YouTube Hypes Emerging Creators + Content Series
Episodes and Seasons playlists!
Heads up: On Monday I’ll be sending out the next ICYMI for paid subscribers. But this “content series” edition will be FREE to everyone courtesy of my friends at Sprout Social. And make sure to catch me, Rachel Karten and Casey Lewis talking about the social landscape during Sprout’s Enter the Chat roundtable series on Oct. 3!
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
YouTube announced 9 new products and updated features this week
My favorite YouTube announcements: Hype and Season + Episode TV playlists
Instagram announced Teen Accounts, with more restricted and protective settings
The Meta Connect developer conference takes places next week
TikTok had its first day in court appealing the potential US ban
TikTok is hosting a SMB “Creative Made Simple” webinar next week
Snapchat announced a Snap OS operating system for Spectacles and new creator tools
LinkedIn now allows you to opt out if you don’t want them using your data to train AI models
MrBeast launched a new product, got sued and saw internal documents leaked; busy week
Netflix is in talks to buy Hot Ones — develop creative IP my friends!
💻 ROADMAP
📲 YouTube Updates
YouTube hosted its annual Made On presentation in New York on Wednesday, announcing at least 9 new products and updated features with the broad themes being:
Community
AI-powered tools
Creative Curation
Business
My Favorites: The two announcements below really speak to supporting emerging and established creators while very much respecting the fan POV and viewer experience — a winning combo.
⚡️ HYPE - This is a new way for fans to “hype” up emerging creators, who have 500-500K subscribers, to help them get discovered. The videos with the most hype points will appear on a special leaderboard in Explore. In the first 4 weeks of the beta test, users hyped over 5M times across 50K unique channels.
Note: Hype results won’t influence YouTube recommendations and search results.
Timeline: This is currently in beta on mobile in Brazil, Turkey, and Taiwan, and YouTube plans to roll it out to more countries in the coming months.
📺 LIVING ROOM UPDATES - Creators will soon be able to organize their content into seasons and episodes! It’s like a playlist but even more powerful for allowing people to binge episodic content. Back in February, YouTube said living room watching was a major 2024 priority. And already the number of creators making a majority of their revenue on TV screens is up more than 30% year over year.
Note: Links will automatically be changed to QR codes to make it easier for TV-viewers to engage
Timeline: The ability to organize content into seasons and episodes will come next year.
(You’ve probably seen me, Rachel Karten and others encouraging creators and brands to create series or “shows” on social that help cut through the noise and encourage recurring engagement. This latest YouTube update reinforces that. Fun fact: there’s a new ICYMI newsletter about must see TV-style video coming out on Monday — keep an eye out for it!)
Other YouTube updates creators should be looking forward to:
Deep Mind’s video gen tool VEO is coming to Dream Screen for Shorts
Auto dubbing is rolling out in more languages to more creators around the world
Gifts powered by Jewels that fans can buy to redeem during vertical live streams
Communities are a like a Discord server or group chat space for creators and subscribers to connect
▶️ See what else is new: Made On Blog
📲 Meta Updates
Meta launched Instagram Teen Accounts, which adds more restricted and protective settings to all teens on the platform. This will change who can contact them, what content they see and how much time they spend online, plus gives parents more supervision features. Note: If you’re a Gen Z or Gen Alpha focused brand or creator, this could impact how followers engage with your content. (See: Research report on the development of Teen Accounts)
Spotted: a new Instagram dropdown menu that lets users choose to share a comment only to Instagram or “also share on Threads.”
Threads announced you can now post up to 20 photos or videos in a Carousel. (Instagram announced this in August)
Note: You can watch next week’s Meta Connect 2024 keynotes and developer sessions live on Facebook.
📲 TikTok Updates
TikTok invited Latin creators to apply to the #CasaTikTok creator community program (by Sept. 30) for the opportunity to join the Creators program and gain access to educational resources, events and webinars.
TikTok is hosting a SMB webinar Sept. 26 titled “Creative Made Simple” to help brands up their content game. RSVP
📲 Snap Updates
Snapchat announced its Snap OS operating system for Spectacles which uses your hands and your voice to control its smart glasses. That was just one of the updates to emerge from Snap’s Partner Summit 2024 this week, including a simplified user experience (they’re calling it Simple Snapchat) and new tools for creators.
Interesting note: Don’t assume Snapchat’s just for teens, about 80% of Snapchatters are over the age of 18.
📲 Pinterest Updates
Pinterest announced its Pinterest Inclusion Fund, an incubator program for diverse content producers who deliver content and products for underrepresented communities. Participants will receive access to cash grants, Pinterest ad credits, and 5-week 1:1 training sessions with Pinterest to help them deepen their knowledge of the platform. Apply.
📲 LinkedIn Updates
LinkedIn announced it’s using member data for generative AI training and offered an opt-out setting to toggle off if you don’t want them using your data to train content creation AI models.
📲 Patreon Updates
Patreon launched new business tools this week to help drive creator discovery and monetization opportunities, including a human-driven Recommendations tab. Creators now have a dedicated space on their page to shout out their favorite creators and share why their fans might love them too.
📲 Substack Updates
Substack (the platform that hosts my newsletter) launched a live video feature this week. It seems like a fun format, I just need to figure out why I’d go live?
Substack is also sending out Summer Recaps, sort of like a Spotify Wrapped report. It turns out I’ve read over 650K words this summer, mostly in the mornings ☕️
📲 LTK Updates
LTK announced several updates from its annual creator LTK Con this week in Dallas:
Power Gifting which enables brands to connect directly with creators and offer strategic gifting and exclusive discount codes; Soon, LTK Creators will be able to directly request gifts and promotional codes from brands of their choice
LTK Co-Pilot is a suite of free business tools for Creators to boost earnings and efficiency
LTK Leaderboard is a new custom dashboard that gives brands direct access to key insights on top-performing creators
👆🏻 CLICK THRU
⚖️ TikTok Had Its Day In Court — So How Did It Go?
TikTok had its first day in federal court Monday to appeal a potential US ban. Results of that day are mixed: NPR said it was difficult to gauge which way the court is leaning in the high-stakes legal saga; meanwhile The Information said things are not looking great for TikTok. The panel of judges “spent more time questioning TikTok lawyers than the U.S. government,” wrote Kaya Yurieff from the courtroom, adding “their questions for TikTok focused on national security concerns rather than the First Amendment.”
🗞️ MrBeast Headlines Dominated the News
This week was a mixed bag for MrBeast… The YouTuber announced he was teaming up with Logan Paul and KSI to launch a Lunchables competitor called Lunchly — to which people asked do kids really need more junk food? The criticism ramped up over his Amazon reality show, Beast Games, which people have described as Fyre Fest-style chaos, resulting in the alleged hospitalization of a crew member. Amazon and MrBeast’s production company are now being sued in a class action lawsuit for exploitation. Finally, MrBeast’s slightly problematic production handbook was leaked online last month but X (Twitter) fan bois seem to have just caught on this week and produced breathless recaps of the 36-page document.
👀 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT HEADLINES
Meta banned RT, Russian state media, in the wake of a covert influencer program -Social Media Today
Four social media platforms that have a bigger Gen Z audience than linear TV -eMarketer
NYC is ‘the capital of TikTok,’ says the 27-year-old mogul behind some of its biggest shows -Gothamist
Netflix is in talks to stream live versions of popular YouTube talk show, Hot Ones, hosted by Sean Evans -The Hollywood Reporter
Celebrities like Olivia Rodrigo and Kerry Washington are using their Linktree link-in-bio to redirect users to a website to learn about voter registration -USA Today
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills to help actors and performers protect their digital likenesses. Thanks to attorney Michael Glazer for pointing out this covers all Californians: “It could be an office worker in a training video” -California Governor
This is a little off-topic but for anyone struggling (and let’s be honest, who hasn’t struggled at times) this vulnerable video from creator Wishbone Kitchen touches on a very relatable point: if everything in your life is going well, how do you allow yourself the space and the grace to feel depressed without imagining you don’t deserve to experience those feelings.
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