News Round-up for Marketers – Social Media Updates, AI Copyrights, and More!

TikTok Fashion Month

A dedicated TikTok Fashion Month is taking place between 6 September and 3 October 2023. #TikTokFashion coincides with Fashion Weeks taking place in New York, Paris, Milan, and London, and has been created to celebrate this community.

Views for #TikTokFashion and #BeautyTok have increased by 300% in 2023, making this one of the fastest-growing communities on the platform. It features dynamic content filled with inspiration, creativity, and trends. #TikTokFashion showcases fashion and beauty inspiration, as well as creators to watch, brands to love, snapshots straight from the catwalk, and behind-the-scenes moments.

A Collective of selected creators from around the world has also been established for the first time. The Collective has been invited to take part in Fashion Week events. The in-app Fashion Month Hub will feature content tabs such as “Trending” and “From the Runway” from the Collective and other major fashion players including designers, publishers, and brands. 

Vote for the MTV VMAs through Snapchat’s Lenses

MTV teamed up with Snapchat to offer people another way to vote for the Best New Artist. Snap’s Camera Kit, which integrates augmented reality, allowed voters to signal their choice by signalling option one, two, or three with their fingers. It worked with a special Lens developed by Saucealitos. The fun continues during the event with an AR Moonperson on a live stream featuring fan selfies. This effect can also appear as an effect in your home. 

Vertical Movies

Creator Walid Fatam and his partner have been using Photoshop’s Generative Fill tool to expand movie scenes vertically. For it to work, these shots need to feature fixed shots and actors. Fatam explains “Once all scenes are chosen, we start expanding them using Photoshop AI as an image and then stitch it with the video to get a whole new expanded scene from a famous movie. So it’s quite the process, but the results are satisfying to watch.” These clips have proven popular with millions of views. 

TikTok’s In-stream Shops Available to All US Retailers

All businesses in the US can activate TikTok Shops on their profiles. This eCommerce development creates native listings, following the closing of Storefront Shopify connection features. “TikTok Shop will now bring shoppable videos and LIVE streams directly to For You feeds across the country,” says TikTok. Now, products and shop ads are displayed for in-app purchases, with integrated, trusted third-party payment platforms.

TikTok’s “Creative Challenge” is an affiliate program which allows creators to earn commission for generating sales. “Fulfilled by TikTok,” currently available in the UK, enables TikTok to manage orders on behalf of retailers.

YouTube’s AI-Powered Creative Guidance for Google Ads

Advertisers can optimise video assets and ad campaigns using creative guidance from Google Ads. The tools evaluate ads according to creative best practices. Early adopters have already reported increased conversions. This AI feature can be found in the Recommendations and Video Analytics section of Google Ads. If an ad is missing elements, steps are provided on how to improve it. It primarily focuses on four elements, namely, brand logo visibility, video duration, voiceover quality, and aspect ratio.

Retro-gaming on YouTube Grows

Classic games, consoles, and devices are being celebrated on YouTube, with 1,000 more retro games being uploaded in 2023 compared to 2007.  

1 Million User-Milestone Bluesky

Bluesky is celebrating 1 million users before its open public launch. Newcomers can sign up for the waitlist at https://bsky.app, with 2 to 3M more invite codes to be sent out. In a press release, the company says “Our current focus is on preparing to open up and getting the network to a state that can support many more users. This means improving moderation and curation on the network through increased staffing and tooling, scaling our infrastructure and federating the network to support this growth, and iterating on the user experience of the app.”

The Play Report Videos by Google

Google is rolling out video episodes called The Play Report at the Play Store and on their social media channels. The report will showcase apps and games on Android. This series is currently in pilot in the US, with new episodes to be launched over the next few weeks for select users. and will additionally appear on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

YouTube’s Thumbnails Changes

Mr. Beast’s A/B testing on YouTube thumbnails shows that a closed mouth leads to longer view times. Testing thumbnails become possible for select creators on YouTube recently. Generally, the trend has been to show excitement and happiness with a broad smile, but after Mr. Beast’s tests, a closed-mouth smile outperforms the rest and may become the new trend.

TikTok’s Creativity Program Beta

Creators in the UK can unlock more monetisation opportunities with the Creativity Program Beta. This program has been developed to replace the TikTok Creator Fund, with an updated dashboard showing video eligibility, estimated rewards, and performance metrics and analytics. The program is currently available in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, the UK, and the US. Other options for creators include TikTok Series (premium, longer form content), and LIVE Subscription (a monthly subscription with perks).

Instagram Hides Likes

Instagram is testing a new feature which allows users to choose who can see their likes – everyone, people they follow, close friends, or nobody. X Premium also offers this feature in a move towards creating greater privacy on social media platforms. 

Klook Unveils New AI Tool

Klook has launched an AI chatbot and trip planner called K.AI which is currently being tested on its app. This feature is being fully integrated into the Things To Do activity, available in 8 different languages. Generative AI is set to improve customer service and translation. While it is currently part of the pre-booking stage, Klook aims to expand this in future to allow people to make changes, cancellations, and so on. Another development is Klook Kreators, an influencer affiliate program which focuses on social media content to build awareness and networking. 

Award-winning AI Art Can’t Be Copyrighted

Artist Matthew Allen’s AI Théâtre D’opéra Spatial won the first place prize at the Colorado State Fair. The US government ruled for a third and final time that it is not eligible for copyright protection after weighing the artist's contributions with that of the machine. This ruling sets the precedent for AI-art protection for creators using software such as Midjourney which was used to create this artwork. The law requires human authors as protection does not extend to animals or artificial intelligence. 

Allan plans to fight the ruling. He reworked the image generated by Midjourney by using Adobe Photoshop to fix flaws and Gigapixel AI to increase its size and resolution. In total, the artist states the artwork required 624 text prompts and input revisions. According to the ruling, Allan can copyright the parts of the painting he altered, but not the artwork in its entirety due to the parts that were AI-generated. 

 Less TV time for Marketers

According toKantar's Media Reactions 2023 report, TV has fallen off the top-five list of preferred media channels for both consumers and marketers. As a result, TV sponsorships dropped and only 6% of marketing execs say they’ll be increasing their TV ad spend in 2024. 

This study by Kantar incorporated research by 900 global marketing professionals including client advertisers, media companies, and agencies. The consumer reports were compiled after interviews with 16,000 people across 23 markets.

The most preferred channel by advertisers is online video while the second is sponsored events, with these results remaining unchanged from 2022. Digital out-of-home has climbed its way to the third spot, followed by video streaming ads and online story ads. Meanwhile, consumers enjoy sponsored events the most, followed by cinema ads, out-of-home, point-of-sale, and digital out-of-home. 

In terms of platforms, consumers praised Amazon, Google, TikTok, Instagram, and Spotify. Marketers, on the other hand, trust and prefer YouTube as their ad channel of choice, and swap Instagram and TikTok in comparison to the consumer favourites list. There has been a notable decline in favour of X, with 14% of marketers saying that they will reduce their spending in 2024. Similarly, only 12% of marketers increased their metaverse ad spend in what Kantar calls an “unfilled promise.”

Interestingly, the data reflects differences between marketer and consumer preferences. Finding the best way to have an impact on your audiences will be key to running successful campaigns in the coming year.