The year erupted with a lot of events in the digital landscape! After Twitter and Meta, Google also announced that 12,000 people need to leave the company. Twitter is increasingly in distress as more and more Twitter users are starting to feel the effects of the cuts and seem to start avoiding the platform. The reliability of the platform seems to be declining. More headaches for Musk... for how long will he be able to keep his head above water on this sinking ship? Also, once in a while, the dormant privacy conflict between Meta and the EU resurfaces. The gunplay erupts again after recent court rulings. This and much more in January's recap, have fun reading!
Twitter: Come back or Titanic?
Musk indicates that Twitter is working on a subscription that is completely ad-free. This of course comes with a price tag; Musk reveals that a more expensive subscription option will be available where no advertising will be shown. The price of this subscription has not yet been announced.
Twitter announced that it will close most of its offices in Europe and the rest of the world in order to make further cuts. Musk, meanwhile, has already started this cost-cutting strategy by ceasing to pay the rent of several office buildings, including the one in London, to the dissatisfaction of English royalty. This because the office building is owned by The Crown Estate, a British commercial property portfolio that historically belonged to the monarchy. The Twitter office in Seattle, which until recently employed 7,500 people, is also closing. Staff will be asked to work from home to save on office space as well.
The revenue loss that Twitter has faced since its acquisition seems huge. About 40% has been said! More than 500 customers of ad services have paused their spendings since Elon Musk's acquisition in October, and almost half of major advertisers quitted their advertisement activities on the platform. Ads are the main source of revenue for Twitter, which brought in over 90% of its revenue in 2021. Few companies would survive this kind of boycott.
Twitter also admitted this week that it does indeed block numerous apps. This seems to be because money wolf Musk is not happy with third-party Twitter apps because they do not show Twitter ads, allowing the company to increase its revenue.
That Musk is looking for new sources of revenue is also evident from the following report, for example; they would like to auction usernames and work on being able to receive tips.
Anyway, it would be wiser for Musk to focus more on saving his platform rather than cutting back on staff and office space, as the platform is increasingly faltering. It continues to struggle with reliability and glitches due to staff shortages, among other things.
Meta.
Trump is back! After Twitter, Meta is also allowing Trump's return. Whether he will make his return to the platform remains to be seen. Trumps’ Twitter profile has not become active so far.
Meta launched a dedicated website designed to provide information about copyrights: "We are launching a website to inform people about how Rights Manager fights copyright infringement and protects legitimate expressions on Facebook and Instagram."
It will become easier to customise your privacy settings. Meta has moved a large part of their privacy settings, for all apps, to a central place within its accounts center. Speaking of privacy, Meta is further curtailing its ability to target teenagers. Interests were already out of the question, gender now too: "Age and location will be the only information about a teen we use to show them ads. Age and location help us continue to make sure teens see ads that are meant for their age and products and services available where they live."
The European Data Protection Board has ruled that Facebook and Instagram can no longer send personalised advertising without explicit consent. The Irish Data Protection Commission is also adopting this ruling. Meta says they are simply operating according to GDPR guidelines, so are also appealing, and will come up with a statement for advertisers. Simultaneously, Meta was fined €390 million because of the same legislation.
Furthermore, H&M is opening a branch in Metaverse Roblox, which, with 57 million users, is becoming increasingly popular.
Instagram.
Instagram has officially launched the previously announced 'quiet mode', which allows you to turn off notifications. With this quiet mode, the platform aims to help users focus and encourage them to set boundaries with friends and followers. Once you enable this feature, you will no longer receive notifications, your profile status (if enabled) will change to 'In quiet mode' and Instagram will send an automatic reply to people who slide into your DM ;)
You can also customize the 'Silent Mode' by adjusting the hours to your preferred times. Once the feature is turned off again, you will receive a quick overview of all notifications, so you don't miss anything. Anyone can use 'Silent Mode', but Instagram says it was specifically designed for teenagers who want to spend limited time on the platform late at night.
'Silent mode' is now available to everyone in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and they hope to roll it out to more countries soon.
Finally, Instagram wants to give its users more control over the content they see on the platform. Instagram introduced new features that allow you to specify which content you do not want to see recommended.
For instance, from now on, you can choose to hide multiple content items in the Explore environment at once. Furthermore, Instagram tries to prevent certain content from being shown to you in other places like Reels, Search, etc, once you have selected "Not interested" to a post in the Explore environment (explore).
Pinterest.
Pinterest comes with an interesting insights document that addresses the full-funnel deployment of the platform. This helps brands to enhance the reach of consumers at every stage of the funnel.
"People on Pinterest are constantly browsing, exploring and, yes, shopping! That 'full funnel' activity allows advertisers to build a more holistic approach to their campaigns."
The platform has compiled new overview of how to better use Pinterest's ad options to reach more users with targeted approaches at each stage of the funnel. According to Pinterest, this is leading to promising results:
"When a customer sees ads on Pinterest from across the funnel - across awareness, consideration and conversion goals - conversion rates are 3x higher."
Curious as we are, we will of course test this ourselves! To be continued...
YouTube.
YouTube has announced that it will indeed start sharing Shorts revenue with its creators as per the 1st of February. The terms of use have already been updated! With this, the platform is trying to engage with Content Creators and offer competition to TikTok, by pulling away 'TikTok creators'. With this new fund, creators can also start sharing ad revenue with shorts.
"From 1 February 2023, monetary partners will be able to earn money from ads viewed between videos in the Shorts Feed. This new revenue-sharing model will replace the YouTube Shorts Fund."
Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly clear that Shorts are the future of YouTube. The most recent expansion of YouTube's analytics platform focuses mainly on shorts.
"The aim is to give creators a better understanding of what types of content their audience is watching to help with inspiration and keep an eye on what is happening in their space. This can be especially insightful for formats that a creator has not yet tried or does not often publish. For example, shorts, live, et cetera."
These insights give Shorts content creators another way to customise their video content and maximize the desired results.
Discord.
Discord, the popular chat app, has acquired the 'compliments app' Gas to strengthen its own platform. Gas speaks for itself, this platform was initially designed for sending compliments to each other and for spreading the love, with polls and prompts.
Mastodon.
Mastodon, which welcomed more than a million Twitter users, is already seeing a decline in the number of new users. So, are users going back to Twitter after all? The platform benefited from the soap opera series surrounding Twitter and Musk of 2.5 million active users last months. Meanwhile, the number of users has dropped to 1.8 million. It seems that the usability of the platform is getting in its own way.
TikTok.
TikTok also continues to adapt in facilitating creators to enhance collaborate with brands. A new 'talent manager' feature will be added to the creator marketplace.
Through this new portal - the talent manager - agents will be able to manage all aspects of their customers' offerings, including branded deals offered through the marketplace app.
Agents will not have access to creators' TikTok account, but the platform will allow them to manage how their talent is displayed to brands, which can help refine and improve their sponsored content.
Even ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok, is not spared the current crisis in social media land despite its success. The company laid off hundreds of people by the end of 2022, especially at TikTok's Chinese equivalent called Douyin.
LinkedIn.
Finally, LinkedIn shared new data on engagement and ad performance in the form of an infographic. It's somewhat like “grading your own exam”, but interesting nonetheless - behold the result below.
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