Every week the Insights Team at The Goat Agency pull together the latest news from the social space in a weekly Industry Round Up. This week we explore how Fashion Week is heading into the Metaverse and the latest news from short-form video platforms, including TikTok moving away from this format and how Instagram is going all-in!
Don’t forget to also follow us on Linkedin and Instagram for real-time announcements of all our new blog content!
Contents
Fashion Week Enters The Metaverse
YouTube Has Demonetized Russia
How Denny’s Is Leveraging The Influence of TikTokers
Netflix Continues Investing In Gaming
The D’Amelio’s New Deal With Lightricks
TikTok Extends Video Length To 10 Minutes
Instagram’s Automated Captions For Feed Videos
Instagram’s Additional Updates To Video
Pinterest & Female-Owned Businesses
Meta Test Transparency Alerts For Content Removal
Fashion Week Enters The Metaverse
A fashion week metaverse has already emerged with events such as the Meta Gala finding a start last year and returning in 2022.
The Meta Gala launched as part of Crypto Fashion Week, which sees a fashion event taking place within the metaverse. Last year, virtual influencers such as Lil Miquela featured in the show, dressed in digital designer clothing with NFTs being produced alongside the event as part of an auction.
However, as of 2022, Crypto Fashion Week won’t be the only virtual fashion show happening. A new event named the Metaverse Fashion Week will commence March 24th, featuring fashion brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Dolce & Gabbana.
The two events are described as a rivalry between luxury brands and digital designers. Crypto Fashion Week was born with the aim to shift consciousness and identity conversations forward – with this year the event recognizing the environmental impact of crypto mining.
However, Metaverse Fashion Week will be focused on selling digital goods. The event was announced by Decentraland featuring an all-star roster of digital catwalks, paving a way for a new way to experience fashion in a metaverse future.
To learn more on the metaverse, read our Metaverse Marketing blog, covering Meta, Roblox and the future of social!
YouTube Has Demonetized Russia
YouTube has made the decision to demonetise Russia’s state-owned channels on the platform due to the invasion of Ukraine.
These channels aren’t being removed from the platform as they are borderline content – essentially meaning content hasn’t violated YouTube’s policies to the extent to warrant removal, but videos are bad enough to be restricted. The way in which the platform is restricting the presence of such content is through the inability to earn money and limiting the recommendation of such channels to other users on the platform.
Channels that are on the list of demonetised state-owned channels include Russia Today. Furthermore, other platforms are following suit with Google pausing monetisation of Russian state-funded media across Google platforms – even preventing ads bought through Google Ads from being placed on Russian-owned websites.
How Denny’s Is Leveraging The Influence of TikTokers
The US diner-style restaurant chain Denny’s is creating a ‘Social Stars’ menu featuring 12 dishes created in partnership with 24 TikTok creators from different backgrounds. The new menu will be available from February to June.
The new menu is part of a wider campaign named ‘Open For Anything’, aiming to raise awareness for consumers that Denny’s is welcoming to guests from all backgrounds and wants to promote and encourage freedom of expression.
The new menu leverages ‘Menu Hacking’ – a trend on TikTok, where creators DIY their secret menu items by combining restaurant items or more broadly a trend in homemade dishes. This is an example of a brand working with creators on a more creative level, integrating them more prominently into marketing activities beyond just a sponsored post across social media.
Netflix Continues Investing In Gaming
Netflix has plans to acquire a second video game studio named Next Games. The company is a Finland-based mobile games studio that worked with Netflix in the past to create a game based on Stranger Things.
The streaming platform is looking to close the acquisition in the second quarter with the intention to build a library of games for members to enjoy. Netflix will also be focused on making mobile games that don’t cost subscribers extra to play, with the absence of ads and no in-app purchases.
Netflix previously acquired game studio Night School to launch games to subscribers, but it appears Netflix is investing further into gaming to provide added value to member benefits and leverage the popularity of original content through game tie-ins.
The D’Amelio’s New Deal With Lightricks
The D’Amelio family has signed a multi-year deal with Lightricks – who were responsible for developing Facetune.
The partnership aims to provide firsthand insights from a creator, ensuring products will continue to evolve and provide value to the modern content creator.
The first product to emerge from the new partnership is The247 – an editorial offering written by the D’Amelios, providing advice, insights and BTS content to their audience. Secondly, Lightricks has also just announced LinkInBio – a solution for all-in-one creator landing pages. The D’Amelio family will all be using this service across their socials, with the family also helping to create custom layouts for the service, allowing creators to customize their own landing pages.
The D’Amelio family deal will see them have an equity stake and advisory positions within the company.
Twitch’s Ad Incentive Program
Twitch is looking to improve content monetisation on the platform for its creators with a new Ad Incentive Program. The new program aims to facilitate predictability into a revenue source on the platform and allows creators to better manage their ads on each stream.
This new program will be available for select Affiliates and Partners across Twitch who stream for a certain number of hours and run ads in exchange for a flat monthly payout.
The new tools will be located in Ads Manager, the platforms ad scheduling dashboard. Creators with access will see an incentive offer. To note, creators can opt-out at any time and the offers available will vary per creator.
TikTok Extends Video Length To 10 Minutes
TikTok has announced an increase in content duration from three to ten minutes. The platform hopes that long-form content will enrich the user experience, help creators share more entertaining content and increase the overall engagement and time spent on the platform.
The feature is being rolled out globally and is set to rival YouTubes’ longer-form content offerings. In terms of monetisation, the feature could result in creators having a new avenue to make money on the content they produce through ad rolls and integrated brand sponsorships.
TikTok has built its offering on short-form content but has since ventured to live formats, the first iteration of longer formats on the platform. However, this latest update will be interesting to see how the user experience on the app changes and how users and creators react to the 10-minute format options.
The update could have implications on the platform’s widely-celebrated algorithm due to limited data on users watching habits. This could affect the content predictions and recommendations. There is a possibility of a separate ‘For You’ homepage, dedicated to the longer content but this has yet to be confirmed.
Instagram’s Automated Captions For Feed Videos
Instagram has in the past added automated captions for IGTV content and Stories but now has added the option for all Instagram feed videos.
Users can now switch on auto captions for any feed post, elevating the video offering on the platform.
This update also makes content more accessible to those in the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities – with the option being turned to default ‘on’ for creators. The addition of this feature on all feed videos has been highly requested by the Instagram community. Now users can add captions to all elements within the app – including Reels.
The auto-caption feature for feed posts will be available in 17 languages – with plans to roll out more languages soon.
Instagram’s Additional Updates To Video
Instagram has announced that it will be shutting down the separate IGTV app and removing in-stream video ads. Instagram, as a result, will be looking to enhance creator monetisation through sticker ads for Reels, among other options in development.
IGTV as a format distinction was removed from the app in October, all in aid to merge all video offerings. However, this also marks a move away from long-form content in favor of short-form video – which is interesting considering TikTok has increased the duration of content to a max of 10 minutes.
TikTok’s move to increase the duration of videos is a means for creators to better monetisation content – as generating such options for short-form video is problematic. Therefore, Instagram putting less emphasis on longer-form content could limit monetisation options for creators.
However, with new Reel sticker ads launching and the recent monetisation options rolled out with Facebook Reels – Instagram could find a solution for short-form content monetisation that is more effective than TikTok’s initial solution of a fund.
Pinterest & Female-Owned Businesses
As part of Women’s History Month, Pinterest has announced that the platform will be funding ten female-owned businesses, which will also receive training and other benefits as part of the Pinterest Elevates program.
The funding will also be focused on those from underrepresented communities to provide monetary and strategic support for those of color, with disabilities and those part of the LGBTQ+ community.
The platform has already identified a number of female-run businesses that will get a share of the $100,000 fund. Each business will also receive ad credits, a personal business coach and platform-specific training.
The Pinterest Elevates program began in 2020 – first focusing on black business owners who had been impacted by COVID-19. However, the program has since supported over 55 brands, providing support to minority business owners.
Twitter’s Podcast Tab
Twitter is testing a dedicated tab for podcasts, which will be viewable through the sidebar of the app. In addition, another test was spotted with a Podcast icon being visible in the lower navigation panel.
This test signifies the platform’s step forward with podcast discovery, enabling creators to generate direct links to their podcasts in the app – similar to how the functionality works with newsletters all facilitated through the acquisition of Revue in 2021.
Twitter recently acquired Breaker – a podcast discovery app, which initially was thought to help the discovery of live audio content through the Spaces feature. However, this acquisition could be part of a larger push on podcasts and perhaps the ability to turn live audio content to podcast content on the platform.
Meta Test Transparency Alerts For Content Removal
Meta is expanding a test of alerts that provide more information on post-removal on Meta-owned apps. Last year the alert system was first tested, allowing users to receive an alert that included more context as to why a post was removed, and whether it was reviewed by a human or through automated detection.
The alerts were first put into testing after concerns were expressed from the Oversight Board when Meta’s automated detection process removed images that were part of a breast cancer awareness campaign. The new alerts, therefore, aim to provide transparency to avoid the automated processes flagging and pulling down images such as mastectomies that do not violate Meta’s terms of service.
This new alert will feed into the development of the automated detection process, improving the system and addressing errors.
Don’t forget to also follow us on Linkedin and Instagram for real-time announcements of all our new blog content!
