Vanity Metrics 24
Reel/Tok
We did it! Thanks to all of you, we’ve crossed the 100 subscriber milestone and then some! I just want to take a second to share my appreciation for each one of you that shares your time with me and Vanity Metrics. And we’re aren’t done yet. The next milestone is 250 subscribers, and I’ll need your help to get there. So please, if you appreciate this resource, share it on social, forward that email, and hit that heart up top (up there on the right).
The more we grow, the more good work we can do to help you do good work too! Thank you again - Ryan
The Big Stuff
Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
Donald Trump’s obsession with alienating everyone under the age of 60 overshadowed most social media platform news. TikTok’s situation in the U.S. is both ongoing and a mess. It’s also got mainstream, wall-to-wall media coverage that doesn’t need rehashing here beyond the key points you need:
Donald Trump has ordered the platform to be sold to a US company in 90 days if it wished to keep operating in the country (not it’s largest user base but likely the largest source of ad revenue).
Tik Tok is bringing a lawsuit forward to block the order.
The company has was/is in talks with 3 other US companies about selling off its North American operations before the ultimatum (Microsoft, Twitter, and an unknown 3rd company, and it’s not Apple). update: it’s Oracle?!
Instead, let’s talk about Reels. It’s didn’t come as much of a surprise that Facebook was working on a TikTok competitor for a while now. It’s long been Facebook’s strategy to copy popular features from upstart rivals. Which in itself is a copy of the Microsoft playbook from the 90s (copy/acquire/crush) that led to Antitrust charges.
Well, it’s out the door now. And the reception? Not so good. The general feedback has been that Instagram has copied TikTok so closely that there’s no difference at all. Except one: TikTok’s magic sauce (it’s algorithm).
Coaxing TikTok obsessed fans away is going to take more than just an imitation shoe-horned into Instagram. As Jon-Stephen Stansel smartly points out, Reels will fail even if TikTok is banned:
At this point, it’s safe to say that Reels is not off to a great start. Yes, it will have lots of ad inventory. Yes, the company will be subsidizing popular creators to attract brand money. And yes, there will be lots of potential for reach and impressions for brands and advertisers. But that’s playing off the overall gargantuan Facebook audience already in place. Despite the work FB/IG put into IGTV, it never found its groove and is once again relegated to the backwater tab few people ever click on. Will Instagram be able to make a real go of Reels? Coverage will continue.
[And as if that wasn’t enough, Facebook may be introducing yet another video category: short videos. Not Reels… short videos. H/T Matt Navarra]
The Small Stuff
Facebook is doing a little fall cleaning of duplicate and rarely-used targeting parameters, about 1000 in all (paywall story).
Facebook is also starting to shift CTAs towards its Shops rollout.
TikTok’s in-house tutorial site is two great things in one: good info and bangin’ website design.
Automatic captions may be coming to IG stories.
Post-level analytics are coming to Facebook Groups, helpful for getting detail on what posts are crackin’ in your group content.
Instagram has rolled-out “Suggested Posts” that live at the end of your timeline. This is clearly designed to keep you scrolling (i.e. show you more timeline ads).
Strategy insight: how has the NBA pivoted on content with the return to games: mixing (sponsored) game highlights, player spotlights, and historical content.
In the neverending series, “Facebook has a content problem”, a recent investigation by Facebook revealed there’s millions of “QAnon” accounts active on the platform, and it’s own algorithm actively recommends their Groups.
LinkedIn has released a new playbook for social media managers. Nice.
Scammers are already taking aim at Instagram Reels, offering fake views.
As is the “Retweets with Comments” breakout. Twitter has said the comment category is visited 4x more often when coupled with conversation settings limiting replies. An example can be seen if you click the tweet below on a mobile device:
While not really a social platform, Bandcamp is quickly emerging as the best place for artists to get paid. Pitchfork profiled a band that made more in one weekend than they had on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube in SIX YEARS.
Google is upping its audio ad buy capabilities and making it easier for media buyers to manage image, video, and audio ads in one place. Google already has ad partnerships with major streaming platforms like Spotify.
Great bit of research from the University of Alberta. When it comes to creative on social/digital, keep it simple. Single message creative generates 10+% more awareness than multiple messages. H/T Praveen Vaidyanathan
#StopHateForProfit Updates
Neil Young has spent $20K removing Facebook login credentials from his music archive as a middle finger to the company he says, “knowingly allows untruths and lies in its political ads to circulate on the platform, while bots sow discord among users”.
Facebook’s Head of Product announced new transparency tools coming to the platform (mostly election-related) and updated its hate speech policy.
New York Times with a post mortem on the #StopHateForProfit Campaign. Did 1000 (out of 9 million) advertisers have an impact? In short? Not really.
If you want to see how some of the most influential companies did, check out the special issue of Vanity Metrics where we took a deep dive into the Ad Library to see if brands were true to their work about curtailing ad spend on Facebook for July.
Ryan LaFlamme has worked in social media marketing and advertising for longer than the job had a title. He formed the independent social consultancy Hub and Spoke in 2016, and can be found hanging out on Twitter @ryanlaf Now accepting new clients and speaking engagements.