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It’s Weary Willie Day, Reader! A day to honor the art of clowning. What say you… are clowns creepy or cool?

In today’s edition:

• 🎣 Today's Tip of the Day is for TikTok

• ✅ YouTube trends for your 2025 strategy

• Engagement analytics for X posts

• 🗞️ Additional industry news from Meta and TikTok

Are your TikTok openings tired and boring? Are you looking for hook ideas you can use today?

4 Easy Visual Hooks for Tiktok

Your hooks don’t have to be complicated, but they do need to arrest viewers’ attention and make them stop scrolling long enough for you to get them interested in our message. Here are four ideas you can put into practice immediately:

• Use a random object as your microphone.

• Show an empty chair in front of your camera, then rush into frame and sit down forcefully so you bounce up and down a bit.

• Have someone toss something into frame and catch it. 

Today's tip was inspired by Keenya Kelly, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World.

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4 YouTube Trends to Guide Your 2025 Marketing Strategy

Are you struggling to keep up with YouTube's latest features? Wondering how to take advantage of the latest video trends? 

In this article, you'll discover key YouTube updates and learn how to adapt your content strategy for maximum impact.

Provocative YouTube Content is Waning

The YouTube landscape has significantly shifted away from what Sean calls the era of excess. This period, characterized by increasingly elaborate productions and sensational content, left marketers and creators in an unsustainable cycle of one-upmanship. 

"I shredded a Ferrari in a metal grinder." 

"I shredded 10 Ferraris." 

"I got the biggest yacht."

The pendulum is now returning to more authentic, straightforward content creation. This shift represents more than just a stylistic change; it's a fundamental reimagining of what successful YouTube content looks like. 

The previous era's emphasis on compounding clickbait exemplified by unrealistic claims like "growing an Instagram account to 100,000 followers in one minute" - has given way to a preference for genuine, value-driven content.

A simple screen recording with valuable information often performs better than heavily produced videos, particularly for business-to-business content.

ClearValue Tax is a prime example of this new approach. The creator's method is remarkably straightforward. He stands before a plain wall with a clipboard of notes, delivering financial insights, and occasionally tossing papers behind him when finished with a point.

What's particularly notable is that he doesn't even create custom thumbnails—instead, he lets YouTube automatically select them from the video. This simple approach has built a strong, engaged audience for the channel.

Vertical Live Streaming Boosts Discovery in the Shorts Feed

Unlike traditional horizontal live streams, these vertical broadcasts can appear directly in viewers' Shorts feeds, making your live content more accessible to casual viewers who might not actively seek out live streams. 

While the live content only appears in the feed during the broadcast, the replay remains available on the creator's channel. You can choose whether to keep these replays public or unlisted based on your content strategy.

Extended Shorts Length Enhances Cross-Platform Repurposing 

Previously, creators dealt with a complex web of time restrictions: Meta platforms (Instagram and Facebook) allowed 90 seconds, TikTok offered limits of up to 10 minutes, and YouTube Shorts was initially capped at 60 seconds. This disparity often forced creators to produce multiple versions of the same content.

The platform-specific monetization requirements added another layer of complexity. Sean reveals that on TikTok, for instance, creators can only access certain monetization features when their videos exceed one minute. This limitation created a challenging situation where content optimized for one platform might be unsuitable for another, both in terms of length and earning potential.

Sean identifies 90 seconds as the optimal length for Shorts. At this duration, creators can distribute their videos across all major platforms without additional editing or reformatting.

YouTube's Algorithm Favors Engagement over Subscriber Count

YouTube's algorithm now focuses heavily on unique viewers and returning audience members and uses these metrics to promote content from newer channels, often with fewer than a thousand subscribers and less than 300 video views.

This is good news for smaller channels!

Shifting your video performance analysis from subscriber numbers to these metrics will provide a more accurate picture of genuine audience engagement and what will help your channel grow.

Pro Tip: Rather than chasing viral moments, focus on maintaining a strong baseline performance. Using his channel as an example, he explains how maintaining 800,000 monthly views from engaged, long-form content viewers is more valuable than sporadic viral success. This high-quality audience typically provides more sustainable engagement and better business outcomes over time.

Today's advice is provided with insights from Sean Cannell, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

Meta AI Unveils Llama 3.3: The 70B model achieves performance comparable to the 405B model. By incorporating online preference optimization and other post-training enhancements, Llama 3.3 significantly improves efficiency and lowers operational costs, benefiting the open-source AI community. Source: Zuck via Instagram

TikTok Divestment Law Upheld: A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld a law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok's U.S. operations by early 2024 or face a ban in the country. The case is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court, with TikTok expressing confidence that the higher court will protect Americans' First Amendment rights. The appeals court defended its decision, noting the law was carefully crafted through bipartisan action to address specific national security threats posed by foreign adversary control. The law would prohibit app stores like Apple and Google from offering TikTok and prevent internet hosting services from supporting the platform unless ByteDance divests. Following the ruling, shares of competing companies Meta Platforms and Alphabet increased, with Meta hitting an intraday record high. Source: Reuters

X Post Analytics: Analytics now includes a chart detailing the engagement ratio of followers and non-followers who engage with your posts. Source: xDaily via X

Did You Know?

Honey badgers often team up with a bird called the Honeyguide. The honeyguide leads the honey badger to beehives, and after the honey badger breaks open the hive, the bird gets to feast on the leftover beeswax and larvae.

Photo by Sumeet Moghe, Creative Commons