Social Media Portal: #ByeByeBirdie

For months and months and months, this space and many others have exhaustively debated about the possible death of the internet's most raucous town square. Well, its own fearless leader has unceremoniously hammered the final nail into the blue bird app's coffin for us.?RIP, Twitter.?Hello, X? Positioning one letter that he has held near and dear to his heart?for decades?as the new?end all, be all?symbol of his $44 billion investment, Elon Musk has flushed 17 years of?brand value building?right down the toilet. Tweeting was so firmly entrenched in the cultural zeitgeist that it became synonymous with the action of posting on social media. No longer.??

Musk's endgame? Never totally clear. An "everything app" that combines Twitter + Substack + YouTube + PayPal + Amazon + TikTok + WeChat + Baidu all rolled into one moneyless marketplace for content creators has been?speculated. As always, time will tell. However, If recent history has taught us anything, it's that the self-proclaimed Chief Twit wants very little to do with the platform he purchased as it was originally designed. We've spilled enough ink on?verification subscriptions,?state-affiliated?+?government funded media labels,?unchecked hate speech?and?rate limits. And, very candidly, we've spilled enough ink on Musk IMHO.???

And in the first two paragraphs of this newsletter, we've already committed a cardinal sin that we've frequently advised against when mapping out a strategic approach to navigating Twitter in 2023: putting HEADLINES > AUDIENCE. ?? Resurfacing a handful of our recommendations from earlier in the year that have aged like a fine wine:?

• Give your Twitter audience every opportunity to follow you in other ways.

Enable a subscribe button for your email newsletter to your tweet

Put a newsletter subscribe button as your "link in bio"

Pin a Tweet to your timeline that links to other places people can follow you (NPR is a good example)?

• Do not delete your account. People or bots could take your handle and it will be very difficult to recover it.
• Do a "Twitter reset." This is a great opportunity to evaluate the diversity of your brand's social media platform mix and assess how effectively you're reaching your target audience(s).?The audience opportunity on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, and LinkedIn is bigger than that of Twitter's, so do a level-set of how much time you're spending on Twitter versus audience development on other platforms.
• Another important step in protecting yourself and your brand's history is to?download your official account archives. This data archive will include a list of all your followers. We recommend you do this ASAP in case there is a "run" on data downloads now or in the future.
• Contemplating establishing a presence on an emerging social media platform — Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads? Consider that option versus spending that time on the platforms where you are already invested. Building a substantial following from scratch can be one of the most challenging undertakings on social. If a previously-untapped platform has the potential to fold into your day-to-day strategy mix, reserving or "squatting" on a handle is encouraged, especially if you're affiliated with a high-profile production unit. Set a reminder for yourself to delete the account if the platform still hasn't become one that you regularly invest time and resources into after six months.

AUDIENCE > HEADLINES?

AUDIENCE?> HEADLINES?

AUDIENCE > HEADLINES?

On to the headlines…

Social Media Headlines

• Twitter is dead and buried at the age of 17. (CNN)
• Read newly-hired?Twitter?X CEO Linda Yaccarino’s memo to colleagues about the rebrand. (CNBC)
• Twitter → X rea(X):

The force is NOT with the X according to Luke Skywalker. (Mark Hamill)

Twitter will always be Twitter in the eyes of one bestselling horror fiction writer. (Stephen King)

The 24th letter of the Latin alphabet eventually held a press conference. (Sesame Street)

• Brand Finance estimates the Twitter brand has lost 32% of its brand value since last year. (MSN)
• After hitting a record-breaking 100 million downloads in its first five days, Threads has cooled off… considerably. The number of active users has dropped to only 13 million — a 70% decrease since launch. The amount of time users are spending on the app is down from 19 minutes per user to 4 minutes per user. (Wall Street Journal)
• Don't dance on Threads' grave just yet. It’s far too early to tell whether the app will be a Twitter killer, a mid-level success or an outright flop. (TechCrunch)
• Mark Zuckerberg's roadmap for Threads: Build the product, get to 1 billion users and then monetize. (NBC News)
• Lawsuits, lawsuits, and more lawsuits… Elon Musk is being sued for $500 million for allegedly not paying the full amount of severance he had promised to former Twitter employees who were laid off following his acquisition of the company last year. (CNN)
• Twitter is threatening legal action against Meta for "systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property" in the creation of Threads. Worth noting: U.S. copyright law does not protect ideas, so for Twitter to be successful in court it would have to prove that its own intellectual property, such as programming code, was taken. (BBC News)
• Right back at ya! Companies including (but not limited to) Meta and Microsoft already have intellectual property rights to the letter X. Trademark attorney Josh Gerben said he counted nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that already cover the letter X in a wide range of industries. "There's a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody.” (Reuters)

July's Biggest Platform Updates

• Threads is gradually rolling out a chronological feed of accounts you follow?—?one of the most requested features post-launch. Users will need to be on the latest version of the Threads app to get access to the 'Following' feed. (TechCrunch)
• Threads is implementing rate limits to combat bots… but it's not limiting the number of posts users can view. (Mashable)
• TwitterTok is here. (NPR)
• TikTok now allows users to add up to 4,000 characters in the video description. Previous limit: 2,200 characters. (Social Barrel)
• TikTok has introduced exclusive Subscriber-Only Videos to its TikTok Live Subscription package. (TikTok)
• In its latest eCommerce experiment meant to prompt more purchase behavior, TikTok has integrated a new 'Shop' tab alongside the 'Following' and 'For You' tabs for some users. (Social Media Today)
• So long, TikTok Now. We hardly knew ye. The BeReal clone is being shuttered less than a year after coming to the app’s bottom navigation bar. (AP News)
• Instagram users can now collaborate with up to three other accounts on any Reel or feed post. All collaborative partners are able to access organic insights, including view counts, like counts, etc. (Social Media Today)
• Add a song (and a vibe) to your Instagram note. (Mashable)?
• Meta is rebranding the Facebook "Watch" tab to "Video," which will now include all visual content from Reels to long-form content and live videos. (TechCrunch)?
• Twitter Blue verified subscribers can now download videos uploaded by other Twitter Blue verified subscribers, unless the poster has specifically opted out. (The Verge)
• Twitter Blue verified subscribers can now add their greatest hits to a separate Highlights tab on their profile. (Twitter Blue)
• Twitch is letting third parties sell their favorite products live on stream. (Tubefilter)
• Launching in October, Twitch's new "Partner Plus" program will allow streamers to take a 70/30 split of their subscription revenue?—?up to the first $100,000 brought in each year. (The Verge)
• LinkedIn recently tweaked its algorithm to prioritize showing you posts from people you already know and content that shares "knowledge and advice." (PR Daily)??

Best Practices

• Just because the Twitter bird has been X’d out, doesn’t mean you need to take a red pen to your brand or organization’s strategy on the rebranded platform. (Future Social)
• Actually engage with your audience. Less than a month into its Threads era, Converse has nearly half a million followers. Instead of using the new space to talk about product launches or run campaigns, the shoe brand’s social media team is jumping in on cultural moments using a conversational and humorous brand voice that is all about driving audience interaction. (Adweek)
• Don’t think algorithm — think audience. A laundry list of Insider insights for creating better-performing content on YouTube. YouTube Director of Growth and Discovery Todd Beaupré: “Instead of ‘How can I make sure the algorithm finds this video?’ ask, ‘How can I make sure my audience finds this video?’” (Buffer)?
• Become BFFs with your legal team. A Q&A with Rob Freund, a lawyer focused on advertising compliance issues, on the risks associated with using trending audio, getting proper clearance for UGC, how much a social media manager is personally exposed for a brand account post that has copyright and publicity rights issues, and much more. (Link in Bio)
• Meta recently released a “Reels Creative Mini-Manual,” a new 7-page guide outlining a range of tips for advertisers on how to improve their Instagram and Facebook Reels, and tap into key usage trends and behaviors. (Nicole Mezzsalma) TL;DR:
• Reels ads with a human presence in the creative (such as a face, person or child) had a 27% higher CTR than those that did not.
• Use both text and voiceover to strengthen key brand and product takeaways. Text stickers are also a great way to make sure that you land a strong call to action at the end of your Reel.?
• Nail the hook: the first few seconds are crucial to ensure the success of a Reel ad.
• Over 80% of Instagram Reels are viewed with sound on, so think about it carefully!

Research & Reports

• The top 100 news and media sites saw a 53% drop in organic referrals from social media over the past three years. That decline is largely attributable to Facebook's pullback from news. And the growth in news consumption on vertical video platforms like TikTok and Instagram has not grown fast enough to offset the reduction in news consumption on Facebook globally. (Axios)
• The idea that social media platforms are largely responsible for political polarization has been accepted as a proven fact by many lawmakers, activists, and regulators. But four newly-published studies examining the algorithms that power both Facebook and Instagram complicate that narrative. (New York Times)
• Without much transparency from Meta, an apparent shift in Facebook's algorithm caused a dramatic drop in traffic to news and media websites in May. (Gizmodo)
• U.K. communication watchdog Ofcom found that TikTok has become the most popular news source for 12 to 15-year-olds, followed by YouTube and Instagram. (The Guardian)
• More than 2 billion logged-in monthly users are watching YouTube Shorts, giving it an edge over competitors like TikTok and Instagram Reels. This number is up 33% from last year. (TechCrunch)
• A February 2023 Jungle Scout survey found that Gen Z adults are significantly more likely than adults overall to start online product searches on TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram. (Insider Intelligence)

Read, Watch, Listen

• ?? The Threads strategy for entertainment and lifestyle publishers: TBD. (Digiday)
• ?? Despite Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri being vocal about Meta's disinterest in emphasizing hard news and political content on Threads, outfits like The Washington Post, CBS News and Vice News aren't shying away from testing those waters to see if their audiences have an appetite for it. (Digiday)?
• ?? The never-ending sprint to understand and develop strategic approaches to emerging text-based Twitter competitors — Threads, Bluesky, Spill, Mastodon — Is taking its toll on social media managers. (Digiday)
• ?? As Google+ shows, bigness alone is no guarantee of winning the fickle and faddish social media market. (New York Times)
• ?? When it comes to major breaking news, Twitter is no longer the go-to source it used to be. (Poynter)
• ?? The real winner in Twitter's erosion as the global town square? TikTok. (Washington Post)
• ?? From restaurant tips to job leads, Tiktok has become the new Google for some Gen Z'ers. (Boston Globe)
• ?? TikTok's fickle AI-driven algorithm is leading to burnout for content creators whose viability depends more on sustained community building and less on virality. (Bloomberg)
• ?? On June 13, TikToker Austin Frazier consumed a?Grimace Shake?and pretended to pass out after regurgitating its purple berry-flavored contents. The "Grimace Shake Trend" has now amassed more than 3 billion views on TikTok in large part due to McDonald’s social media team both acknowledging and, more importantly, embracing the darkly humorous online trend. (Today)??
• ?? Why Elon's acquisition feels more and more like cultural vandalism and what, if anything, will replace the global town square. (Hard Fork)

"The more optimistic framing of what's happening at Threads is they launched a bare-bones copycat of Twitter. There was so much demand for something like Twitter in the world that they got 100 million users within a few days. And now, they have to do the hard work of building out the rest of the features. And so the game is, how quickly can they ship the features that will not just make it what Twitter used to be, but actually better than what Twitter ever was?"

—Casey Newton, Platformer?