ICYMI: Instagram Like Count Edition
Here's what happened on social media this week, May 28
Welcome and thanks for reading! If you’re new here, this is a curated list of trending social content and key platform updates to help you catch up and make sense of what’s coming. It’s short and to the point because nobody’s got time to waste!
💻 Roadmap
📲 The big news this week came from Instagram. First, a leaked screenshot revealed that the Instagram’s working on user “Bonuses” that would pay money for people to post Reels — possibly Instagram’s version of a creator fund?
Then Instagram introduced Insights for Reels, Live and Reach to help users make the most of their content strategy and better understand their reach.
And then came the announcement that users would be able to hide like counts to reduce pressure. If you updated your app this week, you’ll know that you have the option to hide like counts on your own posts so others can’t see how many likes your posts get or you have the option to hide like counts on all posts in your feed. (Instructions here.)
This shifts all responsibility on to individual Instagram users. So, will people who were vulnerable to chasing likes actually opt out of the system? And, if there isn’t widespread creator adoption to hide likes, will creators worry that getting rid of their likes indicates a poorly performing post?
In trying to please everyone, Instagram may ultimately please no one.
⏲ TikTok’s currently testing 3-minute videos. It’s an invite-only feature the app is testing for video uploads to mobile or desktop.
🎙 Twitter’s audio feature, Spaces, is now available on mobile and desktop. You can also set reminders for scheduled Spaces and, most importantly, you’ll be able download full conversations after your Space has ended.
🔵 Twitter users can pay a monthly $2.99 subscription fee for a better, more colorful browsing experience with Twitter Blue. The features don’t seem to justify the expense but the service is still in beta mode so TBD.
👆 Click Thru
💰 Reminder: brand sponsorships are still the No. 1 way influencers make money.
📝 Do long captions get more engagement on Instagram? This informal experiment says yes!
🎂 If you’re not a teen or Huntington Beach PD, you might have missed the whole Adrian’s Kickback drama last week. A teen’s TikTok birthday invite went viral and led to a massive crowd showing up to the beach for a party where close to 150 people were arrested. HBD Adrian.
✈️ Influencers are the new travel agents for Millennials and Gen Z: 57% of Gen Zers with summer travel plans said they’ll look to social to help them prep.
🛑 Creators claim Mediakix owes them thousands for brand campaigns they were never paid for.
👻 Don’t sleep on Snapchat yet. It’s still used by 90% of 13-24 year olds and 75% of 13-34 year olds in the US, France, UK, Australia and Netherlands. Now Snap just needs to find a way to make its teen audience profitable.
📌 Pinterest is now accepting applications for the second round of its Creator Fund program through June 30th. Ten creators will receive hands-on training, personal consulting and a financial grant of $25k in cash and ad credits.
🎤 Downloads may be slowing but Clubhouse is making some interesting hires, including TED’s head of conferences.
🍔 Fatty foods get more engagement on social. That’s the result of a new study which finds “caloric density can positively influence social media engagement.”
🇨🇦 Canada wants YouTube, TikTok and other platforms to rewrite their algorithms to prioritize Canadian content over foreign-made content whenever a user with a Canadian IP address opens their apps. People are NOT happy at the proposed bill but there’s some history of Canada supporting home grown creators with positive consequences. Either way, support creators!
💉 European influencers say they were offered payment to to criticize the Pfizer vaccine.
🎥 TIL the Vintage Camcorder effect on TikTok is not a magical time machine editing tool but simply transitions between parents and kids.
🔐 This guy tweeted that he was locked in a gym and it is far less charming tale than this 2014 story about a man who tweeted while locked in a bookstore overnight.
🔨 Resources
📲 TikTok For Business launched "Behind The Camera," a series of easy-to-follow instructional videos showing you how to take your TikToks to the next level through the latest trends and techniques.
