Social Trends & Tools, Mar 12
ICYMI, here's what happened on social media this week
[Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash]
Thank you for reading! 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
📞 TikTok officially rolled out its new Q&A tool for all creators. Users were already answering questions, but now a dedicated space for questions and responses — by text or video — has been added to the app.
📽 Instagram has several small updates this week and amazingly they’re not just about Reels:
OK, maybe just this one: You may soon be able to share Reels to Facebook and WhatsApp.
Instagram is testing a “Closed Caption” sticker for Stories. This is something now available in Twitter’s Spaces and judging by the positive reactions there, would be a very welcome addition on Instagram.
Guides have started showing up in people’s Feeds, according to this marketer who’s seen existing Guides randomly pulled into people’s Feeds. So, if you’ve been meaning to create some, now would be a great time to do so!
🎤 Twitter is racing to release audio features ahead of Clubhouse since the winner of the social audio showdown has yet to be declared:
Starting in April, Twitter will let anyone host a Space, not just the beta testers.
They’ve already opened up Spaces to Android users, something Clubhouse is still working on.
They’re working on the ability to record and save conversations.
They’re going to enable a tip jar so Space hosts can be tipped through Cash App or Venmo. This is going to have a big impact not only for influencers on the platform but charities or fundraising organizations who want to use a Space for a cause.
🎉 Trending
🇬🇧 Even if you didn’t watch the Oprah - Meghan - Harry interview, it was hard to miss the news. The event simultaneously reinforced the importance traditional media still maintains for reaching audiences and making an impact with the amplification of social media and the need to anticipate that everything these days is destined to become a meme or, even better, a cross-over meme with the President’s doggo.
🍔 The collective sense is that Burger King messed up its International Women’s Day social campaign with their tweet: “Women belong in the kitchen.” If only they had used THIS messaging instead.
🕶 Lady Gaga and Adam Driver were made to be meme’d with this behind the scenes snapshot from the House of Gucci movie set.
👆Click Thru
🛍 Like every retailer these days, Walmart is hyper-focused on live stream shopping, whether it’s a shop-along beauty session on TikTok or its own hub for shoppable videos, which it just rolled out.
🏛 The White House is using influencers to promote Biden’s COVID-19 relief plan.
⏳ If the creative approvals process has ever slowed you down, this TikTok is for YOU.
☕️ Sipping Social Tea is a social media manager favorite, sharing anonymous confessions from folks in social media. This week, the duo behind the account revealed themselves. Mercifully, this was a passion project, not a marketing stunt.
🌍 Instagram Lite is now rolling out across 170 countries. It’s an Android app designed to provide people living in rural and remote communities with a high-quality Instagram experience using minimal data.
💃🏽 The leader of the Brexit Party joined Cameo and was hired by his gleeful nemesis.
📲 A handful of new start-ups are making it easier for digital creators to monetize every aspect of their life:
🔨 Resources
📋 If you’re a creator or influencer manager who’s been following the news that SAG-AFTRA may offer union benefits to influencers, they’ve released a useful Influencer Fact Sheet with the most recent details on their influencer health and pension benefits program.
