Instagram Algorithm Hack, TikTok Shopping, and Bluesky
Welcome back to VidCon’s bi-weekly Industry newsletter, where I filter through hundreds of news articles, headlines, and industry thought leaders to bring you the best of what the creator economy has to offer.?
Here’s what we have for you this week;?
Plus, we’re joined by Digital Media OG and COO of the Fixated, Phil Ranta , as he answers our rapid-fire questions.
Let’s get right into it.?
Get More Reach on Instagram
Want to increase your reach on Instagram? According to a short video released by Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri last week, the advice is simple: post more carousels, which now allow up to 20 frames.
??♂? But why are carousels so effective, according to Mosseri?
?Mosseri also said he "highly advises adding music to carousels" as this helps your content get discovered in the Reels tab.
For all social media managers, I’d ‘highly’ recommend following these tips and testing these features. Whenever the CEO of a platform gives advice, it’s usually a good indication of where the company’s priorities lie.?
This video is part of a series of new tips Mosseri is sharing on his personal Instagram handle ‘Mosseri’. Go check them out.
TikTok Doubles Down on TikTok Shopping
With all the drama surrounding TikTok and a potential ban in the US, you wouldn’t blame the platform for laying low and working on its public image. But no, it’s moving full steam ahead, and it looks like live streaming, specifically live shopping — is the market they’re aiming to dominate. A string of recent announcements, including requiring creators to complete a trial session before being accepted into the live program, makes it clear the platform is looking to capitalize on this rapidly growing market.?
An estimated $50 billion was spent on live shopping across the US in 2023, with forecasts showing 36% growth by 2026, according to research by Statista. You can see why TikTok wants a piece of that pie—or more accurately, the whole thing.
And recently unconfirmed rumors were published on Business Insider, suggesting TikTok is looking to take things a step further by helping connect creators directly with manufacturers to help them create custom products for TikTok Shop. If true, this would be huge for creators and a massive win for TikTok, offering a complete end-to-end solution. Creators could source, manufacture, sell, and live-stream products directly within the app.
TikTok has not yet managed to find a sustainable solution to monetize and pay creators on the platform, but could this be their golden ticket? The potential returns would be huge for both creators and the platform.
X’s Loss is Bluesky’s Gain!
X is making headlines again as the platform announced a change to its policy around blocking accounts. To sum it up, X will no longer block users from viewing content; instead, blocked users will only be restricted from interacting with that account. This news has been great for rival platform Bluesky, which saw a spike of over 500K new users joining on the same day X announced the policy change. Yikes!
This isn’t the first time Bluesky has experienced a surge in users thanks to Elon’s platform changes. Back in August, after X lost favor in Brazil and was temporarily banned from the region, Bluesky saw an increase of over 2.5 million users from Brazil alone. Bringing the total to over 3 million users, thanks to X.
So what’s next? With X continuing to make headlines and catching the attention of regulators worldwide, will alternative platforms like Bluesky stick around for the long run, and will they continue to grow? My bet is yes and no. Yes, they’ll continue to grow, but I don’t think we’ll see any major rival competing with X at the same scale and influence any time soon. Especially when you consider Bluesky has around 13 million users compared to X’s 611 million active users.?
?? Rapid-fire questions:?
This week, we asked Phil Ranta our three rapid-fire questions. Phil is a true creator economy OG, digital media expert and COO of Fixated, a next gen media company building an ecosystem fueled by their love for creating games, content and working with ambitious creators and turning them into household names. Let's see what he had to say.
We're at one of the most transformative periods of technology since we were all receiving free AOL discs in the mail, and a lot is about to change in the creator economy quickly. The AI revolution is here. I'm less interested in the idea of mass-producing end-to-end AI content and more interested in how AI will automate more tedious tasks. AI can already capably help creators come up with trend-forward content ideas, thumbnail frames, titles, scripts, "original" music, edits, reformatted content for other platforms, and captions / translations. I'm even more excited about the next steps for AI to improve creators' lives: connecting to ideal brands at scale, bottom-of-funnel attribution for branded content, handling taxes, properly setting up companies, hiring, inbox management, and generally optimized task management. In other words, as a creator economy COO, I'm excited for AI to make me obsolete.
What are the biggest hurdles the creator economy is facing?
A Pew Research survey showed that 57% of internet-using teens create online content. This presents three major issues that we need to content with to continue to professionalize the creator economy: 1. There is so much more content being produced than there is demand to watch and engage with this content. 2. Teens are creating content expecting a certain level of dopamine from views, likes, and comments, but do to the supply/demand issue of content their expectations are often not being met. 3. The content glut, which will be exacerbated by floods of low-quality AI content (often referred to as "Slop"), will require platforms and their algorithms to do a much better job curating content so brands and users will have a positive experience and want to continue investing in the creator economy.
Name one company you think is doing interesting things within the creator economy.
There are dozens of really interesting creator economy companies in market right now, but as I've learned, having a smart idea doesn't ensure success. Execution is key. I think Karat has an interesting position in the market helping creators with financial services including credit cards and taxes. It's an issue most creators don't think about until it's too late. I've met multiple creators who are both millionaires and are far behind on their taxes. I also love all of the companies building a more direct connection between creators and their fans, including newsletters (Beehiiv), fan-funded content (Passes, BrandArmy, FourthWall), and the sales of digital goods (Kajabi). Anything that keeps algorithms out of the creator-fan relationship is powerful.
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See you all in a couple weeks ??
Director of Programming & Industry Spokesperson - VidCon