ICYMI: Instagram Is the Most Downloaded App?!
Here's what happened on social media this week, October 21
Thanks for reading! This is a recap of news and trends for and about creators.
💻 ROADMAP
📲 Instagram Updates:
Instagram confirmed it’s testing the ability to schedule content to the Feed — an option some users have spotted on their business accounts.
Instagram is also testing the ability to add a song to your profile. We’ve moved beyond social apps raiding each other for updates and are now mining the early aughts for MySpace features.
📲 TikTok Updates:
TikTok announced several changes to its Live experience, including:
Age gating livestreams — you now have to be 18 to go live
Offering a multi-guest option that allows up to five people to go live
And a new keyword filtering feature for moderation purposes
TikTok’s first revenue-share program, TikTok Pulse, was announced in May but seems to be just rolling out now according to details shared by creators on Twitter.
To qualify for the program, creators must be makers of the top 4% “most engaging” videos across 12 categories; have at least 100,000 followers; must have posted at least five videos within the last 30 days; and must be at least 18 years old to start earning revenue.
For that, creators will earn 50% of revenue from ads “placed adjacent to their videos.”
TikTok may be planning to release a podcasting app in its efforts to become a super app. (*Super app is a term that’s been thrown around a lot since Elon Musk moved to take over Twitter. It describes an all-in-one app that includes, social, messaging, services and payments among other things.)
📲 YouTube Updates:
YouTube BrandConnect is testing a pilot program that pairs podcasters with platform advertisers. The video ads, read by podcast hosts, will only appear on podcasts published on YouTube, and not in audio-only content published on podcast platforms.
YouTube is expanding access to its social shopping tools. By the end of this year, all Partner Program creators in the US, UK, Brazil, and India with at least 20K subscribers will be able to tag products in videos, Shorts and livestreams.
📲 Pinterest Updates:
As part of a new partnerships with Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell Music, Merlin, and BMG, Pinterest will now offer trending music options to accompany its Idea Pins.
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🗳 Piper Sandler Taking Stock With Teens Survey
The latest Piper Sandler survey of 14,500 American teens had some interesting results, delivered without context so interpret it as you will:
Andrew Tate is the most popular social media personality, bumping Emma Chamberlain down to second place. Yes, even though he’s been banned by most major platforms.
TikTok is the favorite teen app, followed by Snapchat and Instagram. But Instagram is actually the most used app, leading at 87%, followed by Snapchat and TikTok at 83%.
The average teen spends ~4.4 hours per day on social media (up from ~4.2 hours in past surveys).
In related and slightly unexpected news, Instagram was the most-downloaded app in the world during the third quarter of 2022. TikTok was second and Facebook and WhatsApp were third and fourth. So even while creators and celebrities complain they want the old Instagram back, apparently the rest of the world wants to watch Reels? I sense an optimistic Adam Mosseri video coming soon.
🎤 How to Get Creators On Board With Your Brand Efforts
I was in Seattle this week for Ragan’s Strategic Communications Conference to talk to comms people about how to get creators on board with brand efforts. The main takeaway was influencers should be treated like strategic business partners, not just the campaign talent or the distribution channel. Which means how brands negotiate and communicate with influencers needs to reflect this new reality. If you’re a creator, these slides will just reinforce what you already know. For everyone else, get on board!
We are past the influencers-taking-selfies era. They are launching brands and building businesses that are going to go head-to-head with traditional companies in fashion, food, beverage, footwear, skincare, tech and more. Partner with them now and build together or risk missing out.
Creators and influencers aren’t waiting around, they’re building the products and services they need to succeed. For example, YouTuber Paddy Galloway just launched a job site called YTJobs.co to pair job seekers with creators looking to hire. And influencer-entrepreneurs, such as Christen Nino De Guzman, Lindsey Lee Lugrin and Cynthia Ruff, are building new tools that are providing pricing guidance and increasing transparency around brand deals through their platforms Clara For Creators, FYPM and Hashtag Pay Me.
📣 QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"How do I please this engineer in San Bruno?"
-Hasan Minhaj delivering one of my favorite quotes of all time when describing what it means for creators to chase the algorithm, as part of a larger conversation he had with Colin and Samir’s podcast.
🧮 DATA OF THE WEEK
“Gen Z ‘monetizers’ are earning higher hourly rates despite spending similar amounts of time on creative activities, averaging $58 per hour for 11 hours of work per week, whereas ‘monetizers’ average $51 per hour in earnings for the same amount of work.”
-In a nutshell, Gen Z creators are making more money than other creators and it’s leading almost 50% of them to say they’d prefer to start their own creative businesses rather than attend college, according to Adobe’s “Future of Creativity” Study.
👩🏽🤝👨🏻 PEOPLE
Kanye West to Buy Conservative Social Platform Parler -People
Simon Cowell Teams With TikTok, Universal Music for Music Incubator -Variety
📖 ALSO ON MY RADAR…
NBCUniversal launches a Creator Accelerator to turn TikTokers into its next generation of TV creators -Deadline
Walmart launches creator platform for influencers with no cap on commissions -Yahoo Finance
Adobe Photoshop is getting a host of new features -The Verge
The state of social shopping: How platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are battling for e-commerce dollars -Insider (paywall)
TikTok Parent ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens -Forbes
The black market for blue checks -The Verge
Study: Women avoid looking at Instagram images that reflect their own areas of insecurity -Phys Org