Social Trends & Tools, Jan 22
ICYMI, here's what happened on social media this week
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.
🦅 Inauguration Content Festival
2021 has been a journey and it’s only January. But the Inauguration mercifully went off without a hitch, spawned more memes than a celebrity red carpet event and introduced the world to Amanda Gorman, the youngest known inaugural poet. Let’s review:
Bernie Sanders and his mittens were Internet gold on a level we haven’t seen since The Dress (he dominated Google, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) And, as usual, brands jumped all over this. If you don’t have a real-time response team ready to meme cultural moments, are you even a brand?
Lady Gaga trended both as your stepmom and winner of the best Hunger Games cosplay costume contest.
The day was Excellent Coats On Irritated Women’s chance to shine.
Amanda Gorman started the day with less than 100,000 followers on Twitter — delivered what was arguably the best address of the day — and is now at 1.3M followers and counting. And on Instagram she’s gained almost 3M followers. She’s repped by WME for anyone looking to connect.
Joe Biden’s team took control of the @POTUS Twitter account. It followed exactly 13 people, one of whom is Chrissy Teigen and the honor was not lost on her.
Eugene Goodman, the officer who stood up to the Jan. 6 Capitol mob enjoyed a major glow up as VP Kamala Harris’ escort and the internet noticed.
💰 Can Snapchat Buy Your Love?
This New York Times story about Snapchat paying out $1 million a day to its Spotlight creators is already a week old but I’m fascinated. It speaks to a bigger trend where professional content creators are putting aside platform loyalties for better opportunities.
“These platforms are making it easier for new creators to pop up and if you don’t have a strong monetization play, they’ll leave and go somewhere else.”
TikTok lured creators by rewarding them with explosive growth and followed up with payouts from its creator fund. Now, Snapchat’s responded by throwing money at the problem and it seems to be making an impact. One teen’s earned $3 million and for the first time in a long time people are talking about their Snapchat strategies.
Meanwhile, over at Instagram you get the sense that they are trying to do everything but pay their creators. Monetization there falls into 3 buckets:
Commerce (branded content, merch and affiliate content)
User payments (tipping, subscriptions)
Revenue share (payout on ad revenue)
And it’s around rev share that they’ve been dragging their feet. Only a very small group of creators are in the beta program with access to ad revenue on IGTV, unlike the much wider rollouts for Shoppable Feed posts or Badges.
As a creator, it makes sense to follow the money and diversify your revenue stream. But from the platform perspective, it could become a problem. If creators leave for better opportunities and take their audiences with them, sponsors will eventually follow. Which might leave Instagram with its sans-serif and pastel-heavy aesthetic but not much else.
📽 Reels Recap
Instagram’s answer to TikTok generated a lot of minor headlines this week:
The head of Instagram admitted that Reels has a long way to go to catch up to TikTok and that there are too many different types of video on the platform (hello, Reels, Feed, Stories and IGTV!).
Just this week some creators say they’re being forced to share Reels to their Feed (previously users had the option to share to the Reels tab or to the Feed).
Business Insider spoke to several creators who said Reels is the closest thing they have right now to a "magic bullet" for supercharging growth.
📲 TikTok’s Testing a Q&A Feature
TikTok creators already respond to comments with videos but the formats so popular, TikTok is testing a Q&A feature that would make it part of the core experience where fans get to submit questions that don’t get lost among the comments. If you have a creator account with more than 10,000 followers, you can test the feature by opting in through your settings.
☕️ Parenting Influencer Tea
I do not have the energy or interest in diving down this MAGA mom controversy but it’s worth noting that parenting groups are freaking out over mommy influencer Taking Cara Babies being revealed as a Trump supporter. BuzzFeed’s got a good recap of the story.
These days consumers do want you to stand for something. But think carefully about what it is you support and whether your values are going to align with the values of your audience.
Gen Z ❤️ Pinterest
Pinterest has always felt like an underrated platform. That’s finally changing. The fashion part of the website has seen significant growth recently among Generation Z, according to Who What Wear.
It’s not a new phenomenon exactly. YouTubers recreating Pinterest outfits became a trend last year. Now, TikTokers are getting into the pin-spiration and their love is so pure.
"On other platforms, people are always trying to sell you on something... Pinterest is just, "This looks sick, do you like it? Okay, here's more!" and you can't beat that."
Ironically, Pinterest promotes itself to brands as a see-it, buy-it destination but the teens talk about it like it’s the next Tumblr, a place to express yourself and bond over the stuff you love. Either way, it’s nice to see.
