Bonded Bitesize – Your Midweek Roundup
Bonded Bitesize – Your Midweek Roundup
Bonded Bitesize – Bringing you your midweek roundup of the latest in digital and media.
Stay connected with recent updates from Netflix, Meta, TikTok & many more!
WhasApp warns it may cease operations in UK amid police and MI5 row over end-to-end encryption
Government ministers are pressing ahead with a bill that would require platforms to give the police and MI5 easier access to messages - a threat to WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption offering. WhatsApp’s lead, Will Cathcard claims that he is prepared to allow the app to be blocked for UK users, rather than risk its security. WhatsApp, which currently has over 40 million users in the UK alone, uses an end-to-end encryption that means not even law enforcement nor WhatsApp themselves can see the content of users' messages. For this reason, WhatsApp is facing heavy criticism for damaging child abuse claims and counter-terrrorism investigations.
Netflix is letting advertisers take their money back after missing viewership targets on new ad-supported tier
It seems Netflix’s recently launched ad offering is already off to a bad start after several agencies have reported taking their money back after the streaming service only managed to deliver roughly 80% of the expected audiences. Netflix’s ‘pay on delivery’ basis in which advertisers only pay for the viewers they reached, and unspent ad dollars would be released at the end of the quarter initially attracted advertisers. Many believe Netflix’s shortfall is due to rushing the launch of their ad-supported tier - having initially mentioned a possible launch date over the next 1-2 years, before rolling it out only 7 months later. Netflix’s ad space was originally priced at $65 per thousand impressions (exceeding Disney+ $50 CPM) which made it the priciest streaming service. Since then, the price lowered to $55 CPM, though this shortfall gives advertisers more room to haggle a further price drop.
Twitter’s new rules ban links to any competing social platforms in bios or tweets to prevent free promotion of competitors
Under Twitter’s new rules, any users that have links to their other social media accounts in their bio or posts will face suspension. Twitter announced, ‘We recognise that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter”. Cross promotion of social medias is common practice for most brands and content creators, putting millions of accounts at risk of suspension. The rules specifically ban linking accounts from Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribal, Nostr and Post - as well as banning the use of link aggregators such as the popular Linktree. However, content from other sites is still allowed to be cross-promoted to Twitter.
Pinterest has released its annual trends forecast for the upcoming year, predicting the popularity of seaweed, fungi and trains
Yep it’s that time of the year again - Pinterest has released their annual predictions of the biggest trends in 2023, and you might just be surprised by what’s on there! By analysing the searches of its 400 million monthly user base during the month of September, Pinterest has predicted different trends in a range of categories from Fashion and Beauty, to Financial Services and Wellbeing. Check out this year's report here, or look back at last year’s report to see how many they got right.
TikTok is testing a new horizontal, full-width display for longer-form video content
Victim itself to many a copycat, it seems that TikTok is now looking to its competitors for inspiration. Similar to YouTube, TikTok’s latest test of its horizontal display provides a new way of viewing clips - especially useful for its new longer, 10-minute uploads. Currently still in the testing phase, the ‘Full Screen’ button gives creators more freedom over the content they can create. This is one of many new experiments and features as TikTok fights back over its constant duplication - introducing longer-form videos, still image carousel posts and its BeReal clone ‘TikTok Now’.
Facebook Video Insights API now includes Reels metrics
Meta has added new Reels metrics to its Facebook video insights API rolled out in September. This new addition allows developers to analyse the performance metrics of each Reel - showing average minutes viewed, comments, plays, minutes viewed, post reach, reactions and shares. According to Meta’s senior technical account manager, this addition will be available for the current version as well as all the previous versions of the Graph API, also noting that this will happen automatically without needing to be put through additional app reviews.
Creators and publishers are ramping up their Shorts content ahead of revenue-sharing program
Not too long ago, YouTube announced that it would be rolling out a revenue-sharing program that would give 45% of its Shorts ad revenue to eligible creators and publishers - significantly more than the often criticised TikTok Creator Fund. The revenue-sharing program does not debut until next February but it seems many creators and publishers are ramping up their efforts now to help get a head start when it is rolled out. David Spiegel, CRO of Betches Media, explained “if we can take advantage and build scale and importance in that algorithm, then we might be at a competitive advantage when they do turn on monetisation”.
Reddit has launched a website that provides additional guidance for marketers using the platform
Reddit’s new ‘Reddit for Business’ website provides insights, tips and statistics for prospective ad buyers, helping them tailor their approach to the platform. Over the last few years Reddit has been working on its advertorial appeal - according to the platform, “90% of users trust Reddit to learn about new products and brands” and “Redditors tend to be more informed consumers, more valuable buyers, and they go hard for their favourite brands”. The mini site includes 38 case studies providing a range of insight into how brands are utilising the app, as well as a wealth of educational resources. Check it out here!
Google has made major changes to the QRG, introducing another E to the E-A-T
Google has announced several major changes to its Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG) for Search - the most notable change being the doubling up of the E to the E-A-T. The new E-E-A-T stands for: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. The addition of ‘Experience’ shows the importance of first-hand experience in a topic, whilst Google also reinstated that Trust is the “most important member of the E-E-A-T family. Alongside this, Google also added a total of 11 new pages worth of content - including ‘Understanding the Website, ‘Overall Page Quality Rating’, ‘Reputation of the Content Creators’ amongst others.
Find out more about the Search Rater Guidelines here
TikTok shares key tips and trend forecasts for marketers in its 2023 ‘What’s Next’ report
TikTok has published its 2023 ‘What’s Next?’ report, looking at the key shifts the platform is seeing from a marketing perspective and providing trend predictions for the upcoming year. The report splits the marketing trend predictions into the following 3 categories: Actionable Entertainment, Making Space for Joy, and Community Built Ideals - providing stats, insights and tips for each. Download the full 2023 trend report here.
Twitter is developing new ad placement controls to ease advertisers concerns over banned account reinstatements
As part of Musk's mission to bring free speech back to Twitter 2.0, he has reinstated many banned accounts. Understandably this has concerned advertisers, who don’t want to place branded content alongside offensive tweets. To alleviate advertisers fears, Twitter is working on new ad placement controls that will give them more say on the content their ads appear next to. Twitter has stated that they won't be reinstating accounts to bad actors, spam accounts or users that engaged in criminal activity. Nevertheless, reports are already showing that offensive hate speech is on the rise on the app, and ads have been spotted alongside white supremacist tweets.
Instagram is launching a new hub to help users resolve account access issues
In its continued efforts to help keep users accounts secure, Instagram is rolling out several new features. Firstly, the platform is launching a new ‘hacked’ hub where users will be able to report and resolve access issues - such as forgotten passwords or suspected hacks. Alongside this, Instagram is also rolling out a feature that will allow users to ask their friends to confirm their identities to help them regain access to their accounts. The platform is also testing sending DM warnings to users who have been sent follow requests from suspicious accounts. And finally, Instagram is going to start displaying the blue verified tick in more places such as in the feed, to make it easier for users to quickly determine legitimate accounts such as those of brands or businesses.
Reddit has added a ‘Latest Feed’ and tweaked Home Feed sorting controls in effort to enhance UI
Reddit is continuing to improve the user experience of the platform to make it easier for new users, and more engaging for existing users. In September, Reddit added a drop-down menu of channels and moved its home channel sorting options to the settings menu - which the platform claims led to an increase in the number of posts. Keen to carry on this growth Reddit has added a ‘Latest Feed’ that enables users to view content in chronological order and stay up-to-date with their Communities. In addition, Reddit is also removing sorting controls from its home feed and pre-empting the feed to ‘best’ sort - which they found the majority of users preferred.
Google is testing keyword search for segments within YouTube clips to help users quickly find what they are looking for
Google is piloting a test in India which will allow users to search for specific segments of a YouTube clip via a text search. The feature expands the search capacity within videos by utilising video captions, either uploaded or auto-generated, to help users find relevant sections of a video. YouTube has been developing search capacity within video clips for some time now, having introduced video chapter search back in 2021, that uses text detection to help identify chapters within a video.
Twitter has switched brand profile photos to squares to counter impersonation, and will remove legacy verifications in ‘next few months’
In an effort to counter the impersonations brought on by the first launch of Twitter Blue’s subscription plan, Twitter has changed the circle profile photos of brands to squares. Alongside this, Twitter is also rolling out Twitter Blue for Business, a new program that lets businesses distinguish their brands and key employees on Twitter by showing a square company badge next to their display names. And finally, Musk has announced he will be removing all legacy verifications in the upcoming months after calling the way they were originally given “corrupt and nonsensical”.
