set sparked a lot of heated conversation on what it takes to work in social. Education is always a good thing but as for a masters in social media management... I have to agree with Ryan Broderick here: “You’re probably just going to spend a lot of time and money to learn about stuff that won’t even exist by the time you graduate.”
❤️ This was THE week to use Instagram as the official relationship status update. See: Bennifer; newlywed Issa Rae; Selling Sunset’s unlikely duo; and Scooter Braun (who marked the end of his marriage with the end of his social accounts).
💰 Facebook’s $1B Creator Program sounds like a BFD but the programs are mostly invite-only, which means a lot of creators will be shut out. So the American Influencer Council did a deep dive into each program and what it takes to qualify.
💵 There are a fascinating number of options for teens to make money these days: there are teen tycoons of Depop; affiliate programs for fans of a brand like this one just announced by Express; and brand deals for the lucky few who blow up like Brooke Monk. Your babysitting gig has nothing on this.
🎓 In Session
I had some amazing guest speakers join my UCLA Extension classes for creators and entrepreneurs this Summer. I’m sharing some of the best advice or wisdom they shared.
“Brand deals are where we spend a lot of our time. But we're also spending a lot of time leveraging the influence that we have to get ownership stakes in businesses. So, for example, we just brokered a deal for Michael Le to be a to be an influencer but also an advisor for the world's first creator-focused, influencer-focused NFT marketplace Cybertino.
That model can be used for everyone. Everyone has an opportunity to be an influencer because everyone has the opportunity to to build a community, even if it's one or two thousand people and everyone has the opportunity to make a living.
It may not be a multi-billion dollar lifestyle but everyone with all the tools that we have right now has the opportunity to make a living being a creator or talking about and working on things that that you love.”
—Duke McKenzie, digital talent manager, on rethinking the ways you can make money as an influencer-entrepreneur
Thanks for clicking in and reading!