This Week in Social and Digital (Week of August 10)
This Week in Social is a weekly digest of some of the biggest stories in social media marketing news. These stories are the show notes for the Brave Ad World Podcast. Each story is discussed at a deeper level on the podcast.
TikTok Creators Fund Gets First Recipients
TikTok’s future is up in the air, but they’re still hustling. With Instagram in full creator recruitment mode for Reels in hopes of recruiting them away from TikTok, TikTok’s giving them a few reasons to stay. $200 million worth of reasons actually.
TikTok’s new Creators Fund has its first group of creator recipients tapping into the fund. The first wave includes 19 content creators with strong following on the TikTok app. This is just the first round of the Creators Fund, which aims to help creators turn TikTok into a livelihood. It’s open to those who are 18 years or older, have at least 10,000 followers, have generated 10,000 video views in the last 30 days and post only original content.
While it’s unclear just how much money each of the 19 creators will get, the message TikTok wants to communicate is clear. TikTok is ready to invest in creators who invest in it. The goal is to increase the fund to $1 billion in three years.
The playbook’s not a new one. After all, YouTube has a Creator Program of its own, but it is one feather in TikTok’s cap as the sharks start to circle. TikTok’s in a tricky spot, and this move couldn’t have been timed any better. Instagram is pushing hard to get creators onto its Reels feature, and with TikTok’s future uncertain, the allure is certainly there.
This move, however, is a commitment by TikTok to invest. Now, it needs to continue operating in the U.S. to follow through on that investment, but its intentions are clearly out there.
TikTok’s Acquisition Prospects Evolve
Last week it seemed Microsoft buying TikTok was all but a done deal, but we’ve learned new things this week that make the future look a bit hazy.
Let’s start with Microsoft. Microsoft acquiring TikTok by September 15 is looking like a very complex proposition—one that may not be able to be done in time. President Trump has said if things can’t be transferred by September 15, then he’ll just ban TikTok outright. But a transition over to Microsoft could take a year or more to separate TikTok from ByteDance completely.
Now, ByteDance has already worked to separate TikTok from its infrastructure, but that’s not a quick job. Some of the server code is shared with other ByteDance products.
The other issue is TikTok’s algorithm, which is designed to keep users watching. Now, Microsoft could get TikTok’s algorithm but may not get the old data. If Microsoft gets the algorithm without the data to inform it, the algorithm doesn’t do Microsoft that much good.
The other development is Microsoft isn’t the only suitor on the table. Twitter is also interested in acquiring TikTok with the financial help of other investors. Because Twitter is much smaller than Microsoft, it may not come with the antitrust concerns in acquiring TikTok that a Microsoft might. While that may be attractive, Twitter couldn’t acquire TikTok alone and would need other investors to close the deal, and Twitter’s not immune to the technical hurdles facing Microsoft either.
The takeaway is that the future of TikTok is far from certain. So many things need to go right for any kind of deal to go through, especially given the context that TikTok is not sold on the idea of being sold. It’s challenging the order by the Trump Administration to be banned or sell to U.S. interests via a lawsuit.
The thick plot just got thicker.
Facebook Bets on Finance
Libra may have come and almost gone, but Facebook’s not done pursuing payments and commerce. Facebook Inc. just launched a new group, Facebook Financial or F2 for short, to integrate payment functionality across the entire Facebook ecosystem. The group will be run by David Marcus, Libra’s co-creator.
The purpose of the initiative is to unify payments across Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, the same way Facebook Inc. has been working to unify messaging across the ecosystem.
Finance is an area Facebook has been wanting to get into for some time. The goal is to ultimately make purchasing on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp easier, which will in turn make it an even more attractive advertising partner. We’ve seen Facebook make a big push to open up storefronts on Instagram. If it can become the store (or at least the mall owner) and the bank, it’s in a very good position.
News Quick Hits
Facebook and Apple are coming to a war of words over the Facebook Gaming app for iOS. The app lets users watch streamers play games, but it was also meant to allow users to play simple HTML5 games as well. Facebook had removed the latter to get approval to the App Store. Apple argued that the primary purpose was to watch streamers, while Facebook argued that gaming was a primary function as well. Microsoft faced a similar issue for its xCloud service. Apple wants games to be submitted individually into its store so it can review them. Services that stream games don’t do that. It seems like old school thinking to me.
Facebook is more infested with QAnon than anyone thought. An internal investigation found that QAnon conspiracy groups have 3 million members. One million of which are spread across 10 massive groups. These groups have run 185 ads, gaining 4 million impressions in the last 30 days. Facebook has taken some steps to limit QAnon groups, including banning one of the biggest ones, but it’s clear that Facebook has dealt with only the tip of a much bigger iceberg.
Facebook has introduced a new feature that allows group administrators to partner with brands to monetize groups more. Currently, 1.4 billion people use Facebook Groups every month, and allowing brands to reach those groups in an authentic way is powerful. These groups are hyper-focused giving brands a whole new way to reach audiences who have raised their hands around a particular passion.
Facebook is planning to remove US news publishers who show connections to political groups from its News tab. This restricts outlets owned by political entities, led by political people or are associated with political organizations. These outlets will not be included in the News tab, but they can still run paid ads on the platform.
Twitch Prime has been rebranded to Prime Gaming to make the program appeal to a broader audience who does not have Twitch accounts. All of the benefits of Twitch Prime remain. The only big change is users no longer need Twitch ID’s to access it. Amazon wants to move its Prime members to Twitch, so by removing the Twitch branding, it makes Prime Gaming look like just another Amazon Prime benefit.
Twitter is rolling out its reply-limiting feature to all users. The feature gives users greater control over who can engage with their tweets. Before sending a tweet users can allow everyone to reply by default, select only people the user follows or select only people mentioned in the tweet. Users who can’t reply are still able to retweet, comment, share or like.
Apple’s made an update to iOS and MacOS BigSur that redirects Apple News+ users to the Apple News+ app instead of a participating publisher’s website when they browse to an article. The feature can be disabled, but publishers are understandably upset that Apple would redirect traffic from their websites to its app.
There’s little evidence backing up the directive that TikTok should be banned in the United States, but a new story doesn’t do it any favors. It revealed that TikTok’s Android app was collecting MAC addresses for 18 months, despite platform rules banning such a practice. The address can be used to identify devices, which is typically used for ad targeting. The practice was banned in November just as heat on TikTok was starting to pick up.
Facebook wasn’t the only one taking on Apple and its policies on gaming. Fortnite implemented a direct payments feature into its iOS app, which violates Apple’s in-app purchase system. That system allows Apple to take 30% of every purchase. Once Fortnite circumvented Apple, Apple removed it from the App Store. Coming out of last week’s antitrust hearing, it appears more services are willing to challenge Apple’s policies.