If the Medium is the Message, What Message Is Social Media Sending?

Book about technology's impact on society.

June 26, 2023July 7, 2023 ~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

I typically focus on the positive use of social media to help organizations achieve objectives. I’ve also discussed how social media professionals must act ethically to build trust in brands and their professions. I haven’t talked about the negative aspects of social media itself.

Yet, evidence of the negative effects of social media on mental health and society is increasing. Is there something unique about social media as a technology and a form of communication that may be causing negative, unintended consequences?

The Medium Is The Message.

In 1964 Marshall McLuhan first expressed the idea “The medium is the message” in Understanding Media. He said, “The ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” The idea is that a message comes with any new technology or way to communicate beyond the content. The characteristics of the medium influence how the message is perceived.

In 1984 Neil Postman furthered the idea in Amusing Ourselves To Death. Postman said, “The medium is the metaphor.” He observed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture where the medium influences “the culture’s intellectual and social preoccupations.” He was concerned TV and visual entertainment, consumed in smaller bits of time, would turn journalism, education, and religion into forms of show business.

Is Social Media The Message?

A key to a successful social media strategy is understanding each social media platform has unique characteristics in the form of content (video, image, text standards, and limits) and in the algorithm that determines what posts are seen by who.

These characteristics and metrics create incentives that motivate behavior. In social media that can be engagement (likes, comments, shares, views), sales (products, services), and advertising revenue (audience size, time). The distinct characteristics and incentives encourage the creation of certain types of content and messages over others.

The message of the medium becomes what the platform and its users say is important – what increases response metrics. It could be “a curated, filtered, perfect life”; “an authentic, 100% transparent sharing of personal struggles”; or “criticisms of out-groups to signal tribe membership.”

As an exercise fill in the Table below.

Consider each social platform and the content that gets results. Are there noticeable patterns or themes? From your observations describe what you believe is the overall message the platform is sending.

Spend an hour on each social media platform and see where the algorithm takes you.

Could social media also send its own message by guiding the type of content that gets posted and disseminated? Consider the types of content that get posted and disseminated on social media versus other forms of traditional media and personal communication. What message does it send and what are the fruits of that message?

There are plenty of positives of social media. It enables us to connect with family/friends, find new communities of similar interests, promote important causes, get emotional support, and learn new information, plus it provides an outlet for self-expression and creativity.

A study found that social media can play a positive role in influencing healthy eating (like fruit and vegetable intake) when shared by peers. Yet, the same study also found that fast food advertising targeting adolescents on social media can have a negative influence on unhealthy weight and disease risks.

Negative Effects of Social Media Research.

Below is a highlight of recent studies. All research has its critics and many point out that social media isn’t the exclusive cause of all negative consequences. Social media also has a lot of positive effects on individuals, businesses, organizations, and society. But we should consider its negative effects – something more people are noticing, studying, and feeling.

People Feel Social Media Isn’t Good.

A 2022 Pew Research survey in the U.S. found:

64% feel social media is a bad thing for democracy.
65% believe social media has made us more divided in our political opinions.
70% believe the spread of false information online is a major threat.

Political Out-Group Posts Spread More.

Research on Facebook/Twitter in Psychological And Cognitive Sciences found:

Political out-group posts get shared 50% more than posts about in-groups.
Out-group language is shared 6.7 times more than moral-emotional language.
Out-group language is a very strong predictor of “angry” reactions.

False Posts Spread Faster Than The Truth.

Research in Science of verified true/false Twitter news stories found:

Falsehoods are 70% more likely to be retweeted than the truth.
It took truth posts 6 times longer to reach 1,500 people.
Top 1% false posts reach 1,000-10,000 people (Truth posts rarely reach 1,000).

Algorithms Incentivize Moral Outrage.

A Twitter study in Science Advances found:

Algorithms influence moral behavior when newsfeed algorithms determine how much social feedback posts receive.
Users express outrage when in ideologically extreme networks where outrage is more widespread.
Algorithms encourage moderate users to become less moderate with peers expressing outrage.

Social Media Affects Youth Mental Health.

A 2023 U.S. Surgeon General advisory warned social media can pose a risk to the mental health of children and adolescents. Now 95% of 13–17-year-olds use social media an average of 3.5 hours a day. While acknowleding social media benefits, the advisory warned it may also perpetuate body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, social comparison, and low self-esteem.

Adults are especially concerned about social media’s effect on teens and children.

The advisory warns of relationships between youth social media with sleep difficulties and depression. Other highlights include:

Adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media double their risk of depression and anxiety.
64% of adolescents are “often” or “sometimes” exposed to hate-based content through social media.
46% of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies – just 14% said it makes them feel better.

A 2023 survey of U.S. teen girls reveals 49% feel “addicted” to YouTube, 45% to TikTok, 34% to Snapchat, and 34% to Instagram. Yet another survey of teens found they believe social media provides more positives (32% mostly positive) versus negatives (9% mostly negative). They feel it’s a place for socializing and connecting with friends, expressing creativity, and feeling supported.

Bubbles, Chambers, and Bias.

Why are we seeing both positive and negative results? Social media’s unique environment can be very supportive, keeping you connected and helping you express yourself. It can also encourage you to improve your life like peers getting you to eat healthier and improve society by making people aware of important causes.

The same social media environment has also created filter bubbles and echo chambers. Technology can knowingly or unknowingly exploit human vulnerabilities that may accentuate confirmation bias and negativity bias.

A filter bubble is an algorithmic bias that skews or limits information someone sees on the internet or on social media.
An echo chamber is ideas, beliefs, or data reinforced through repetition in a closed system such as social media that doesn’t allow the free flow of alternative ideas.
Confirmation bias is the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their existing beliefs.
Negativity bias is the tendency for humans to focus more on the negative versus the positive.

Social media algorithms make it easier to produce filter bubbles that create echo chambers. Over time social media chambers lead to confirmation bias loops of negativity incentivized by engagement metrics.

A detailed article from the MIT Technology Review seems to indicate the problem is it’s difficult for AI machine learning algorithms to minimize negative human consequences when growth is the top priority. Much of what is bad for us and society seems to be what keeps us scrolling the most.

Reducing harm may go against growth objectives and current incentive structures for tech companies to produce mega revenue increases. Social media companies like Facebook, now Meta, continue to say they are doing everything they can to reduce harm despite layoffs.

Social Media Fills Our Spare Time.

While the most popular reason for using social media is to keep in touch with family and friends (57%), the second is to fill spare time (40%). What do we fill our spare time with? With a high percentage of social media revenue depending on advertising (96% of Facebook’s and 89% of Twitter’s) newsfeeds fill with what grows engagement to serve more ads to increase revenue.

That seems to be sensationalized content that stokes fears. Shocking content hacks attention playing into our negativity bias. Perhaps Postman’s prediction of everything becoming show business is true. We’re all chasing TV ratings in the form of likes, comments, and shares.

Recently Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg challenged each other to an MMA fight. What greater spectacle than two billionaire owners of competing social media platforms fighting each other in a PPV UFC cage match? Italy’s culture minister even said that it could happen in the Roman Colosseum. I wonder what Neil Postman would say if he were alive?

Journalism Isn’t Immune To Engagement.

As news moves online organizations chase clicks and subscribers through social media. With so many options, news subscribers increasingly seek sources based on confirmation bias. Andrey Mir in Discourse describes a shift to divisive content, “because the best way to boost subscriber rolls and produce results is to target the extremes on either end of the spectrum.”

With 50% of adults getting news from social media sites often or sometimes their stories no longer compete with just other news sites. Stories compete for clicks with the latest viral TikTok and YouTube influencers’ hot takes. A study in Nature found news headlines with negative words improved reading the article. Each negative word added increased the click-through rate by 2.3%.

Are There Legal Limits Coming?

The U.S. Supreme Court sent a case back to lower courts that would have addressed whether social media companies can be held accountable for others’ social media posts. A 1996 law known as Section 230 shields internet companies from what users post online. Lawsuits have been filed alleging that social media algorithms can lead to the radicalization of people leading to atrocities such as terrorist attacks and mass shootings.

The Supreme Court ruled there was little evidence tying Google, the parent company of YouTube, to the terrorist attack in Paris. The lower court ruled that claims were barred by the internet immunity law. Many internet companies warned that undoing or limiting Section 230 would break a lot of the internet tools we have come to depend upon.

While no legislation has passed there seems to be bipartisan support for new social media legislation this year like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). KOSA would require social media companies to shield minors from dangerous content, safeguard personal information, and restrict addictive product features like endless scrolling and autoplay. Critics say KOSA would increase online surveillance and censorship.

Can Algorithms Change People’s Feelings?

A Psychological And Cognitive Sciences study found when the Facebook News Feed team tweaked the algorithm to show fewer positive posts, people’s posts became less positive. When negative posts were reduced people posted more positive posts.

Postman said we default to thinking technology is a friend. We trust it to make life better and it does. But he also warned there is a potential dark side to this friend. To avoid Postman’s fears, perhaps we need to return to McLuhan who said an artist is anyone in a professional field who grasps the implications of their actions and of new knowledge in their own time.

What do you think?

What research is there for or against the negative effects of social media on mental health and society? Should anything be done to combat the negative consequences? What can be done and who should do it?

Idea Writers Still Needed. What ChatGPT Can’t Do.

March 1, 2023July 14, 2023 ~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

We’re going in on digital. If anyone doesn’t want to learn the Internet, pack up your desk and leave.

We heard this from the president of our ad agency during a Monday morning employee meeting. This may not be scary today when 65% of all ad spending is digital. But in the late-2000s it caused worry. Why?

As a mid-career advertising copywriter, I built my expertise on traditional mass media ads. I instinctively wrote print ads, billboards, 30-second TV scripts, and 60-second radio ads. That’s what I learned in undergrad, at Portfolio Center, and what I had created for 10 years. I honed my skills and was good at them. My campaigns with art directors helped clients meet sales objectives and won creative awards.

The Internet Experiment

I still remember that feeling. For us who built our careers on mass media ads, it was like the rug was pulled out from under our feet. Did I spend all those years in school and years fine tuning my craft only to be replaced by Internet experts? Would they need us traditional ad copywriters anymore? I remember Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, known for creative traditional ads, announced they were no longer an ad agency – they’re a digital agency. Advertising Age even ran an article with a subhead, “The Advertising Age Is Over.”

*Source:* “Digital Set to Surpass TV in Time Spent with U.S. Media,” eMarketer.com, August 1, 2013, http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Set-Surpass-TV-Time-Spent-with-US-Media/1010096 Note: Hours and minutes spent with each medium regardless of multitasking.

What did I do that Monday morning? I looked at a picture of my wife and kids on my desk. I needed the job and income, and decided to learn Internet marketing. I did and created many successful digital and social efforts for clients including PRSA social media word-of-mouth awards and OMMA online media marketing and advertising awards. Today I’m a professor, researcher, and author of digital and social media marketing. By 2017 AdAge ran another article, “Desktop and Mobile Ad Revenue Surpasses TV For The First Time.”

ChatGPT Experiment One

That feeling came back when ChatGPT was released. I had ChatGPT write a blog post for me, “Top 10 Tips For Successful Social Media Marketing: ChatGPT Wrote That Article In Less Than A Minute Then I Spend Four Hours Writing The Rest.” It scared me how quickly it wrote an article that may take me hours based on years of experience.

I concluded that human-written articles do offer benefits beyond A.I. We form connections and develop bonds you don’t feel from a chatbot. Having a chatbot create your content can’t replace the rewards of learning on your own and developing your voice and unique perspective. Writing and creating are learning. That anxious feeling subsided.

ChatGPT Experiment Two

Then the editor of our student magazine approached me with an idea. He wanted ChatGPT to complete a class assignment. I convinced myself I could do better writing on my blog, but what about a student report? If ChatGPT could do it why am I needed as a professor? There was that feeling of the rug being pulled out again.

Create A Situation Analysis for Spotify

For Marketing Principles, a key assignment is to write a situation analysis for a company. Students select the company with stipulations to ensure they’re accessing the kind of data that professional markers use to create their marketing strategies. Our university has databases such as Mintel and Statista so students can learn more by doing. Below is a general description:

Select a US product/service you’re interested in and conduct a situation analysis on the current marketing environment. Write an introduction, access a Mintel report (define the market, describe key trends, select one company in the market), assess the internal environment, assess the external environment, create a SWOT summary graphic, create marketing objectives (following SMART guidelines), a value proposition, and a conclusion. Use APA format with all sources cited in APA Style.

He instructed ChatGPT to write a situation analysis for a company in the streaming audio market in APA style and gave it my specific requirements. ChatGPT chose Spotify.

Introduction

For the introduction, ChatGPT wrote:

The streaming audio industry has experienced significant growth in recent years, driven by increasing demand for on-demand audio content and advancements in technology. As a result, companies like Spotify have been able to capitalize on this trend and achieve impressive growth in terms of user base and revenue.

From this intro., it sounds like ChatGPT is accessing the right data and understands the purpose of the report and assignment.

Access Mintel Market Report

While what ChatGPT said is true, I would look for more in a student report. I ask them to summarize some of the latest trends that would be important to form a marketing strategy. According to the latest Mintel report “Streaming Audio – US – 2022,” there is more a marketer would need to know. Even the first paragraph of Mintel’s report highlights trends in the market that may influence Spotify’s marketing strategy:

2/3rds of customers want help choosing what to listen to via curated content.
Exclusive/early access to new music, podcasts, and audiobooks can differentiate.
62% of adults try to support services that fairly compensate artists and creators.

Internal Environment

For the internal environment, ChatGPT did a good job pulling the company mission statement from its website and describing the basic service. It even provided what looks to be an APA citation:

Spotify was founded in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden, and has since become a leading global streaming audio platform. The company’s mission is to “unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it” (Spotify, n.d.). Spotify’s primary product is its music streaming service, which is available to users on desktop and mobile devices, as well as through connected devices such as smart speakers.

ChatGPT does go on to provide some marketing performance numbers:

Spotify has over 365 million monthly active users, including 165 million premium subscribers (Statista, 2021).

The first number seems accurate, but there are more current numbers as of Q4 2022 from Statista of 489 million monthly active users (MAUs) and 205 million premium subscribers. I would expect students to find the latest data. A 124 million, 34% increase for MAUs and 40 million, 24% increase for premium subscribers is significant.

Then ChatGPT reports a revenue number:

The company has experienced significant growth in revenue, with a 16% increase in 2020 to $7.88 billion (Spotify, 2021).

The revenue number looks correct until you do some research and find the number is in euros, not US dollars. Spotify is a European company, but the assignment is to focus on the US market. To report revenue with a US dollar sign, which ChatGPT did, it should be around $8.47 billion. I also found a more recent 2022 revenue number of 11.72 billion euros or roughly $12.41 billion US dollars. The conversion difference is $59 million, the date difference is nearly $3.94 billion.

Lastly, under the internal environment, ChatGPT names Spotify’s main competitors:

However, Spotify faces challenges from competitors such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Pandora.

This sounds reasonable, but in Mintel’s report a graph shows Spotify’s close competitors as (1.) YouTube Music and (2.) Pandora. Because ChatGPT isn’t using real citations it’s hard to know where it got this and how old it is. Understanding current competitors is important to any strategy.

External Environment

For external environment, ChatGPT wrote:

Political, legal, and economic factors impacting Spotify’s marketing performance include issues related to copyright law and licensing agreements, as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the music industry. Demographic, social, and cultural factors impacting Spotify include changing music consumption habits and the increasing popularity of podcasts. Technological factors include the development of new platforms for streaming audio, as well as advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning that are used to make personalized recommendations.

This is a good general list of issues that may affect Spotify and the streaming audio market, but there are no details that could turn into insights actionable in a marketing strategy. COVID-19 impacted the music industry, like all industries, but how? Mintel’s report explains how and indicates its negative impact was less than expected:

Growth slowed, but people found ways to listen to their favorite music and podcasts.
The low barrier to publishing helped artists publish even from home.

An important external factor missing from ChatGPT’s list is inflation – something Spotify needs to consider for product, pricing, and promotion strategies. The Mintel Report warns that high inflation of 8-9% in the past year could lower household spending on streaming audio with a large percentage of adults worried about rising prices.

The next requirement was to summarize what was found in a SWOT graphic of internal strengths and weaknesses, plus external opportunities, and threats.

SWOT Summary Graphic

Below is what ChatGPT provided:

The SWOT analysis for Spotify is presented in the figure below.

Obviously, it didn’t draw the graphic. I am not sure what it tried to access from Imgur.com. If It did find a Spotify SWOT from Imgur it wouldn’t meet my requirements. That would be someone else’s SWOT based on their opinion and data, not a summary of what the student found in their situation analysis.

Marketing Objective

Next, ChatGPT wrote a marketing objective:

To continue its growth in revenue and premium subscribers, Spotify should set the following marketing objective: “Increase premium subscribers by 20% over the next marketing budget year, from 165 million to 198 million, through targeted marketing campaigns and promotions.”

This objective meets some SMART guidelines. It’s specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound. But it’s not relevant since there’s more recent data. They’ve surpassed this revenue objective.

I would also coach students about using global numbers versus market-specific numbers. Typically, marketers set objectives for different markets like the US or North America vs. Europe to set unique marketing plans for each. From Statista 28% of Spotify’s premium subscribers are from North America (57.4 million), from which you could set a more accurate marketing objective.

My bigger apprehension about ChatGPT’s marketing objective is that it might not be right based on what we learned from Mintel about concern over inflation. If most people are worried about rising prices can Spotify convince 33 million more people to add a premium subscription while not losing any existing premium subscribers?

A revenue or market share objective may be better to grow all users by promoting free and premium accounts. Spotify makes advertising revenue from free accounts. You don’t want a loss to competitors. This would depend on what we find out about the main competitor(s) and what they are offering, which ChatGPT didn’t describe.

Value Proposition

For the value proposition, ChatGPT wrote:

Spotify’s value proposition is based on its ability to provide users with a comprehensive library of music and audio content, delivered through a user-friendly platform that enables easy discovery and sharing. With a focus on user engagement and social sharing, Spotify encourages loyalty and helps users discover new music and artists that fit their tastes, while also providing access to popular hits and classic tracks.

At first, this sounds like a good value prop. But it’s more a general product description that could apply to any competitor in the streaming audio market. From a student, I’d look for a more nuanced understanding of the current market, consumer trends, and competitors. The value proposition should take into consideration Spotify’s unique place in the market in comparison to what competitors are offering and what consumers are currently looking for.

Conclusion

This was ChatGPT’s conclusion:

In conclusion, Spotify is well-positioned to continue to succeed in the rapidly growing streaming audio market, despite facing challenges from competitors and changing market trends. Developing effective marketing strategies and objectives is critical for Spotify to maintain its position as a leader in the industry. By leveraging its unique value proposition and focusing on key marketing metrics, such as premium subscriber growth, Spotify can continue to drive revenue and capture market share.

This sounds like a good conclusion, but there’s no real understanding of the current streaming audio market. It makes it sound so easy! Yet, if marketers relied on past/current offerings and never made adjustments based on changing market conditions, consumer trends, and competitor actions they wouldn’t be well-positioned to continue to succeed.

References

This was ChatGPT’s references:

References

Spotify. (n.d.). About Spotify. Retrieved August 29, 2021, from https://www.spotify.com/us/about-us/

Spotify. (2021). Spotify Technology S.A. fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 financial results. Retrieved fromhttps://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1639920/000163992021000014/spotify2020q4ex991.htm

Statista

It hasn’t provided references to the multiple Statista data with URL links. The required Mintel market report is missing. ChatGPT seems to be mimicking some aspects of APA citation but missing a lot.

My Overall Assessment?

This report looks into the past, describes Spotify as is, sets a higher premium subscriber number, and says to keep doing what you’re doing to succeed! There’s no real understanding. It feels like a collection of incomplete facts organized into categories and written to sound like a person talking. I wouldn’t base my marketing strategy on it! If a student was hired into the marketing department at Spotify and their manager asked them to submit a situation analysis, I would not want them to submit this.

From my experience so far ChatGPT answers lack human nuance, insight, and refinement. Plus, if ChatGPT can answer it alone, why would a company, client, or audience need you? That’s what we all need to figure out. ChatGPT can be a great tool to jumpstart your thinking, but what are you good at that ChatGPT can’t do?

What Am I Good At?

Back in the late 2000s, I found the answer in Teressa Iezzi’s book The Idea Writers. She reminded copywriters and art directors (creators) that we weren’t experts at traditional ads. We were really writers and designers of ideas that connect brands to consumers no matter the tool. We’re experts in human truths and crafting stories that connect with target audiences through emotion to meet marketing objectives.

I could have had ChatGPT write this entire article, but I don’t think it would have the same relevance, reach, and resonance. Can you relate to the feelings I’ve had (in my past and current career)? How’s your anxiety over ChatGPT as a writer, designer, creator, marketer, student, or professor?

Look for Ethan Dyril’s article coming out in the Swinging Bridge on March 31^st.

TikTok’s 1 Billion Users: What You Need To Know For Social Media Marketing.

December 13, 2019December 3, 2022 ~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

Tiktok is a social media short-form video app for creating and sharing lip-sync, comedy and talent videos. TikTok first grew in popularity in Asia and then the app’s parent company bought Musical.ly and merged the two apps under the TikTok name. In two years, Tiktok has quickly grown to 1 billion global monthly users. Unlike previous social networks that relied on organic growth, TikTok has invested in a huge advertising campaign on competing social platforms. Globally, TikTok users are younger than most other social platforms with 41% aged 16-24 years-old and 60% under 30.

Find more statistics at Statista

In the U.S., TikTok is the second most popular mobile social network app.

Facebook users spend an average of 13 hours per month on the app, while TikTok users have risen to 6 hours per month over Snapchat’s 3 hours. Average session length is high with nearly 10 minutes per session compared to Pinterest’s and Facebook’s 5 minute average and Snapchat’s 2 minute average. This isn’t surprising when you learn TikTok is one of the first social platforms to use artificial intelligence to show users more of what they like with advanced interest behavioral targeting.

Despite the growth and active engagement, TikTok is a niche audience.

With just 2% reach among U.S. mobile users placing it 16^th behind Facebook with 91 percent reach and Snapchat’s 26 percent reach. Even among Gen Z, Instagram (65 percent), YouTube (63 percent) and Snapchat (51 percent) are still the most popular social networks based on daily use compared to TikTok (11 percent).

TikTok has unique and similar features to other social networks.

Like other social platforms TikTok users have a profile that includes a photo, username and bio. Users follow other accounts to see their videos. Popular videos are liked with a heart counter appearing over the video and organized by hashtags that appear as trending on a Discover Page. Examples of trending hashtags include #whywebrokeup, #rocktober, #facetrackingchallenge, and #MosaicZoom creatd by TikTok to promote use of a new creative effect.

The For You page is TikTok’s front page as it is the landing page when users first open the app. The For You page is based on an algorithm designed to show you more content similar to what you have liked in the past from people you do not follow. At the bottom of the page users can find content outside the For You algorithm through the Search and Explore page. This is the opposite of Instagram where when you open the app you first see content from users you follow, then you can switch over the Explore tab.

Getting on the For You page is important to going viral and is a goal of many users to grow their followers much like brand trying to get into the newsfeed of Facebook users. TikTok has not released information on what goes into a video making the For You pages, but many speculate it has to do with engagement such as likes and more people watching all the way through (retention rate). Hashtags related to what users have indicated they like also most likely matter, but many also include #foryou, #foryoupage, or #fyp trying to get on this page, gain more exposure and become TikTok famous.

TikTok enables users to create short music and lip-sync videos of 3 to 15 seconds and short looping videos of 3 to 60 seconds. Videos can be sped up, slowed down and edited with filters and background music is selected from various music genres. Users can also create short lip-sync videos to popular songs. The react feature allows filming reactions in a small window over the main video. The duet feature you can film two videos beside each other. Unlike Facebook videos the default is to have the sound turned on. Therefore, subtitles are not has important.

Businesses can participate in the social platform.

Brands can create a brand channel and uploading and sharing relevant content. Brands can work with influencers to spread messages to a broader audience. TikTok offers social ads with some creative formats. TikTok ads include standard native in-feed video, brand takeovers that run full screen, and branded lenses that use AR face filters and 3D objects. Brands can also sponsor Hashtag Challenges that encourage user-generated content such as the #JumanjiChallenge.

TikTok offers social media advertising options.

TikTok ads can be targeted by age, gender, state-level geo-targeting and custom audiences from CRM lists. The platform also boasts advanced interest targeting based on their AI technology. Marketers set campaign periods and budgets paying on a cost per thousand (CPM), cost per click (CPC), or cost per view (CPV) basis. Advertisers besides Jumanji include Grubhub driving app downloads and the NFL courting younger viewers. TV stars such as Jimmy Fallon have embraced the new platform. His #TumbleweedChallenge created 8,000 videos with over 9 million views in just 7 days.

This fast growing social platform is not without controversy. The U.S. government opened up investigations into TikTok owner ByteBance alleging the Chinese company may be censoring politically sensitive content and questioning how it stores personal data. Users have also complained that their videos are being used in TikTok ads on other social platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram without being asked for paid. Yet, everyone who signs up for TikTok agrees to their terms of service (whether it is read or not):

“You or the owner of your User Content still own the copyright in User Content sent to us, but by submitting User Content via the Services, you hereby grant us an unconditional irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully transferable, perpetual worldwide licence to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, publish and/or transmit, and/or distribute and to authorise others users of the Services and other third-parties to view, access, use, download, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, publish and/or transmit your User Content in any format and on any platform, either now known or hereinafter invented.”

These terms are similar to what other apps and social platforms have included in their small print, but perhaps they have been noticed more with the high profile of Tiktok’s ad campaign. California’s new data privacy law (CCPA) takes effect January 2020 with similar privacy protection and disclosure requirements to Europe’s GDPR. Many companies will be changing the way they disclose and what they do with people’s data to avoid fines.

Despite these concerns brands have moved forward on the platform to reach its young user base. How will your brand leverage TikTok? How will TikTok fit with your larger social media strategy? Ask These Questions To Ensure You Have The Right Strategy and consider Top Social Media Channels By Category.

Social Media Reaches Middle Age. Are We Headed Towards A Midlife Crisis?

September 25, 2019December 3, 2022 ~ K. Quesenberry ~ 2 Comments

When you reach middle age life begins to change. Things don’t work like they used to, your favorite songs are now considered classics, and you start dreaming of convertible sports cars. Social media as a marketing tool has reach middle age and is maturing as a medium. Yet this doesn’t mean we are facing a mid-life crisis. It means we need to change the way we think about our social media strategies.

Social media is no longer new and has become mainstream for many.

Across the globe 3.5 billion people are active on social media. And while social media users are increasing there are signs we have entered a maturity stage. One sign of this new era is that user growth has stalled in certain markets. The number of social media users in the U.S. failed to grow for the first time last year. And Facebook’s growth has slowed in the U.S. and Canada to just 1% while growth in Europe was just 2%.

Growth has stalled in other areas as well. US daily time spent with social media fell 1 minute in 2018 after an increase of 13 minutes the previous two years. And it is predicted that time will remain flat at just 1 hour, 15 minutes through 2021. While we are spending less time on social media we are adding more social platforms. The average global social media user age 16-34 has 9 social media accounts. Even 55-64 year old’s are on 5 social media platforms now.

New social media platforms stats become more relevant.

In this new era social media managers must consider more than global monthly active users (MAUs) and overall user demographics of social platforms. Another stat to consider is daily active users (DAUs) among target audiences in specific markets. The question to ask may no longer be “What social media platform is my target audience on?”, but instead consider “What social media platforms are my target audience most active in?” This makes a difference as the table below illustrates.

Globally the top social platforms by highest MAUs are Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. But if you look at global DAUs the top social platforms switch order with Snapchat in first, then Facebook, followed by Twitter. The platforms and order further change when you add demographics and a specific country. The highest DAUs for Gen Z (age 13-19) in the U.S. now become Instagram first, YouTube second, and third Snapchat.

Flat time spent with social media, stalled user growth and more social accounts means platforms and brands have become more competitive for user’s time. And this has lead to increased social ad spending. Social media used to be thought of as “free marketing,” but no longer if you want to remain effective and drive results. While social media marketing use among U.S. brands rose 1% in the past two years (90% to 91%), social media ad spending increase 48% ($18.6 billion to $34.9 billion).

A maturing social media landscape calls for some new strategies.

What do these signs of aging mean? It means putting the top down on your social media and letting in some new strategies. Instead of using social to saturate your audience with brand content across the same channels you may need to add social platforms where you have not been before. And if you haven’t already you’ll need to use more paid social to reach those users. But this doesn’t mean spray and pray. Success comes in targeting the right audiences at the right time in the right social platforms. And it means using AI machine learning to optimize those efforts.

Yet brand posts and brand ads may not be enough. Social media strategies must also integrate employee advocacy, executive communication, user generated content, social customer care, influencer marketing, and messaging. Paid can drive direct action and increase reach, but organic can build community which can lead to advocacy.

Finally, with the increase in social ad spending this means more than ever you’ll need to connect social strategy to business objectives using analytics to measure outcomes with a good Social Media Measurement Plan. Avoid a midlife crisis. Take the time to adjust your social media strategy. A good first step is to Perform A Social Media Audit of your existing strategy following a Social Media Audit Template. Social media author and consultant Jay Baer says, “If your social media strategy is older than a year, you don’t have a strategy.” As social media has matured and spending has increased after COVID-19 Ask These Questions To Ensure You Have The Right Strategy.