Social Trends & Tools, Apr 23
ICYMI, here's what happened on social media this week
[Photo by Minh Pham on Unsplash]
This is a weekly roundup of trending social content and key platform updates to help you catch up and make sense of what’s coming.
Roadmap
🎤 Audio dominated tech news headlines this week, especially after Mark Zuckerberg detailed his plans to go all in on audio and conceded that creators should have more ownership over their audiences. It’s an interesting perspective given that a lot of younger creators have bypassed Facebook entirely for Instagram if they haven’t already left that platform for TikTok. So, will these new features and monetization opportunities bring people back? Stay tuned.
Here are the list of social audio experiences Facebook announced it would roll out this summer:
Soundbites is an audio creation tool you’ll be able to use to create short-form audio clips.
Facebook will host podcasts within its app and create a discovery tool to help people find new podcasts.
Live Audio Rooms, a Clubhouse-like feature, will be available in Facebook Groups and for public figures to host discussions.
Facebook will introduce monetization opportunities, like the ability to charge for access to a Live Audio Room through a single purchase or a subscription. They’re also introducing an Audio Creator Fund to support emerging audio creators.
Meanwhile, Apple announced a new subscription podcast service and will soon start selling subscriptions to premium podcasts. They’ll also roll out podcast channels, grouping shows curated by creators.
Finally, Reddit announced Reddit Talk, a feature that lets moderators host live audio conversations in their communities.
📲 Big news for social media managers: You can now create, publish and schedule Stories to Instagram and Facebook through Facebook’s Business Suite tool.
🔗 Instagram is working on a new link sticker, which got everyone with less than 10,000 followers optimistic for the possibility of being able to put links within Stories. Right now you need 10K+ followers to take advantage of the feature.
💰 Facebook is testing new sticker ads for Facebook Stories with a limited groups of brands and creators. The stickers can be tapped to buy a product and creators will get a cut of the revenue. No word if this feature will launch simultaneously on Instagram but it would make a lot of sense given the brand and creators presence on that platform.
💼 Twitter’s testing Professional Profiles tool to allow businesses, non-profits, publishers, and creators to display specific information about their business directly on their profile.
📰 Trending
😡 The Las Vegas Raiders owner insisted his social media team post an insensitive and tone deaf response to the guilty verdict of George Floyd’s killer. And it’s still up.
To quote Ed Zitron’s analysis of the quote, Raiders’ owner Mark Davis and the social media managers on the front lines of online abuse:
“The entire situation could have been avoided by simply making a statement similar to many other NFL teams like the Rams or Falcons that made direct, thoughtful statements that didn’t leave room for interpretation or, indeed, repeating a meme used to make light of the repeated murders of African-Americans at the hands of the police.”
👆 Click Thru
💻 This two-part roundtable series on the female reporters who cover the internet beat — creators, culture, and current trends — is a great weekend read: Part 1 and Part 2.
*Feel lucky to say Vox’s Terry Nguyen once interned for me and can confirm she’s brilliant.
🥈 TikTok is now the second most popular social media platform of choice for influencer marketing after Instagram, according to this Linqia survey of 163 enterprise marketers and agency professionals on The State of Influencer Marketing 2021.
Other gems to come from this study:
With the popularity of TikTok and Instagram Stories, vertical video is a critical format in influencer marketing, according to one in three marketers.
86% of respondents are already using shoppable links to allow consumers to go from inspiration to purchase instantly.
🏡 TikTok’s Hype House is getting a Netflix reality show that will follow the lives of some of the biggest creators on the platform — minus the really famous founding members like Charli D’Amelio, Dixie D’Amelio and Addison Rae.
🏆 Teens favorite social platforms are now Snapchat (31%), TikTok (30%) and Instagram (24%) according to Piper Sandler’s annual teen study on the habits, preferences and purchases of more than 7,000 young people.
While the entire study hasn’t yet been released some of the interesting insights include:
Chick-Fil-A is the No. 1 restaurant, followed by Starbucks No. 2 and Chipotle No. 3
56% of teens cite Amazon as their No. 1 favorite e-com site; SHEIN took No. 2 spot
88% of teens own an iPhone and 90% expect an iPhone to be their next phone
The top social & political issues teens care about are led by Racial Equality, Environment & Black Lives Matter
🏆 Note: It’s the Oscars on Sunday which are being held in person but without a host. Prepare for the memes.
🔨 Resources
👀 Accidentally clicking into someone’s Stories when you’re trying to avoid notice is awkward. But Bustle came up with three tips for watching Instagram Stories anonymously and I had actually never heard of tip No. 3.
