August brought President Biden’s White House Creator event, a slew of Instagram updates, some well executed brand influencer campaigns, and much more. Let’s break down the top stories in social media and influencer marketing from the month of August.
SOCIAL PLATFORM UPDATES
YOUTUBE
YouTube’s Senior Director of Growth and Discovery answer creators’ most-asked questions
TLDR: The series addresses topics like how does thumbnail A/B testing work, Does the filename of your video matter to the algorithm (No, but the title does), Does thumbnail A/B testing include CTR, Does the algorithm care what video category you choose (It’s a minor factor), What’s the secret to pleasing the algorithm, and How important are tags to the algorithm. Likely the best piece of advice was to “Check your Audience tab in Analytics, see which videos are growing your audience. Make more videos like those and videos people who watch those videos would just love to watch…then the algorithm will take care of itself.”
Google introduces YouTube creator-based audience targeting
TLDR: You can now create remarketing audiences based on specific YouTube creator videos. Previously, advertisers could only create remarketing lists based on viewers’ interactions with their own linked YouTube channels, so the update opens up new opportunities for targeting based on creator content.
Instagram Adds Stories Comments to Encourage Interaction
TLDR: Instagram has introduced a new feature allowing users to comment directly on Stories, aiming to boost interaction on the platform. This update will encourage more conversation and engagement by enabling public responses to Stories, rather than just private replies.
Instagram unveiled a feature that allows users to add a song to their profile
TLDR: The music added to a user’s profile shows up in the bio area, according to screenshots shared by Instagram. A song will be featured on a profile until the user removes or replaces it. This feels very reminiscent of Myspace in the early 2000s, and we kind of like it. Just choose your song wisely.
Instagram Expands Carousels to 20 Frames
TLDR: As you can see in this notification, users can now add up to 20 photos or videos in a single carousel, providing more capacity to share your content on a dedicated theme or topic. We already know how impactful carousels are on IG, so much so that it’s becoming hard to justify a single image post. This expanded frame number now enables a much greater ability to tell rich stories in a single post.
Instagram is testing vertical profile grids
TLDR: Instagram is testing a potentially major change to profile pages: making the squares in your profile grid vertical rectangles. This is due to the fact that the vast majority of what is uploaded to Instagram today is vertical. It’s bound to be disruptive to most feeds, but may make the grid easier to manage moving forward. Either way the grid doesn’t play as significant role as it used to so don’t get too panicked.
Instagram announced that “Views” will be the primary performance metric
TLDR: Instagram is making ‘Views’ the primary performance metric across all formats including Reels, Live, photos, Carousels, and Stories. This standardizes metrics and provides a consistent baseline across multiple formats and platforms for how your content is performing, but also flattens the value of content to Views (versus deeper engagement for example) and may give an unfair advantage to larger accounts that simply reach more people.
TIKTOK
TikTok is partnering with Amazon on new shopping ads
TLDR: The new ads allow users to link their Amazon profiles to their social account and checkout in the app using the payment and shipping information they’ve stored with Amazon. This is a big win for TikTok, as Meta implemented a similar partnership last year. US consumers are much more comfortable checking with with their tried and true Amazon account, and now they can on TikTok.
TikTok Enables Users to Create Their Own AI Voiceover Voice
TLDR: TikTok is now letting some users create AI versions of their own voice for personalized voice-overs instead of the generic voices in the app. This may make sense from an efficiency standpoint for creators, but the opposite of what social media was designed to facilitate.
OTHER
The FTC is coming after influencers and brands that buy fake followers
TLDR: The FTC has a new rule saying creators and brands can’t buy fake followers on accounts they use to make money, and that they would crack down on false indicators that could deceive consumers. You shouldn’t be doing this anyway, but it’s a good reminder that follower counts isn’t the end-all be-all, and often a misleading indicator of true influence.
The DNC Is Officially the Influencer Convention
TLDR: For the first time ever, 200 creators were credentialed to cover the convention as part of the Democrats’ attempt to reach young voters. And based on reports, it sounds like they rolled out the red carpet for creators in a way that left many journalists feeling like second class citizens. It shows how powerful social and creators are becoming in influencing public opinion. If the president needs to work with creators, your brand definitely does too.
BRAND INFLUENCER HIGHLIGHTS:
- GameSquare and the NFL Partner to Launch New Traveling Creator Series “NFL 4 THE FANS LIVE”
- How Southwest Airlines is working with creators to sell plane tickets to Gen Z on TikTok
- Why influencers are quitting their Google pixel partnership
- Silk takes it to the street to ask people if they put the cereal or Silk first
- Brand descend on ‘Very demure, very mindful’ trend
REPORTS WORTH CHECKING OUT:
eMarketer shows an overwhelming majority of U.S. marketers will leverage influencers this year
TLDR: 83% of marketers will invest in influencer marketing in 2024. EMarketer also projects influencer marketing spend will reach $8.14 billion by the end of this year—a 16% increase from the roughly $7 billion marketers spent on influencer campaigns in 2023
Nearly half of TikTok users under 30 use the app to keep up with politics
TLDR: According to Pew Research, 48% of TikTok users ages 18 to 29 say keeping up with politics or political issues is a major or minor reason why they’re on the platform. Campaign are noticing, and leaning in on the platform to try and persuade young voters.
YouTube becomes first streaming platform to break 10% of total TV viewing
TLDR: Streaming now accounts for 41.4% of TV viewership (in July 2024), and YouTube has reached 10.4% of total streaming viewership – marking the first time an online platform has crossed the 10% threshold. It shows how powerful the platform is and how brands have to think about creating content differently for the big(ger) screen.
Social media users will surpass linear TV viewers next year
TLDR: Next year, US monthly social network users will reach 236.4 million, exceeding the 228.6 million linear TV viewers, according EMARKETERS 2024 forecast. Digital advertisers could see a migration of linear TV viewers and make a case for reallocating its ad spend to YouTube and social media.
