ICYMI: What Motivates Creators? It's Not Money
Here's what happened on social media this week, September 2
[via KarenXCheng, a must-follow creator in the AI space]
Thanks for reading my newsletter for and about creators. Enjoy the long weekend!
💻 ROADMAP
📲 Instagram Updates:
Adam Mosseri shared an update on Recommendations this week.
Here’s why: As Instagram shifts from a social network focused on community connections to an AI-assisted entertainment discovery engine (like TikTok), the company needs to get people on board with the new direction or risk bad press and blowback from users and power creators.
The breakdown: More than 30% of your feed on Instagram (and Facebook) will soon be filled with content from accounts you don’t follow, according to Mark Zuckerberg. The recommended content will reshape Instagram, prioritizing the Feed, Reels and Discovery for creators and moving friends into Stories and DMs.
If you’re a creator trying to increase reach through recommendations, Mosseri urged creators to prioritize original content (versus aggregated content), create engaging Reels (he pointed to these specific tips) and to use search optimization (that means captions with added context and a handful of hashtags — not 30).
Related: I previously posted some search optimization tips to consider for social media content.
🚫 Meta is also testing content controls on Instagram, giving users the ability to mark posts in Explore as Not Interested and muting certain words, phrases or emojis in captions and hashtags.
💵 The company is also working on new products, features and experiences that Instagram and Facebook users would be willing to pay for. While the company confirmed the news to The Verge, there are no specifics on the paid features. A completely unofficial poll of my Instagram audience shows that an ad-free feed is the most popular feature people would pay for.
📲 TikTok Updates:
A screenshot is circulating of a TikTok test feature for paid TikTok Live Events.
📲 YouTube Updates:
YouTube is testing a new Promotions tab that will allow creators to buy ads for their videos directly within Studio (versus through Google Ads).
📲 Snapchat Updates:
Snapchat announced it was launching its own front-back camera feature called Dual Camera.
📲 LinkedIn Updates:
LinkedIn is working on a feature to schedule posts natively in the app.
📲 Twitter Updates:
Twitter announced they’re testing an edit tweet function and will shortly be available to those who pay for Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service. For anyone not on Twitter, this was a BFD at one time. It remains to be seen who now perceives an edit function as worthy of $5 per month.
👆🏻 CLICK THRU
💰 Real Money, Fake Musicians: Inside a Million-Dollar Instagram Verification Scheme
TW: If you’re not verified on Instagram, you might want to skip this story for the frustration factor.
Hundreds of accounts were verified as part of a scam where people paid up to $25,0000 for fake musician profiles on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. “Meta kept approving fake musicians, and the clients kept coming,” according to this ProPublica expose.
The investigation has resulted in at least 300 accounts losing their verified status and the reported ringleader being banned from the platform. A company rep wouldn’t comment whether any Meta employees or contractors were involved in the scheme.
How Pinterest’s new app Shuffles aims to buck the social video trend
Pinterest’s new invite-only app Shuffles is blowing up on TikTok but it needs to drive and maintain that momentum on its own platform to be a success. I was quoted in this Modern Retail piece on the buzzy new app and its likelihood of success.
📣 QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"I wasn't expecting this…Especially because of how much revenue TikTok reported on ads last year. So it was kind of sudden."
- Insider reported at least 20 TikTok employees were recently laid off from its global business solutions team even as an executive at the company said they weren’t seeing any slowdown around the ad market: TikTok is laying off staffers as the company restructures its advertising team.
Related: Snap is canceling several projects and laying off 20 percent of employees
🧮 DATA OF THE WEEK
50% of creators’ top motivations to create are to express themselves, to do something fun, and to explore some of their passions and interests. While less than one-third of creators create for monetary reasons.
- This state of creators’ data comes from Adobe’s “Future of Creativity” Study Creators in the Creator Economy.
The report is full of fascinating details, such as, creators who post more frequently and spend the most time creating social content are also the most positive. This seems contrary to the pressure creators often express around content demands but if you remove all other aspects they’re responsible for — publishing content, analyzing engagement data, negotiating with brands, and more — then it makes sense that the pure act of creation is a source of happiness.
*Note: This isn’t meant to be interpreted as ‘don’t pay creators.’ Even if they’re doing it for the artistic expression, creators have bills to pay. I’m looking at you, TikTok Nivea Mission!
👩🏽🤝👨🏻 PEOPLE
Bhad Bhabie is launching a $1.7M scholarship fund for trade school students -YahooLife
Meghan Markle Might Relaunch Her Instagram -Town & Country
Charli D’Amelio and her mom head to ‘Dancing With The Stars’ -TubeFilter
A famous internet 'troll' faces frightening harassment as she's about to give birth -NBCNews
Mark Zuckerberg Says Waking Up as Meta CEO Is Like Being 'Punched in the Stomach' -People
📖 ALSO ON MY READING LIST…
Where Do Memes Come From? The Top Platforms From 2010-2022 -Know Your Meme
TikTok’s ‘Corn Kid’ is now a big meme -DailyDot
How Twitter’s Child Porn Problem Ruined Its Plans For An Onlyfans Competitor -TheVerge
The Louis Theroux Jiggle Jiggle dance is coming to Fortnite -Eurogamer
Why the era of celebrity influencers is over -VogueBusiness