101 News Podcast Season 2 Episode 4
Welcome back to 101 NEWS – the podcast within a podcast bringing you the latest news and updates from the Marketing world.
Our main podcast also has a lot of content covering fantastic tips, hacks and other bits to help you accelerate your strategy, brought to you by Marketing 101: a marketing agency in Brighton dedicated to helping your business thrive.
This week, we will be covering the latest on the US TikTok ban, updates from Instagram, Spotify’s adoption of short-form videos and the importance of organic social media posting.
The Latest on TikTok’s US Ban
TikTok is suing the US government over the new law that would see the app banned in the states.
The Chinese parent company, ByteDance, were told that they had to sell up if they didn’t want it to be banned in the US. A lawsuit has been filed, with the complaint arguing that a sale from ByteDance isn’t possible and that the law would, and I quote, “force a shutdown” by January 19th 2025.
The complaint goes on to allege that the US government has yet to provide evidence of the Chinese government misusing the data from TikTok.
They argue that a US ban wouldn’t be feasible, as it would force TikTok to move “millions of lines” of software code from ByteDance to a new owner.
As a result, TikTok is asking the court to hand down a judgement that states the Biden administration’s law violates the US Constitution.
We will keep you posted as the story develops.
It’s also worth noting that TikTok and Universal Music have come to an agreement with a multi-dimensional deal, which basically means that all of your favourite artists are back on the platform!
Instagram’s Latest Updates
Instagram have a bout of new updates, plans and features for users. They have introduced four new sticker options for stories, including an ‘Add Yours’ music feature,frames, shake-to-reveal style images and cutouts.
They are also testing Instagram to Threads cross-posting, which means that users can share the same post on Instagram and Threads (a bit like how you can with Instagram and Facebook). This can be activated for individual or all posts and is currently only available for image posts.
Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri has stated that reels longer than 90 seconds will affect how the algorithm distributes it in a negative way, meaning that if you have a reel longer than one and a half minutes, it may not get seen by many people. So keep it short on Instagram if you want to get seen!
Spotify’s Video Update
It looks like Spotify are trying to keep up with the video-consumption train online with their new feature.
Music Ally spotted a test showing clips surfacing on playlist pages, allowing you to scroll through a vertical feed (a bit like TikTok) with videos less than 30 seconds in length.
Clips were first introduced last year to enable artists to communicate with fans and promote music, but up until now, these clips have only been displayed on artist profiles, album pages and album countdown pages. It looks like this isn’t a user-generated content feed, but more content from musical artists.
Meme of the Week
This week’s meme of the week comes from a video of a baby racoon, vibing out in a fish eye lens. People have been pairing the cute clip with some of their favourite EDM tracks, including Pedro by Jaxomy. Brands such as Dominos have been using the meme as a bit of fun on socials.
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I have been Ren, and you can hang out with me directly on Instagram at renslavin – otherwise, we’ll catch you in a fortnight.
