BLOG POST BY: Rowan Byers
October 31, 2022

Social Media News Round Up #75 – Elon Musk Completes Twitter Takeover

Each week the Insights Team at The Goat Agency pull together the latest news from the social space in a weekly social media industry news round-up. This week we take a look at Elon Musk’s eventual takeover of Twitter, Twitter’s insights on the 2022 World Cup, Jake Paul vs Anderson Silva and much more!

Elon Musk Twitter

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Contents

Elon Musk Completes Twitter Takeover

TikTok Releases ‘TikTok Academy’: Educational Tool for Marketers

Twitter Highlights the Rising Hype Around 2022 World Cup

Twitter is Losing its Most Active Followers

Jake Paul vs Anderson Silva

Elon Musk Completes Twitter Takeover

Elon Musk has finally closed his $44bn deal to acquire Twitter, taking the platform private. This brings to a close one of the most high profile and dramatic buyout sagas in recent times. The Elon Musk Twitter purchase took months of legal back and forth between the one of the world’s richest men and the social networking platform.

Musk entered with a baptism of fire, immediately relieving the now-former chief executive, Parag Agrawal, and chief financial officer, Ned Segal, of their duties. 

The acquisition has been about as unpredictable and unprecedented as they come, and now Musk finds himself at the helm of the platform, describing himself as a “free-speech absolutist”. This is where many people believe Twitter could be on rocky ground, as a platform that is popular among global politicians and relied on by its user base for news content, could Elon’s free-speech mentality spell bad news for the platform?

Elon Musk had promised immediate action in the form of dismissals, whilst setting his sights on boosting product innovation that will attempt to build a “super app” that combines payments, commerce and messaging options.

In a more serious breath, Musk reassured advertisers – who make up the largest portion of twitter’s $5bn annual revenues – that the platform would not descend into “a free-for-all hellscape” and that its goal is to become the most respected advertising platform globally.

TikTok Releases ‘TikTok Academy’: Educational Tool for Marketers

TikTok has launched a new education program for marketers. ‘TikTok Academy’ will provide marketers with video courses on how to make best use of TikTok marketing, along with research data and further information that will enhance the overall understanding of the app.

“Through TikTok Academy, we aim to provide robust learning opportunities to help teams become TikTok-savvy marketers by providing not just the “how-tos” of TikTok but also the key insights that will enable media and creative excellence on the platform. We know the TikTok community loves engaging with their favorite brands, so we want to deliver the tools and expertise to maintain this unique and engaging experience.” Explains TikTok.

With inspiration being taken from Meta’s Blueprint courses, and Twitter’s Flight School, TikTok Academy will offer key lessons around optimising marketing campaigns, while providing more in-depth information on trend usage and behavioural shifts.

Understanding key trends on TikTok is a key skill for any operator, using those trends to align content and keep people engaged is something that is difficult to teach. That requires personal skill and time spent in the app. However, TikTok Academy will help to improve our technical understanding of how to apply trending content – for example – to improve the performance of TikTok ads.

If you’re looking to maximise your TikTok marketing strategy, then you can sign up to the TikTok Academy here.

Elon Musk Twitter

Twitter Highlights the Rising Hype Around 2022 World Cup

The 2022 FIFA World Cup is just weeks away, which means that our social feeds are gearing up for the great flood of World Cup content. 

Twitter is the place where football (soccer for our US friends) fans gather in their numbers to keep up with the latest news and updates on their beloved sport. The World Cup hype is already starting to bubble within the app, with Twitter recently publishing a new set of insights on the World Cup conversation, showing which teams are driving the most interest and so on. This is, of course, an excellent opportunity to identify upcoming trends that will help connect with an audience.

What we’ve gathered so far is that Mexico has been the most tweeted about team, ahead of England and Brazil. Mexico also tops the table for most followers, beating France and England to pole position. Twitter highlighted Japanese users as the likeliest source to use the soccer ball emoji, and US users as the most frequent user of the #FIFAWorldCup.

There are a lot of intriguing notes surrounding the World Cup conversation. Twitter has also provided some previous stats on World Cup engagement, offering an insight into the way fans are gearing up for the event.

It could be worth a tie-in opportunity to the 2022 World Cup, simply because it is going to be the biggest cultural event of the year, and on Twitter, for 2022.

Elon Musk Twitter

Twitter is Losing its Most Active Followers

Elon Musk posed the question “is Twitter dying?” back in April. The reality, according to internal Twitter research, is that Twitter is struggling to keep its most active users engaged, highlighting an immediate challenge the Tesla chief executive faces as the new owner of Twitter.

The problem goes far beyond major celebrities “ghosting” their accounts. “Heavy tweeters” is where the problem lies. These Twitter users account for less than 10% of monthly overall users but generate 90% of al tweets, and half of global revenue. Heavy tweeters have been in a state of decline since the beginning of the pandemic, writes a Twitter researcher in a document titled “Where did the Tweeters Go?”

Heavy tweeters are identified as users who log into Twitter six or seven days a week and tweet between three and four times per week.

The underlying data also found a shift in interests over the past two years among the platform’s most active English-speaking users that could make the platform less attractive to advertisers. 

Content in the cryptocurrency and ‘not safe for work’ (NSFW) brackets are the highest-growing topics of interest among English-speaking heavy users. Simultaneously, the report found that interest in news, sport and entertainment is waning among the same demographic. 

Elon Musk has made it clear that he wants to revolutionize the platform, making it the most respected social network for advertisers. However, the task at hand is far from easy and Twitter’s future remains unclear.

Elon Musk Twitter

Jake Paul vs Anderson Silva

The YouTube boxing story continues to thicken. The next chapter saw Jake Paul vs Anderson Silva. Silva is a former, long-reigning UFC middleweight champion, now 47 years old, looking to challenge the internet sensation Paul in a boxing match at Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona, shown live on Showtime pay-per-view.

The Brazilian has a wide variety of combat sports experience that includes jiu jitsu, Muay Thai, taekwondo and, most importantly, boxing – beating the former world champion, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. last year. 

Jake Paul vs Anderson Silva took place on Saturday night with the YouTuber earning a unanimous points victory retired UFC middleweight. This of course opens the door to new possibilities for Paul, who said after the fight that his next target would be current UFC fighter, Nate Diaz. Let’s not forget that the door is still open for KSI vs Jake Paul, a YouTube clash to settle the creator boxing debate once and for all, something which we’ve discussed in detail before.

Elon Musk Twitter

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And that’s all for this week, but don’t forget to follow us on LinkedInInstagramTikTok and Twitter for real-time announcements of all our new blog content!

Don’t forget to check out the latest episode of the Goat Vlog!

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Written by: Rowan Byers

Insights Executive at The Goat Agency