|
|
|
|
- Why Amazon won't give Twitch streamers a 70/30 pay split
- ESPN bets big on TikTok to become 'home of hockey' for Gen Z fans
- Meta says it will sell off Giphy following order from UK competition watchdog
- Walmart launches beta version of content creator platform
|
|
Meet our friends at Mavrck as this week's Influence Weekly Takeover sponsor!
Mavrck is the all-in-one influencer marketing platform for enterprise consumer brands creating social proof at scale. They help the world's largest brands save time, generate high-quality content, and achieve more measurable ROI with their end-to-end management software and services.
|
|
Great Reads
Universal Studio Group Strikes Development Deals With TikTokers
NBCUniversal has launched an initiative designed to turn TikTokers into its next generation of television creators.
The company has launched a Creator Accelerator that features 11 social media creators. The creators, who have over 10M followers on social media, have signed development deals with Universal Studio Group to create original series as part of the program.
Over the next twelve months, the creators will each have their own NBCUniversal content development mentor to help develop both scripted and unscripted content and they will go through a greenlight process that includes help with pitches.
“Social media has opened up a world of new possibilities for premium video content, including expanding the traditional definition of creative storytellers to include young, up-and-coming diverse creators who are releasing original content on social media almost daily. NBCUniversal is the first major media company to tap into this new generation of creative storytellers thanks to this new, first-of-its-kind accelerator program,” said Kathy Kelly-Brown, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives at NBCUniversal.
TikTok launches Profile Kit to add up to six videos on other sites, integrating first with Linktree
Profile Kit will sit within TikTok’s developer portal, where TikTok also provides tools to build TikTok-based logins, create automatic video imports, build TikTok-based apps, integrate experiences by way of APIs and more. The addition of Profile Kit speaks to the bigger picture for TikTok here: It’s leveraging its growth and buzz to expand its wider ecosystem and visibility across the wider web, beyond its own walled garden, and it’s strengthening its platform play.
Notably, the Profile Kit is being announced not at a developer event, but as part of TikTok World, the company’s brand and entertainment partners confab, where it’s announcing advertising-related updates, such as a new focused view on ads, where brands only pay if a user has watched an ad for at least six seconds, or has interacted within the first six seconds (which is saying something about how fast people move on from ads, given the chance).
TikTok is still lagging in MAUs behind biggies like Instagram, but its growth rate, at this rate, is going to change that, with the app regularly ranking at the top for worldwide downloads. In terms of money, the app currently holds the title of being the highest grossing app as of Q3, and these new inroads with ads will boost that further. All this has made TikTok the app whose video experience all other social platforms have scrambled to copy. Of course, that’s not to say that TikTok isn’t making its own moves to copy others at the same time: as any TikTok influencer will tell you, gotta keep hustling.
And that’s why the Linktree partnership here is interesting. The Aussie-born app has been an unlikely, yet quietly huge, hit in the world of social media tools, filling a gap in a fragmented market by giving creators a way of knitting disparate social profile pages and activity together on one landing page, shared by way of a “link-in-bio” across those different pages.
|
|
Campaign Insights
Walmart launches beta version of content creator platform
Walmart continues to invest in social commerce by further building out its reach to customers across platforms.
“We know our customers are inspired by the content and stories they see from their favorite influencers in their social feeds every day,” William White, chief marketing officer at Walmart U.S., said in a statement. “This next step in our strategy will help fuel inspiration for our customers by connecting their favorite creators directly with our brand and the brands they love at Walmart.”
In February, Walmart expanded its live-streaming partnership with Talkshoplive. The company also stepped its foot into virtual worlds with its Roblox space in September, and launched its Innovation Partners ad program that helps brands connect with Gen Z on TikTok and Snapchat.
Invisalign’s Roblox activation sees over 2 million users
The Roblox activation also serves to boost the brand’s “Drama Free” campaign and positioning, meant to highlight the ease of using Invisalign over traditional options. Along with the metaverse play, Invisalign tapped into influencer marketing activations and enlisted popular creators like Jaydan Bartels and Scarlett Estevez to share their own experiences with the product.
For marketers, Roblox continues to be a stand-out choice for a metaverse activation. The platform boasts 43.2 million global daily active users, each who spend an average of 2.6 hours a day on the platform. Roblox is also increasingly becoming a Gen Z hub, with roughly two-thirds of its players under the age of 16, and only 14% over age 25. For Invisalign, the age demographic posed a bit of a challenge — those users generally aren’t the ones making purchasing decisions when it comes to orthodontics, but they do have influence over becoming users of Invisalign, Pudipeddi said. The activations also helps iron out future strategies in the space.
“This is more of an experiment,” Pudipeddi said. “There is learning we need to do. It’s new territory, and when charting a new environment, you have to realize you don’t know everything and you need to learn.”
Bombay Sapphire – And Baz Luhrmann – Toast First-Party Data With A New Brand Campaign
A new campaign from Bombay Sapphire, which launched on Wednesday with spokesperson and “Elvis” director Baz Luhrmann, involves both.
With the “Saw This, Made This” campaign, Bombay Sapphire is combining influencer-led social media interactions with the goal of building a loyal customer base that’s (hopefully) willing to share personal information.
To get the ball rolling on submissions, Bombay Sapphire tasked a global roster of mixologist influencers with designing unique gin cocktails inspired by the cities they work in. The brand is also encouraging its fans, followers and the influencers in its network to share their own creations.
“We’ll partner with influencers to amplify their output,” Keller said. “What’s most important is finding authentic collaborators to work with, so that their message is authentic, and that authenticity ladders back to our brand message.”
Bombay Sapphire worked with partners, including its media partner OMD and ad agency AMV BBDO, to develop its campaign strategy over the course of two years.
|
|
Interesting People
Inez Lizzie Shares Her Thoughts On The Growing Creator Economy
Inez Lizzie was born in Poland. When she was two, she and her mom moved to Italy. A few years later, they moved back to Poland, then to Spain for nine years. She has now been in the UK for the last ten years.
She shares, “It was amazing growing up traveling around and meeting new cultures and everything. I’ve really enjoyed that.”
Inez Lizzie started sharing her life online when she attended college in the UK. She was doing a sports course in college, which jumpstarted her passion for fitness and the gym, a significant component of her brand today.
“That’s how it started. Me posting on just my normal account, with no following whatsoever, just workouts, fitness, a few tips here and there, just videos working out, and a few tips for girls, and that’s how my following started to pick up a little. That’s when I noticed this could be a little something going on here.”
In 2016, a brand reached out to Inez through her email, and she did her first brand collaboration.
She attributes part of her success on social media to her comfort level in front of the camera.
“I’ve always felt confident in front of the camera because before I started influencing, I was doing a few freelance photo shoots… I realized the connection between liking being in front of the camera and doing it at home with brands promoting stuff. I’ve always loved taking pictures and talking to people and just thought it could really work out.”
Meet Matilda Djerf, the 25-year-old Swedish influencer who built a million-dollar fashion empire with no business plan
Matilda Djerf realized she was destined to become an entrepreneur while she was scraping scales off salmon.
Djerf told Insider that when she was younger, she had fought hard to secure a job in a fish shop.
She prepared extensively for her first day of work and spent hours the night before studying YouTube videos on how to slice fish so that when her boss asked if she could filet one, she could say: Hell yeah, I can.
But as time on the job went on, Djerf said she became frustrated with what she saw as a lack of innovation from the people above her.
They would always want to do everything in such a traditional way, she said. Whenever I came up with new ideas, it would always be like, 'No, this is what we usually do.' So I just realized this is not for me.
She pointed to her early career experience as proof that she had long had an entrepreneurial mindset and wanted to be her own boss.
Popular YouTuber Mark Wiens has a new HBO series that's all about Singapore's obsession with food
Mark Wiens has made a name for himself as one of the most popular food vloggers on the Internet, sharing his love for street food to his nine million subscribers on YouTube while racking up more than two billion views.
On his website, Wiens bills himself as an eater, traveller, author, blogger, video host, and coffee drinker. Now, he can add TV food series host to that expanding list.
Focused entirely on Singapore’s obsession with food, this HBO Asia Original production is the first non-scripted food series hosted by Wiens. The six-episode series is set to premiere on Nov 18 and will centre around the untold stories and history behind Singapore's smorgasbord of delicacies, from fine dining cuisine to everyone’s favourite hawker fare.
Singapore is currently home to more than 50 Michelin-starred establishments and more than 60 Bib Gourmand locations, including hawker centre stalls.
Directed by Singaporean Gillian Tan, each episode will feature a star-studded panel of guests comprising a fine dining chef, culinary veteran and a hawker.
Shamilla Birch: Content Creation As A Mother Of Two
Shamilla Birch is a twenty-three-year-old UK fashion and lifestyle content creator and mum of two boys. She had her first baby when she was 19 and began creating fashion content during the first lockdown. Her primary focus for creating content is TikTok and Instagram, which she feels is where the majority of content creators are posting today.
Shamilla shares that she struggled as a first-time mother because she had just moved to a new area and didn’t have a support system around her. Unfortunately, she experienced a lot of stigma because of how young she was when she gave birth to her first child.
“Relating to being a young mum, I think it’s really important to mention how content creating has allowed me to regain my sense of self and allowed me to find my personality again. It’s been a safe space for me where I can express who I am without just ‘being a mum,’ and Sintillate Talent has provided me with a safe space to be myself too and communicate my struggles and wins with people in the same position as me! A sense of belonging is crucial to being successful in the influencer market, and I have definitely found that amongst Sintillate Talent.”
She shares, “I feel like I could do more with fashion, whereas when I was doing skincare, for example, there’s only so much I could do because I have to promote things that I believe in and that I think are true and I can’t just test things out and say that I love them when I don’t. I felt like, with fashion, I could be a lot more fluid with my content. I could be more honest and open about it.”
|
|
Industry News
Meta says it will sell off Giphy following order from UK competition watchdog
Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta says it will accept a ruling by the UK competition watchdog to divest itself of social media GIF library Giphy.
A spokesperson for Meta, Matthew Pollard, told The Verge: “We are disappointed by the CMA’s decision but accept today’s ruling as the final word on the matter. We will work closely with the CMA on divesting Giphy.” When asked if the divestment would apply to all of Giphy’s international operations, Pollard said: “Yes, this applies globally.”
Meta was originally ordered to sell Giphy last year but appealed the ruling. Today, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that Meta had failed on five of the six objections raised in its appeal. The CMA said that the acquisition should be reversed on the grounds that it “could allow Meta to limit other social media platforms’ access to GIFs, making those sites less attractive to users and less competitive.”
Influencer Suzanne Jackson steps down as CEO of SoSu brands
Suzanne Jackson has stepped down as chief executive of Sosu Cosmetics and Dripping Gold.
The influencer, who founded the cosmetics brand in 2015, told the Sunday Business Post she felt she has ""done all I can"" with the brand and it was time for someone else to step in.
Caroline Dalton, the former head of buying for Primark, will be taking over the position.
SoSu Cosmetics was one of the first companies established by an Irish influencer, and the brand collaborated with many other Irish influencers including Keilidh Cashell and Aideen Kate who have gone on to launch their own cosmetic brands.
The brands' products are now sold in 1,000 pharmacies across the country, as well as Penneys outlets.
TikTok is raising the age requirement for TikTok Live, adding adult-only livestreams
TikTok is raising the age requirement for hosting livestreams on its platform, as well as launching adult-only livestreams, the company announced on Monday. Currently, you need to be 16 or older to host a livestream. Starting on November 23, users will have to be 18 years old in order to go live on the platform. TikTok says the change is part of its ongoing work to keep its community safe.
As for the adult-only livestreams, TikTok plans to roll those out in the coming weeks. The official roll out comes as the company began testing the ability to restrict livestreams to viewers who at 18 years old and above in July. It’s important to note that TikTok’s new 18+ restriction setting for livestreams isn’t a way for users to broadcast adult content, as the content is still subject to the app’s policies. Instead, it’s a way for creators to prevent minors from encountering content that’s aimed toward an adult audience or may be uninteresting to them.
“We plan to introduce a new way for creators to choose if they’d prefer to only reach an adult audience in their LIVE,” the company said in a blog post. “For instance, perhaps a comedy routine is better suited for people over age 18. Or, a host may plan to talk about a difficult life experience and they would feel more comfortable knowing the conversation is limited to adults.”
Influencer recommendations and storefronts shape what consumers buy
Last week, Amazon held its first-ever “Prime Early Access” sale, essentially an equivalent to the company’s annual “Prime Day” event, but with an added holiday shopping slant. During the sale’s 48-hour span, influencers flooded TikTok and other social media platforms with videos promoting specific products and major discounts; and social media users accordingly flocked to these videos. On TikTok alone, the hashtag #PrimeEarlyAccessSale was viewed over 24 million times in just two days.
“[W]atched this and immediately bought the leggings,” one user commented on creator @laurenwolfe’s TikTok video about products included in the sale.
“Please stop I just bought the green dress,” another user posted on a video from creator @conqueringasya_ that listed on-sale clothing items.
Across almost all of these videos, there was one common factor—a prompting from the influencer for their followers to visit their “Amazon storefront,” available at a link posted in their TikTok bio, to view the specific products recommended in their videos in one centralized space. These “storefronts” aren’t new, but events such as Amazon’s latest sale emphasize creators’ expanding role in driving consumers’ purchasing decisions.
YouTube to Let Advertisers Target Podcast Listeners
In YouTube’s latest expansion of its podcasting efforts, the video giant — under parent company Google — will roll out audio ads globally and allow marketers to target users who are listening and watching podcasts on the platform.
YouTube first launched a beta version of its audio ads in 2020 to cater to users who listen to podcasts and music on the video platform. The audio ads, available in 15-second spots, are available on Google Ads and Display & Video 360 with the same CPM and audience-targeting options as ads on YouTube videos.
As part of the updated audio ad rollout, announced on Monday during Advertising Week, advertisers will now be able to place 30-second audio ad spots on videos — up from the 15-second spots that the company previously offered. Advertisers in the U.S. will also be able to narrow their ad campaigns based on podcast genres, which will include comedy, news, sports and society and culture, according to a YouTube spokesperson.
|
|
Registration Required
Great Paywalled Content
Retailers, Brands and Tech Platforms Bet Big on Live-Streamed Shopping in the U.S. - WSJ
A number of retailers, brands and tech platforms are convinced that it can, despite a slow start. The practice, which adapts the QVC model of televised home shopping to the digital era, grew popular in the Asia-Pacific region before exploding in China during the pandemic as businesses rushed to connect more directly with homebound consumers.
Many U.S. marketers view the trend with caution because it hasn’t yet delivered significant sales in the U.S. But revenue from U.S. live-stream shopping is predicted to grow to $20 billion this year from $6 billion in 2020, and to $57 billion in 2025, according to research firm Coresight Research Inc.
Some U.S. marketers see live shopping as a critical way to build awareness and trust among young consumers, attract new customers and collect data on shoppers, including their behavior online before making a purchase. They also want to be in position if and when live shopping takes off.
Cosmetics company e.l.f. Beauty Inc., which in recent months organized shopping events on platforms including TikTok and Ntwrk, a live-shopping app owned by Commerce Media Holdings LLC, sees live shopping as a key part of its North American marketing strategy, says Ekta Chopra, the company’s chief digital officer.
“It isn’t huge in terms of being a revenue generator; it’s huge in terms of engagement,” Ms. Chopra says.
ESPN bets big on TikTok to become 'home of hockey' for Gen Z fans - Digiday
As part of ESPN’s strategy to establish ESPN and ESPN+ as the “home of hockey,” the company is tapping TikTok to target Gen Z viewers and hockey fans. To do so, ESPN is working with creative agency Fallon for the 2022-2023 National Hockey League season to engage with fans through TikTok, with a new ad spot and efforts to grow the sport as a whole.
“We hope to use TikTok to showcase the personalities and identities of the NHL stars in a way fans don’t normally see on the ice in order to increase player profiles in a relatable and engaging way,” said Lucas Ferraro, senior director of NHL marketing at ESPN. This is the second season ESPN will air NHL games (before 2021, the NHL had not been on ESPN since 2004).
As part of ESPN’s creative partnership with Fallon, 14 employees are credited with creating the new ad, which highlights future hall of famers, rising young stars and how competitive the game is today. The campaign’s creative also spotlights The Walt Disney Company’s sports platforms. And the “That Is Hockey” anthem taps NHL analyst and hockey legend Mark Messier to remind viewers that ESPN/ESPN+ is the premier destination for hockey fans.
TikTok Parent ByteDance Sets Sights on Spotify With Music-Streaming Expansion - WSJ
TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd. has begun talks with music labels about expanding its music-streaming service globally to compete with industry leaders including Spotify Technology SA, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Significant hurdles remain in the negotiations, the people said, but ByteDance wants the service to eventually be integrated within TikTok and to serve as a major platform for distributing music around the world.
ByteDance has discussed in recent months launching its Resso music streaming service, which is currently only available in India, Indonesia and Brazil, in more than a dozen additional markets, according to some of the people. The U.S. wouldn’t be part of this next phase of expansion but ByteDance has said it wants the service to be available globally so that users can discover songs on the short-form video app and then easily subscribe to music, they said.
ByteDance is negotiating with a music business that has been on a rapid upswing for several years, thanks to streaming growth as well as the establishment of standard rates for music licensing.
The talks have been strained at times over disagreements about how to value TikTok’s promotional benefits for the labels, the people said.
How I Became an Influencer Who Makes $10K a Month Selling Journals - Business Insider
I was surprised by the lack of Texas travel content when I jumped from Instagram into the world of TikTok. I wanted to glamorize the state, like TikTok creators did for cities like LA and New York. I posted my first official TikTok on July 30 and captioned it with "Did you know there's another Eiffel Tower? In Paris, Texas." The TikTok consisted of me dressed up in my finest Parisian outfit (I even had a red beret!) picnicking by the Texas Eiffel Tower.
After that, I posted new TikToks every few days showing me traveling around Texas and highlighting hotels in places like San Antonio and Austin. By September, I was posting new TikToks nearly every day, showcasing unique Texas Airbnbs and other fun travel experiences I had, like a time I got paid to swim with otters.
The first TikTok of mine that went viral was a spin on the 2020 trend where @420doggface208 skateboarded to Fleetwood Mac's Dreams as he drank straight from a bottle of Ocean Spray. I captioned my skateboarding TikTok on October 10, 2020, with, Any age after 25, and replaced the Ocean Spray with a bottle of Tums. The caption on the bottom of the video was After 1 margarita. The video has more than 870,000 views.
Why Amazon won't give Twitch streamers a 70/30 pay split - The Washington Post
Mere weeks before, Twitch announced that it was doing away with a 70/30 revenue split option it offered to top tier streamers, punting even those with special premium contracts down to 50/50 (after the first $100,000 earned through paid subscriptions). Outrage followed; despite Twitch’s assertion that the “vast majority” of streamers were already on standard 50/50 deals, many felt that Twitch had eliminated more than just a rare contract type, but an aspirational goal. On a platform where it can feel like broadcasters are constantly kicking to keep their heads — and subscriber counts — above water, the idea of a better contract at least functioned as a north star, something to keep them going.
In an interview with The Washington Post at TwitchCon, Twitch’s Chief Monetization Officer Mike Minton acknowledged the larger connotations of what the company has taken away.
“It’s really not as much about the change for current streamers,” said Minton. “It’s more about the other streamers that now feel like they have a loss of something they can no longer attain. That leads to the question of, why not just give 70/30 to everybody, right? We absolutely looked at all options to do that. What it comes down to is, those options were not viable for us as a long-term business.”
|
|
💬 Become an Influence Insider
This is your link to share Influence Weekly with colleagues: https://sparklp.co/8323887e
If you refer 3 people to start reading this newsletter you'll get an invite to a Telegram group for Influence Insiders.
If you have the swipe up feature on IG stories, share this link
https://sparklp.co/8323887e
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
