ICYMI: Shoppable Video Edition
Here's what happened on social media this week, November 12
💻 Roadmap
🛍 YouTube’s Holiday Stream & Shop live event launches next week. It’s a week of shoppable livestreams with a lineup of creators that includes Patrick Starrr, Jackie Aina and MrBeast. It also marks the mainstream debut of the platform’s shopping tools, which enable product pop-ups on VOD and live content so users can browse and shop without ever leaving YouTube.
It’s all part of YouTube’s laser focus on “shop-a-tainment” (their term), which centers on “making all video shoppable whenever possible, taking live to the next level in terms of production value, and getting relevant video recommendations within shoppable video.”
Reminder, this comes just after the launch of Pinterest TV, Instagram’s Holiday Picks and the announcement of TikTok Shopping. Right now, livestream shopping in the U.S. still feels like a novelty experience being pioneered by select creators but the landscape is expected to look very different by next year’s holiday season as platforms, retailers and influencers all compete for your online shopping dollars.
Other quick hits for the video platform:
YouTube has quietly been paying TikTok stars and other creators to post Shorts. One program offered creators as much as $50,000 for 100 Shorts over 6 months, while another program included YouTube paying users to create content for music campaigns like the BTS dance challenge and the promotion of Ed Sheeran's new album.
YouTube will be removing the public dislike count on videos but not removing the dislike button to reduce targeted attacks and avoid discouraging creators.
📲 Instagram is giving you two more reasons not to upload TikTok videos to Reels with the introduction of two new audio tools called Voice Effects and Text to Speech. Instructions on how to use these new features — to enable auto-narration or modify your audio — are here.
Other quick hits for the platform:
Instagram could soon be launching its creator subscription feature (think access to exclusive content and special badges). That’s according to third-party app intelligence services, who noted that the platform recently added in-app purchase options to its U.S. app that are intended for “Instagram Subscriptions.”
The platform is also finally testing a long promised “take a break” feature which enables you to receive break reminders in-app after a duration of your choosing.
Instagram Threads, its stand-alone messaging app for Close Friends, seems to be shutting down next month.
🔵 Twitter Blue launched in the U.S. this week. For $2.99 a month, Twitter promises subscribers some “next-level features” such as undo Tweet, an ad-free experience on some publisher stories, a better browsing and navigation experience and bookmark folders. The response from Twitter power users has been overwhelmingly positive.
🍔 This Yelp-is-putting-food-pics-in-their-feed article seems 10 years too late but best of luck to them as they attempt to launch a new experience featuring content from local restaurants in their city, popular photos from consumers and updates directly from restaurants.
👆🏻 Click Thru
🌳 If you were on Instagram this week, you saw the “We’ll plant 1 tree for every pet picture” sticker. It was impossible to escape. This freelance journalist had the best investigative Twitter thread explaining why this was a scam and who was behind it. It’s well worth a read.
🤕 Creator burnout is the new normal, according to this interesting report from Vibely. Over 90% of creators have experienced burnout with algorithm changes being the leading cause of stress.
🎤 This headline seems like a bit of an oversell: “Justin Bieber to Perform Live Metaverse Concert” but - just like crypto or NFTs - there’s no escaping references to the metaverse these days. So here’s what’s happening: Bieber will perform a live show as an avatar on a streaming entertainment platform called Wave (he’s an investor). Fans who want the full virtual concert experience can sign up on Wave for free, but anyone can watch the show via a live stream on Bieber’s YouTube channel on November 18.
💀 An online troll managed to get the head of Instagram’s account locked down by pretending Adam Mosseri was dead through a fake obituary. This was apparently done in an effort to show how easy it is to get people kicked from the site. “It’s very important to have your correct date of birth, and at least one picture of yourself archived, this helps prove you are the account owner in either instance of being memorized or being banned by someone,” warned the person who goes by the username Syenrai.
💸 It’s estimated that Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube lost about $10 billion in advertising revenue after Apple's privacy policy changes. Does that make Tim Cook the most hated man in Silicon Valley?
📌 The main premise of this article seems to be about how good Pinterest’s SEO is. Which apparently is a bad thing. But if you hate Pinterest and have searched for something only to get sucked into a sea of pins, then you’ll appreciate the author’s frustration.
🚨 "Did we just go from a tragedy to a BetterHelp brand partnership?" Following the Astroworld tragedy, Travis Scott’s partnership with mental health app BetterHelp is drawing a lot of criticism.
🚓 A missing teen was rescued by police after using a ‘Signal for Help’ hand gesture she learned on TikTok.
📚 Illinois became the first state to require media literacy classes for high school students — this happened over the summer but it’s worth resurfacing as teens in the Prairie State are now required to learn how to discern facts from fiction.
