ICYMI: TikTok Wants Your Photo Posts
Here's what happened on social media this week, October 7
Thanks for reading! If you’re new here, this is a recap of key headlines for and about creators to help them understand the industry and make better business decisions.
💻 ROADMAP
📲 TikTok Updates:
It’s the ultimate tech flex. While every other app’s been trying to duplicate your short-form video success, you pivot to photos! TikTok just announced it’s releasing Photo Mode, a new carousel format available on mobile for sharing photos on TikTok.You can add music to soundtrack the images, which viewers can swipe through at their own pace.
As YouTube and Instagram expand their content formats and community features for creators, it only makes sense that TikTok would try to offer as many parallel options on their platform. Everyone wants to be the one-size-fits-all destination for creators.
Does it mean you should start posting photos to TikTok? Maybe. It’s worth testing if TikTok puts any algorithmic weight behind the feature to reach new audiences and/or if you previously avoided the platform because they only supported video.
But whether app users actually embrace photo posts when they’ve been trained and rewarded for posting short-form video remains to be seen.
TikTok also just added new creator editing tools to adjust clips, sounds, images and text. You’ll now be able to:
Edit clips: Stack, trim, and split video clips.
Edit sounds: Cut, trim, and set the duration for sounds.
Edit and position text: More easily edit, position, and set the duration for text.
Add overlays: Add photo and video overlays for picture-in-picture (or video-in-video) stacking.
Adjust video speed: Speed or slow the pace of video clips.
Frame content: Rotate or zoom in and out of frame of individual clips.
Add sound effects
📲 Instagram Updates:
Good news: Instagram announced a new test that would allow select U.S. creators to earn extra income from ads displayed in their profile feeds! Bad news: It’s part of a move that will introduce more ads to everyone’s feeds. Users may not want more ads but if this is a step towards a YouTube-style Partner Program that offers a rev share model with creators, then it’s good news.
Instagram’s moving ahead with their custom Creator Portfolios (aka media kits) described as an opportunity to “express your individuality” and “show off your content”. It sounds suspiciously like a version of a well-curated grid, only this one is specifically designed to populate the company’s Creator Marketplace to appeal to advertisers.
According to Insider, Instagram confirmed it’s rolling out a test that lets select creators add more than one link to their bios.
📲 Twitter Updates:
Twitter now allows users to share different types of visual content — videos, images, and GIFs — together in a single Tweet.
Twitter launched a beta test of its Edit button in the U.S. but only for paying subscribers.
👆🏻 CLICK THRU
💰 Kim Kardashian to pay $1.26M to settle SEC charges over Instagram crypto promotion
Sometimes #ad is not enough.
The news of the SEC coming down on Kim Kardashian for her Instagram Story screenshot promoting EthereumMax’s EMAX tokens was everywhere this week. Which seems to be the point. If you’re going to make an example of a highly visible influencer, you can’t get much bigger than Kim.
But some of the key takeaways from the $1.26M fine she’s been ordered to pay may not have been what the SEC intended:
There are layers of disclosures and compliance for influencer endorsements. Hashtag ad would have been fine for the FTC but not the SEC which requires influencers to disclose the nature, source and AMOUNT they were paid in exchange for promotion. Kim was reportedly paid $250K for the endorsement.
Kim’s team disclosed the endorsement as an #ad but failed to disclose the additional details the SEC required. Between the legal, financial or business people supporting her it’s shocking no one looked into this and caught the slip before it made its way to Kim’s Stories.
The SEC does not have influencer guidelines handy on their website besides a 2017 statement warning investors against influencer scams. This is an opportunity for the Securities and Exchange Commission to create a brochure on disclosure best practices geared towards influencers and high-profile personalities, pointed out the American Influencer Council on Twitter.
Finally, as Axios explains, the reason Kim was fined unlike other celebrities is because she promoted an actual coin, which qualifies as a security under SEC jurisdiction. “If you're going to tout crypto, tout a crypto company, not a coin.”
🛍 TikTok said to be launching live shopping in the US
This is your friendly reminder to have a live strategy in place. While people (OK, it’s me) thought live shopping would pop off in 2022, it’s been slow to get started. But despite the setbacks, TikTok has reportedly been talking with California-based TalkShopLive to provide the infrastructure for live shopping features in the app. The deal isn’t done yet so there’s no timeline for the live shopping feature. But with so much potential revenue at stake, it’s just a matter of time.
📣 QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“People were saying, ‘I thought you sold out. You’re hawking these bad products. It’s such a violation of me as a brand, a media figure. You can’t decide to just use me as an advertisement day in and day out.”
-Bethenny Frankel was unwittingly featured in an ad promoting a cheap knockoff designer cardigan. Now, the reality star turned successful entrepreneur is suing TikTok to push the company to institute better protections surrounding a creator’s likeness: Bethenny Frankel sues TikTok over ads she says misused her image
👩🏽🤝👨🏻 PEOPLE
Beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira says she's taking a break from social media to focus on her 'deteriorating mental health' -Yahoo
YouTuber Dream Revealed His Face And People Have Been Really Cruel About It -BuzzFeedNews
Anna Delvey Wins Release From Jail, Gets Barred From Social Media -Bloomberg
📖 ALSO ON MY RADAR…
How Much Do Influencers Make in 2022? -Hootsuite
Judge gives Elon Musk and Twitter until the end of the month to close their deal -NPR
The High Cost of Living Your Life Online -Wired
BeReal gets its own Saturday Night Live skit -TechCrunch
Hacks and roasts: Inside the new social media currency -VogueBusiness
The Instagram capital of the world is a terrible place to be -Vox
Jack in the Box seeks full-time Twitch streamer -MarketingDive
What creators need to know about VidCon Baltimore -Passionfruit
Twitchcon San Diego runs October 7 - 9
World Mental Health Day is October 10
Meta Connect livestreams on October 11
