This Week in Social and Digital (Week of March 15)
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.
Clubhouse Invests in Creators
Clubhouse sees its moment, and it's working to seize it with the launch of its new "Creator First" accelerator program. The program offers support of $5,000 per month in income as well as assistance in creative development, marketing and monetization for 20 selected content creators.
Competitors like Facebook's upcoming service and Twitter Spaces are out to seize some of the usage and engagement Clubhouse has hit the market with, so Clubhouse is quickly working to shore-up some of its best creators. It's a short-term play for attention and a long-term play for sustainability.
Clubhouse is getting ahead of competitors as much as it can to sustain the buzz it's already generated. We can be sure talent is what's going to attract the users, and Clubhouse is making the play now.
TikTok Personalizes Ads
TikTok has announced plans to start personalizing ads based on in-app activity starting on April 15. The capability will rollout globally with the EU being the exception.
Ad personalization allows TikTok to reach better parity with other social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. While it's a move to make TikTok more attractive by meeting advertiser social targeting expectations, it also separates TikTok from the pack of competitive products like Triller.
The introduction of such capabilities couldn't be better timed. Advertiser interest in TikTok is as high as it's ever been because of the creative, audience and trendiness of the app. Adding new capabilities that deliver on targeting as well as those more creatively-driven factors allow TikTok to build a deeper connection with advertisers as they test the platform--assuming it delivers.
Chinese Developers Challenge Apple's IDFA Policy
Apple's update to iOS that allows users to opt out of IDFA tracking has been big news in the digital advertising arena because it will allow users to opt out of ad tracking within apps. Chinese developers Tencent and ByteDance (the owner of TikTok), however, are testing a mobile identifier of their own called CAID.
CAID would circumvent Apple and allow the developers to continue tracking users even if they opt out of sharing their IDFA data. Now, CAID doesn't work exactly the same as IDFA in that it won't uniquely identify users, but it does do device fingerprinting to create profiles of users, violating Apple policies.
Facebook and many platforms have been vocal about their opposition to Apple's new policies, and while they're implementing ways to encourage users to share their information, they aren't actively working around them.
This puts Apple in a precarious situation. It now needs to confront these Chinese Developers--something Apple has not been good at in the past or risk having a policy with a massive loophole.
News Quick Hits
Google's publisher-provided identifier (PPID) has been used by publishers to create IDs for their own users and share them with advertisers for managing their ad campaigns. Now, Google is expanding PPID to allow publishers to sell ads based on their PPID data on an open exchange. It's an olive branch to publishers to keep them engrained in the Google ad ecosystem.
Instagram is improving user safety with a new policy that restricts adults from direct messaging teens who don't follow them. Instagram will also display a "safety prompt" when a DM is exhibiting suspicious behavior.
Wikipedia has launched Wikipedia Enterprise, a commercial product designed to sell Wikipedia content to to other platforms. Specifically, Enterprise may get other platforms like Google and Facebook, which regularly display Wikipedia content, to pay for that content. The move is a significant shift for Wikipedia as it looks to generate revenue from its content, especially from big tech platforms that have profited from leveraging that content.
Snap acquired Fit Analytics, a German company that uses machine learning and data provided by customers to match them up with clothing that fits them. It's unclear how Fit Analytics will be wrapped into Snap's technology, but one possibility is in providing more utility to Snap's AR technology by allowing users to virtually try on clothes.
Facebook is implementing harsher punishments for users and group administrators who violate guidelines, including temporarily blocking posts or comments as well as the ability to create new groups for as many as 30 days. While the punishments are more severe, they seem pretty light for some of the more egregious behaviors seen in Facebook Groups in my opinion.
Google is slashing its app store fee cut from 30% to 15% for the first $1 million per year each developer makes. After $1 million is made Google's cut will jump back up to 30%. Apple made similar moves as a result of anti-trust pressure.