Will TikTok's "Boost" Get You to Turn Your Phone Sideways?

? 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• TikTok’s been busy!New studios are set to open in LA for live streamingThey launched horizontal videos with boosted views for eligible creatorsTheir music battle with UMG could affect your Grammys content
• CeraVe’s sponsored influencer apology videos are inspired ????
• Charlotte Tilbury punked influencers in a cute plot twist
• “Steal” marketer Qetsiyah Jacobson 's strategy for getting your team on LinkedIn
• Iconic Twitch streamer Pokimane is leaving the platform for YouTube; while Call Her Daddy will no longer be exclusive to Spotify ??
• Pew Survey: US adults top social media platforms are YouTube (83%), Facebook (68%) and Instagram (47%)

?? ROADMAP

?? Meta Updates

• Spotted in the wild: Instagram it testing a preview that allows you to see how photos or carousels will look in your feed before posting. See an example from creator Nadja Bella here.
• Instagram is running ads reminding you it is a search engine.
• The Threads team is working on surfacing Trends, confirmed Instagram head Adam Mosseri
• Threads downloads tripled in December. Technically, this isn’t an update, it’s a reminder to keep Threads on your radar.
• Facebook is removing the ability to use third-party tools to publish or schedule content to Groups. Thoughts and prayers for all the social media managers out there moderating busy groups or multiple groups.?????

?? TikTok Updates

• TikTok is encouraging creators to start posting horizontal videos that are more than a minute long. As an incentive, they’ve messaged select creators that qualified videos will get “boosted views” within 72 hours of posting. (If you’re looking to try it: Here’s a step-by-step tutorial from a creator.)Will this be the next way to go viral on the platform? Maybe. Boosted views are a pretty powerful motivator. But there are at least a couple of obstacles in TikTok’s way that are based on how they themselves have trained their 1 billion users to adapt to the app:1 - The formatting is clunky. Users who want to watch in full screen mode have to tap that selection. And then once the video launches to play in full screen landscape mode, you need to exit out before you can swipe to the next video.?2 - Short-form, vertical, full-screen video was an immersive experience TikTok helped pioneer. And it was so popular with viewers, it led to the creation of competitors Reels and Shorts. It trained a generation of app users to watch and swipe vertically. Getting people to change their behavior — and rotate their phones — is a major shift. It’s not impossible but there needs to be some intrinsic value to watching videos this way and so far we haven’t seen it.?Verdict: Try it out but don’t pivot your entire video strategy just yet.

• TikTok is testing a feature that identifies objects in a video, automatically tags them and points users to a similar item on TikTok Shop — making every video a shoppable one.??
• TikTok is planning to open several Live studios in cities, including LA, where creators can livestream and sell products.

?? YouTube Updates

• YouTube announced several creator updates, including:

1. An improved Research Tab experience on desktop
2. Top community clips that can be curated and highlighted on a channel?
3. Improved playlist analytics
4. Scheduling for Members-Only videos?

?? LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn announced creator tools would soon be available to all profiles.?Starting in February, profile hashtags will be removedIn March, the creator on/off mode switch will be removed?Your About section will move to the top of your profile for better visibilityYou will have the option to choose Connect or Follow as the main CTA on your profile

?? Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest shared tips to optimize your product feed and get in front of more shoppers
• Someone asked me why Pinterest is a Coachella sponsor: Last year, Pinterest searches for “coachella outfit” increased by 156% starting a month prior to the festival through the first weekend! For now, the collab has kicked off with a dedicated mood board.?

???? CLICK THRU

Universal Music Group and Tiktok dispute: Pulling 4 millions songs from platform could be seismic event

It’s Grammys week but instead of focusing on the music, everyone’s talking about Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music company, pulling their catalog from TikTok.?

UMG’s take: TikTok is a bully. And they’re paying artists a fraction of what they deserve. Despite music’s impact on the platform, only 1% of UMG sales come from the platform.?

TikTok’s take: UMG is greedy. The platform is positioning itself as “artists first” for the free promotion and discovery it provides artists and songwriters.

Who will likely lose out: Smaller artists on the label who rely on the TikTok platform to gain visibility for new music — and social media managers or creators who can’t find Taylor Swift or Billie Eilish tracks on the platform come Sunday night during the Grammys.??

?? THIS WEEK ON SOCIAL

???? CeraVe’s Sponsored Apology Videos

By now, you’re probably aware of the CeraVe campaign where the skincare brand partnered with TikTokers and Instagrammers like @HaleyyBaylee to launch a (#paid) rumor that actor Michael Cera was the mastermind behind the brand. Cute but not necessarily a thumb-stopper.

But this campaign’s got layers upon layers!

Casting a quirky influencer or beloved celebrity is one thing. Now, CeraVe’s got creators like Audrey Trullinger and Emira D’Spain posting sponsored apology videos for starting the rumors. An influencer apology video is a very online format (Know Your Meme!) but not one that’s been used as part of a paid partnership before. Clearly, this team is playing chess, not checkers.?

Ad Age predicts the lotion company may cap things off with a corresponding Super Bowl spot.

???? Charlotte Tilbury’s Empty Unboxings

Charlotte Tilbury is another brand relying on creator confusion for their latest campaign to promote the launch of their Hollywood Beauty Icon lipstick. The company sent PR packages to beauty influencers like Mikayla Nogueira, Christie X and Emily Moreno. Only… plot twist!?The lipsticks were missing.?

As far as unexpected twists go, it was a good one. And the creators played along, unboxing empty packages and wondering if this was a mistake, a prank or a sneaky marketing move.?

Then on Tuesday, the Tilbury TikTok account started posting pre-produced whodunnit videos to their account, hinting at a lipstick heist. Which means the creator confusion was likely all a part of a soon-to-be-revealed grand plan.???????

???? Sesame Street’s Trauma Response

Elmo checked in to see how everybody was doing on Twitter (X) and it turns out people are not so good. The tweet had such an impact, brands like Morning Brew, Netflix and Maximum Effort and even the Potus account chimed in on the collective trauma dump (18K replies and 34K+ quote tweets).

The Sesame Street response was perfect. Instead of posting and ghosting after things went sideways, the social team assembled their muppet all-stars (Bert, Ernie, Oscar, etc) like the “mental health avengers” to support everyone’s mental wellbeing.?

??STEAL THIS STRATEGY

Someone, somewhere is doing something smart. Here’s your chance to learn from them. (And if you’ve got an actionable strategy or tactic you think people would benefit from knowing, please let me know here!)

Here’s a strategy to “borrow” for increasing executive output on LinkedIn from Hey Orca marketer Qetsiyah Jacobson. Her efforts with the team led to 778K+ impressions, 1,417 new followers on the company’s LinkedIn page and an increase in brand awareness.

So, I had some questions…

ICYMI: Tell us about getting the team to start posting on LinkedIn, what inspired this and how did you convince them??

Qetsiyah Jacobson: The first brand I saw really utilizing LinkedIn through their employees was Thursday [a dating app] in 2022. Their employee content was everywhere! I found myself following them as well. When I compared how well their business page content was performing versus their employee content a lightbulb went off. I realized people loved hearing from people about brands first and not from the brands themselves.

In terms of bringing Hey Orca on board, I mini-pitched it during my interview. Even created mockups of how our accounts would look and what kind of posts we would make. After my interview I sent them a list of creators I thought they should follow within the marketing space. I made sure to connect with them as well so they could see what I was posting and how much traction it was getting.

When I joined I told them: “Look I’m going to post and continue to build my personal brand. I would love for you to join.” Luckily we have a very open culture where we try things before saying no to them. I helped my team set up their profiles, gave them prompts and helped them optimize their posts for maximum engagement. Their first posts performed really well.?

ICYMI: Do you think brand pages should focus on their own output or amplifying employee content that supports the brand??

QJ: I think there should be a healthy mix of both. Even better when you amplify the voice of your customers, too.?

The reason why we’re able to grow so fast on LinkedIn is because we also post original content alongside amplifying our employees. There’s no guarantee that employees will post about your brand every day. At the end of the day it’s their personal brands and their brand isn’t the company they work for but more so the expertise they have. The company is just where they exercise their expertise.?

ICYMI: What tips do you give a skeptical executive or employee who hasn’t posted previously??

QJ: Step 1: Start yourself and bring in numbers. If you are generating traction to your company’s website use UTM links [to track the traffic] and bring data.

Step 2: Help them get started. When your posts are performing well and an executive is looking to do the same, they will probably ask you for some tips. Help them optimize their profiles and their posts.

Step 3: Hold each other accountable! We started a Slack channel where we would post every time we posted something. At the end of the week we’d share the number of posts we did, how much we grew,? impressions… You don’t want to show up to the meeting empty-handed.

ICYMI: What did a typical weekly schedule look like for everyone??

QJ: I was sending them 3 prompts a week and putting it in their calendars. I would use examples and let them know how they could frame it for themselves. They would send me their posts and I would give them pointers.?

We also have a Slack channel to hold us accountable. And we even ended up making a blog post with the prompts we used to get started.

After a while I didn’t have to do it anymore because they just loved connecting with people and had their own things they wanted to share.

ICYMI: How do you encourage long-term retention of LinkedIn? Any good tactics to keep execs and employees engaged?

QJ: The reason why it works for us is because we understand that there is a collective benefit for the company but it’s also beneficial for the individual as well.?

It’s the personal brand first and the company second. All of the prompts and the posts were not about promoting the company, it was about promoting their expertise and using the company as proof. But because people love following them for their content, they end up discovering the company as well.

ICYMI: You shared the results of having the team post on LinkedIn, was there any one result that surprised you more than others?

QJ: Definitely, the amount of impressions we collectively got in such a short amount of time. That wasn’t a small number at all.

???? CREATOR MOVES

• Amelia Dimoldenberg will be an official Red Carpet Correspondent for the 96th Academy Awards -@AmeliaDimz Twitter
• Iconic streamer Pokimane is leaving Twitch for YouTube -TechCrunch
• Alex Cooper’s ‘Call Her Daddy’ Podcast Is No Longer Exclusive to Spotify -The Hollywood Reporter

?? IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• Scoop: Biden's team weighs joining TikTok to court young voters -Axios
• State of Creators report: 46% of six-figure creators would join a union -Kajabi
• 15+ Newsletters You’ll Want in Your Inbox in 2024 (including this one!!) -Buffer
• 13 innovative AI tools that are changing content creators' (and marketers!) work processes, from ideation to production to editing -Business Insider?
• YouTube executives promise more AI tools for creators -The Information
• Linktree rolled out four time-saving updates for creators -Linktree
• Viral deepfake images on Twitter (X) of Taylor Swift are making people pay attention to content moderation -Passionfruit
• California Senate Bill 764 to protect child content creators from exploitation and abuse just passed the California senate -Senator Steve Padilla
• YouTube and Facebook are by far the most used online platforms among U.S. adults according to a new survey -Pew Research Center
• How Affiliate Links Became Everyone’s Low-Lift Side Hustle -Bustle
• TikTok says it’s important to be funny so the platform’s sharing tips on how to get good at it. Spoiler alert: hire a creator -TikTok

Don’t miss it: Starting Monday, I’ll cohost a season of the The Art of Sway podcast with Danielle Wiley!