Sport x Creator Collabs Were Everywhere This Week

? 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• CapCut rolled out a free Canva dupe this week
• Instagram is testing polls in the Comments section
• TikTok launched TikTok Shop in the US
• Report: 97% of marketers use influencer content outside of organic influencer posts

?? ROADMAP

?? ByteDance Updates?

• TikTok rolled out TikTok Shop in the US with shoppable videos, LIVE streams and a Shop tab that allow merchants and creators to sell directly through shoppable content on the app plus an affiliate program for creator commissions.Clearly, there’s an audience for this content: 70B views of the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt can’t be wrong.?But as sales pitches start to outnumber FYP’s just-for-fun videos that made TikTok so compelling, will audiences tune out? There’s also the issue of negative reviews on a lot of the cheap Shop items and counterfeit knockoffs for sale. Sure, Gen Z might not care but Natalie Portman’s reps might not be happy to see her featured on a sales page for Sultán de Hálem Gold Perfume Oil. TikTok may have cracked the code on “shop-ertainment” but the worst thing that could happen is TikTok becomes a second-rate Amazon and a shadow of a social platform. It’s really too early to tell if we’re on the cusp of the biggest e-commerce disruption or the beginning of the end for TikTok.??
• TikTok partnered with Billboard to launch the TikTok Billboard Top 50 Chart, ranking the most popular songs on the platform in the US. According to TikTok, the chart is based on a combination of creations, video views, and user engagement by the US TikTok community, and will be released weekly on Thursdays, versus Billboard’s Hot 100 chart which is ranked by sales, streams and radio play.?
• TikTok quietly partnered with Wikipedia to add snippets of information about people, places and events. The results are visible as users scroll down through in-app search results and is sandwiched between relevant videos.?
• CapCut is coming after Canva. The TikTok video editing tool just rolled out a graphics editor dupe that can create platform-friendly graphics for TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Twitch. It's not quite at Canva's level yet but since the entire desktop site is free — and creators often credit CapCut as the best social video editing tool — their graphics editor might become a worthy competitor.

?? LinkedIn Updates?

• LinkedIn added a branded content portal so you can search for all posts creators have marked as sponsored partnerships.

?? Meta Updates?

• A lot of small updates were spotted on Instagram this week but, without much in terms of official confirmation, it’s hard to tell if these are limited beta tests or features we can all look forward to:Polls in the Comments section of Feed posts (as spotted by Vivian Kaye on Tiffany M. Battle’s post from NYFW). This would be huge for driving engagement within the feed, building on last week’s move to allow Close Friends sharing options in the feed. You might prefer DMs and Stories but Meta wants your focus back on the feed!??Custom sharing options for Feed posts, similar to the option you have to share Reels to its own tab versus the Feed. A rep for Instagram said this is an internal prototype and not being tested externally.The ability to select which audience can see the Likes you’ve made on posts and Reels. As of right now, you can only turn Likes on or off.
• Instagram announced a new “following” option on the Reels tab so you can limit the Reels you see to those from accounts you actually follow.
• Threads rolled out a couple of updates where you can now follow a conversation without following an account by turning on notifications for 24 hours and you can now quote other Threads posts from desktop.

???? CLICK THRU

?? Creators Are Taking Over Sports and Vice Versa

There were so many sports-meet-creators headlines this week, it’s impossible to single out just one. The overlap demonstrates how blurred the lines have become between social and TV, athletes and creators and what fans will turn up to watch — from full games to social highlights.

• An Esports league hired MrBeast to promote the Creator League, which brought a ton of attention. Only he wasn’t actually involved in the league and also didn’t disclose a possible NFT/crypto component to people who bought passes and the whole thing imploded.?
• MrBeast did participate in a soccer match alongside KSI, Kai Cenat and other YouTube Allstars for the Sidemen’s Charity Match in London. More than 60K spectators attended the game while another 2M watched online, raising $3M for charity.????
• Football player turned sports creator Pat McAfee is swapping YouTube for ESPN. The sports network reportedly signed a five-year, $85M deal for “The Pat McAfee Show.”
• Meanwhile, YouTube is working with the NFL on a new series called Creator of the Week that will give major creators VIP access to stadiums this football season so they can film exclusive video. It’s part of a previously announced $14B deal for the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket, that lets superfans watch games not being shown on their local Fox and CBS stations.
• The NFL also launched its own Access Pass Program, giving select creators access to officially approved footage to craft their own original content.?Creators can upload NFL’s licensed footage to YouTube for the opportunity to monetize their videos.

?? Influencer Content Is Everywhere

More brands are using influencer content in more places, according to Linqia 's new 2023 State of Influencer Marketing report. If you’ve been paying attention, I’m a big proponent of incorporating influencers in more ways than just another sponsored social post and it seems like enterprise brand and agency marketers agree.?

Around 97% of survey respondents reported using influencer content outside of organic influencer posts, with paid social and owned social being the top channels, followed by website, email, display, CTV, and OOH.?

“The last five years was the evolution of influencer marketing to move beyond organic social to paid social,” said Keith Bendes VP of strategy and marketing at Linqia. “The next five is going to be going beyond social.”?

Working with an influencer on an integrated campaign gives the partnership a big credibility boost — consumers can clearly see the alignment goes deeper than a one-and-done social post —? but there are also added benefits to thinking beyond influencer endorsement posts. Consider the cost efficiency and media effectiveness, said Bendes.

“You truly do need to create content at unbelievable speeds these days… and it's expensive as a marketer. So the idea is, ‘Hey, I'm already doing this thing over here. And I've already gotten the rights to the content…’ It's just very cost efficient to then pivot it and move it to these other places,” elaborated Bendes.

“The second one, which most brands have learned over the recent period, is that they're running business as usual content versus creator content, and they're finding creator content does significantly better in most cases than BAU (business as usual) content… You talk to any TikTok or Meta rep, they're gonna beg you to incorporate creator content into your media buys because if your CPAs and CPCs and CPMs are better, you'll invest more media with them.”??

If the thought of relinquishing all control to influencers is a tough sell, think of it as a collaboration, blending BAU and creator content, not replacing one entirely with the other.

?? Influencer Marketing In a Nutshell

Here’s the influencer marketing industry described in a three-headline Mad Libs that should make you feel confident as a creator or influencer marketing agency:

The… “global influencer marketing spend is expected to hit $34 Billion in 2023” (AdAge). In fact… “influencer marketing spend has been more resilient than social ad spend” (Insider Intelligence). Really… “the only thing which has failed about the ‘Creator Economy’ thus far is venture capital’s attempts to get their piece… there’s never been a better time to be a creator” (Hunter Walk).

?? WORTH READING

• TikTok is quietly paying a small army of creator coaches to help influencers make money from livestreams -Business Insider (paywall)
• The food industry pays ‘influencer’ dietitians to shape your eating habits -The Washington Post
• Threads blocks searches related to covid and vaccines as cases rise -The Washington Post
• That’s not a typo: 118 new emoji are headed this way -Unicode
• Nine Wild details from the new Elon Musk biography -The Verge
• Brand loyalty ranking—Mattel surges while Twitter falls after X rebrand -AdAge (paywall)
• How Cerave's Influencer Event Doubled As An Enormous Content Studio -AdAge
• I don’t have an odd trends section but if I did, this Roman Empire business would be part of it.

Thanks for reading!