Social Scoop Unplugged #2
This Week’s Must-Know Updates in Social Media: YouTube Affiliate Shopping Boost, TikTok AI Voice Feature, Instagram Updates & More
Get ready to dive into the latest and greatest updates from your favourite social media platforms. We’re unpacking exciting developments that could revolutionise how you engage online. This week, we're looking at YouTube’s venture into affiliate shopping, TikTok’s new AI voice features for a personal touch on your videos, Instagram's fresh creative tools to jazz up your posts, plus updates from Threads and X to enhance your analytics game.
YouTube’s Bold Leap into Affiliate Shopping: Boost Your Earnings with This New Strategy
Threads’ Media Tab Makeover: All Your Photos and Videos, Neatly Organised
X’s (Formerly Twitter) Analytics Upgrade: Track Trends Like a Pro!
TikTok’s New AI Voice Feature: Give Your Videos a Personal Twist with Robo-Narration!
Instagram’s New Collage-Making Feature: A Sneak Peek at Your Next Favourite Update
Instagram’s Creative Update: Fresh Fonts, Text Animations, and Stickers
Instagram Adds Reply Option to Broadcast Channels: What You Need to Know
TikTok’s 2024 Holiday Marketing Guide: Essential Tips for Your Festive Strategy
YouTube’s Bold Leap into Affiliate Shopping: Boost Your Earnings with This New Strategy
YouTube is making a splash in the affiliate shopping arena with a bold new strategy, taking notes from TikTok and partnering with Shopify to elevate its game. If you’ve ever imagined turning your viral hits into a steady income stream, this could be your chance to shine.
YouTube vs. TikTok Shop: The Showdown You’ve Been Waiting For
TikTok Shop has long been a favourite for snapping up the latest viral products, but YouTube is now stepping up to the plate. This week, YouTube unveiled a major enhancement to its affiliate shopping program, thanks to a fresh partnership with Shopify. This upgrade promises to turbocharge YouTube’s shopping experience, offering creators even more ways to earn from the products they feature.
What’s New in YouTube Shopping?
Expanded Brand Selection: The affiliate program now boasts thousands of brands, up from just a few hundred, offering creators a broader array of opportunities to monetise their content.
Chrome Extension Buzz: The new Chrome extension simplifies the process of tagging products from brand sites, making content creation smoother and boosting your affiliate earnings.
Why This Matters for Your Business
With TikTok aiming to rake in $17.5 billion in U.S. revenue this year, YouTube’s timely push into affiliate shopping is set to keep your brand front and centre. Last year, viewers clocked over 30 billion hours on shopping-related content on YouTube, with a 25% increase in watch time. These new affiliate features are crafted to keep creators and brands engaged, making this the perfect moment to harness these updates and elevate your marketing strategy.
Threads’ Media Tab Makeover: All Your Photos and Videos, Neatly Organised
Meta’s Threads is rolling out a sleek update that’s set to transform your scrolling experience. The app’s new “media tab” on user profiles is here to bring all your photos and videos into one tidy space. Think of it as your personal mini-gallery within the app, making it easier than ever to browse visual content.
What’s Fresh in Threads?
The newly introduced media tab is designed to give your visual content its own dedicated spotlight on user profiles. This means when you check out someone’s profile, you can now seamlessly switch between text posts and media without having to wade through endless text to find those standout photos and videos.
Here’s why the media tab is a total game-changer:
Purpose: It neatly arranges all the photos and videos a user has posted, so you can easily find and enjoy their visual gems.
Improved Sorting: You can now quickly spot the difference between text and media posts at a glance, allowing you to focus on what catches your eye the most.
Accessibility: This feature provides quick access to visual content, saving you from scrolling through text-heavy posts to find those standout images and clips.
User Impact: Followers will love the more organised view of a user’s content history, making it simpler to browse through their posts and enjoy their media.
Early reactions to the media tab are overwhelmingly positive, with many users appreciating the streamlined access to visual content. Some have suggested that a longer editing window after posting would be a nice touch, but overall, the media tab is hitting the mark in enhancing the user experience.
Plus, Threads now lets users tag Broadcast channels in posts, adding another layer of connectivity and engagement to the mix. So, if you’re a fan of visual storytelling, this update is definitely worth checking out!
X’s (Formerly Twitter) Analytics Upgrade: Track Trends Like a Pro!
X is stepping up its analytics game, and if you’re a premium subscriber, get ready to be blown away by the new tools designed to keep you ahead of the curve. With fresh features like keyword tracking and conversation velocity, you’ll be spotting trends faster than you can say “viral content!”
New Features to Explore:
Keyword Insights: Track trending keywords and topics over time, helping you stay on top of what’s buzzing in your industry.
Conversation Velocity: Measure how interest in specific terms fluctuates, giving you a better sense of when to time your posts for maximum impact.
These tools are a game-changer for organisations that thrive on analytics for strategic moves. What once required high-end tools like Bloomberg Terminal is now available at a fraction of the cost with X’s latest upgrade—though keep in mind, Verified Organizations do come with a price tag: $200 per month for the basics and $1,000 per month for the full suite.
Elon Musk’s stint at X has had its highs and lows, but this analytics upgrade might just be the crown jewel. Despite some staff cuts and controversial changes, this new suite of tools could be the standout move you’ve been waiting for!
TikTok’s New AI Voice Feature: Give Your Videos a Personal Twist with Robo-Narration!
Tired of the same ol’ robotic voices narrating your TikTok videos? TikTok’s latest feature might be your new BFF. The app now lets you create an AI simulation of your own voice for voice-overs, adding a personal touch without the hassle of recording each video manually.
What’s the Scoop on This New Feature?
Here’s the 411 on TikTok’s fresh offering:
Create Your Own AI Voice: Head to the video voice-over settings, select “Create Your Own AI Voice,” record a sample, and voilà—TikTok will whip up a digital version of your voice. Plus, you can translate this voice-over into different languages, so your content can reach a global audience while giving your vocal cords a well-earned break.
ByteDance’s Innovation: This nifty feature springs from ByteDance’s latest AI wizardry, including their “StreamVoice” system, which replicates voices with impressive accuracy. While it’s an exciting upgrade, it does stir up some concerns about potential misuse for deep fakes and hoaxes.
Ethical debates aside, this feature is a cool addition for TikTokers looking to spice up their content with AI-generated voices.
But here’s the big question: do we really need AI versions of ourselves? With Meta also dabbling in AI chatbots, it seems like social platforms are on a mission to “solve” problems we didn’t even know we had!
Instagram’s New Collage-Making Feature: A Sneak Peek at Your Next Favourite Update
Instagram is testing an exciting new feature that’s poised to elevate the way we share our favourite moments. The platform is rolling out a “Collages” feature, allowing users to create stylish collages from images in their Camera Roll and share them directly within Instagram chats. This means no more juggling third-party apps or complex editing tools—just a seamless way to showcase multiple photos in one eye-catching frame.
What to Expect:
Generative AI for Collages: Instagram is using AI to automatically arrange your photos into visually appealing collages.
Streamlined Sharing: No need for third-party apps—create and share collages directly within Instagram.
Enhanced Visual Storytelling: Perfect for sharing multiple moments in a single, cohesive post.
The new collage feature could make sharing multiple images in a single post much simpler and more engaging. Whether grouping holiday snaps, DIY projects, or inspirational quotes, this feature provides a streamlined way to present diverse content without overwhelming followers with separate posts.
While the feature isn’t yet widely available, anticipation is building. As Instagram continues to refine and roll out this update, it has the potential to become a popular tool for enhancing visual storytelling on the platform. Stay tuned for further details as more information becomes available.
Instagram’s Creative Update: Fresh Fonts, Text Animations, and Stickers
Instagram has recently rolled out a delightful set of creative tools designed to bring a fresh new look to your Reels and Stories. If you’ve been scrolling through your feed lately, you’ve probably noticed the exciting new fonts popping up on Stories. Instagram’s latest updates promise to take your content to the next level with enhanced text and sticker options.
What’s Fresh on Instagram?
Here’s a snapshot of the new features:
New Fonts: If you’ve seen some eye-catching fonts on Stories recently, you’re not imagining things. Instagram has introduced a range of new text fonts that can make your Stories and Reels stand out even more. Adding text has been streamlined—just open the text tool, select your favourite font, and you can now animate or apply effects to your text with ease.
Text Animations: Ready to make your text dance? Instagram’s new text animations let you add a bit of movement to your words, making your updates not just eye-catching but downright irresistible. Whether you’re sharing news or just having some fun, these animations will give your text the pizzazz it deserves.
Stickers for Photos and Carousels: Stickers are now your BFF for both single photos and carousel posts. This means you can jazz up your visuals with a variety of stickers, turning your content into something even more engaging and playful. From quirky stickers to helpful tags, there’s plenty of room to get creative.
These updates show Instagram’s commitment to staying ahead of the game and keeping things fresh. As TikTok’s future in the U.S. hangs in the balance, Instagram is stepping up as the go-to platform for creative fun. With these new tools, your posts are about to get a serious upgrade. So, get ready to explore and turn your content into something truly spectacular.
Instagram Adds Reply Option to Broadcast Channels: What You Need to Know
As the leaves start to turn, Pinterest has unveiled its Autumn 2024 Trend Report, giving us a sneak peek into the styles, shades, and Instagram is shaking things up with its Broadcast Channels! These channels, once purely for broadcasting updates, are now becoming more interactive.
What’s New?
If you’ve been keeping an eye on the latest updates, you might have noticed a new feature: Instagram is now allowing some Broadcast Channel creators to enable reply options within their channels. This means subscribers can now drop comments directly in the channel. While this isn’t a group chat where everyone sees each other’s messages, it does introduce a new layer of interaction.
What Does This Mean for Your Business?
So, what does this change mean for you? Replies won’t clutter the main channel feed; instead, they’re tucked away in a thread that users can tap to view. The main channel remains a one-way stream of updates from the channel admin, giving brands and influencers a new way to engage with their audience while keeping the main feed streamlined and focused.
Why Instagram is Focusing on DMs
Instagram’s recent focus on DMs for interaction fits perfectly with this update. With so much conversation happening in private messages, it makes sense for Instagram to enhance engagement in this space. This new feature allows fans to discuss specific updates without jumping to another forum or chat group, creating a more integrated experience.
The Benefits of this Update
On the surface, having replies hidden in threads might seem a bit unconventional, but it’s actually a smart extension of the broadcast format. It allows for topical discussions and fan engagement within the Broadcast Channel without disrupting the main content stream. This approach keeps your primary messaging clear while providing a space for deeper interaction.
The Bigger Picture
Instagram has noticed a surge in DM interactions compared to the main feed. With about 50% of what users see now coming from AI recommendations rather than their actual followers, it’s clear why Instagram is doubling down on maintaining those social connections. By integrating more interactive features into DMs and Stories, Instagram aims to keep the social aspect alive even as the main feed becomes more focused on AI-driven content.
Instagram is trying to offer the best of both worlds—combining the engaging, algorithm-driven content we see on TikTok with a more personal, social experience in DMs. This approach is reflected in their recent additions, like new options for Notes and Story comments, all designed to spark more conversations around the content you love.
TikTok’s 2024 Holiday Marketing Guide: Essential Tips for Your Festive Strategy
Planning to include TikTok in your holiday marketing strategy this year? You’re in luck—TikTok has just released a new guide tailored for the EU market, packed with tips, insights, and data to help you refine your strategy and make the most of the festive season.
What’s New in the Guide?
The full 18-page guide is available for download with an email sign-up, but here are some key highlights to get you started. The guide kicks off by exploring holiday shopping patterns, pinpointing the peak times when TikTok users are most engaged in searching for seasonal inspiration.
Timing is Everything
Understanding these timing insights is crucial for planning your outreach, ensuring your message resonates when your audience is most receptive and aligned with the holiday spirit. The guide provides detailed insights into when people start looking for Christmas gift ideas and how they interact with TikTok during the festive season.
Top Trends to Watch
TikTok’s guide also reveals the top gift trends among its users this season. This insight will help you tailor your marketing approach to align with current interests, making your campaigns more impactful and relevant. Staying on top of these trends is key to capturing your audience’s attention and driving engagement during this competitive time.
Planning Your Holiday Strategy
Additionally, the guide offers a comprehensive framework for crafting your holiday marketing plan, including a focus on “Q5”—the post-Christmas period when many consumers are on the hunt for deals and personal treats. This is a crucial time to continue your marketing efforts and tap into ongoing consumer interest.
Ready to Get Started?
With just over 100 days until Christmas, now is the perfect time to refine your marketing strategy. Make sure your end-of-year campaigns are primed to stand out and deliver exceptional results for your business.
You can download TikTok’s “Holidays for You” 2024 guide here.
That wraps up this week’s Social Scoop Unplugged! 🚀 Remember, the world of social media never stops evolving, and neither should your strategy. Stay curious, keep experimenting, and don’t forget to adapt to these exciting updates as they unfold.
Found these insights useful? Share the love with your network, or hit me up with your thoughts - I’d love to hear how you’re planning to use these new features! Until next time, keep shining and stay ahead of the game!