TIKTOK
Something big is happening on TikTok
We’ve been coasting through the past month without much TikTok drama of note: No potential bans, not much influencer drama, everything’s been calm.
Until yesterday, when Matt Navarra dropped a tweet that shook things up a bit: TikTok is rolling out the ability to make videos up to three minutes long. This is big for a few reasons:
- TikTok videos are currently limited to one minute – the platform is known for the signature, short-form video style. An increase to three minutes opens up a whole new world of opportunities for creators and marketers. Long-form content, anyone?
- Instagram Reels is going to struggle to catch up. Reels initially launched with a 15-second time limit. It’s since been expanded to 30 seconds, but with TikTok at nearly six times that, Reels may be limited in some capacities.
That’s not the only TikTok news we got yesterday. The company also published a roundup blog post with some of the biggest trends from this year. Here were the takeaways:
- TikTok trends are weird and unpredictable. Who would’ve thought that #MedievalTikTok would’ve been one of the hottest hashtags this year? There are plenty more you can check out in the full post, but one thing’s for certain: If you can predict TikTok trends, you’re a real-life oracle.
- There’s a very diverse range of topics on the platform. It’s not just a short-form comedy platform. People post about all sorts of different things – from hunting to cooking to social justice, there is a wide range of possibilities on the app.
TikTok has often been unpredictable and, at times, frustrating for marketers. It doesn’t conform to traditional norms, so success on the platform means you have to improvise, adapt, and overcome.
ADVERTISING
The season of influencing
Yes, it’s the season of giving (and as part of that season, we’re running a giveaway which you’ll find more details on below). But, this holiday season has also been a season of influencer marketing for many brands.
A recent Digiday piece outlines why marketers are leaning on influencers more than ever this year. Here are the highlights:
- It’s getting harder to make traditional ads. Due to the pandemic, restrictions and precautions, making studio-produced ads is trickier. Plus, influencer-style content is in fashion, so why not capitalize?
- Influencer marketing is friendlier on the wallet. As budgets this year aren’t quite as big as normal, brands are turning to influencer marketing for a cost-effective way to market.
- Nostalgia is big this year. In marketing, nostalgia is usually a good tactic – but Danielle Wiley, CEO of Sway Group, says it’s being prioritized even more than usual this holiday season.
The full Digiday piece is here, if you want to get the rest of the details.
The Crew’s take: You’re probably already aware that influencer marketing is one of the smartest advertising tactics for 2020. But, it’s interesting to see how bigger brands and agencies are adapted to this organic style of content – and what that might mean for the future.
SPONSORED BY BUYERTOOL
Experienced Facebook media buyers use this tool to save 1060 hours and 40 minutes of work… without using AI, automation or any optimization rule
If you’re wondering what tool – the answer is BuyerTool!
It saves you time and money by integrating all your Facebook ad accounts into one single dashboard. This turns into a long list of benefits:
- With one refresh, you can see exactly what’s happening in all your accounts, and those of your media buyers.
- If you have multiple accounts for one client, you can aggregate all the data under one client profile.
- Scale up, scale down, start or pause campaigns, ad sets, and ads from BuyerTool’s dashboard.
- It aggregates all of the clients and ad accounts under each media buyer.
- And works even when Facebook’s UI is buggy.
And here are some results achieved by BuyerTool’s users:
- A media buyer managing 5 ad accounts uses BuyerTool to save 4 hours and 5 minutes of work per day (1060 hours and 40 minutes per year). You can see the breakdown here.
- BuyerTool connects to the Facebook API so you can identify problems, notice trends, and take action right away. This helped a user make an extra $10k from a campaign that was already performing well – in one hour!
Companies like Agency Y, DFO Global, VerveGlobal and Standard Conversions rely on BuyerTool.
Find how you can save time and make more money too.
PRODUCTIVITY
Productivity hacks learned from a mental breakdown to building a $10M company
A user named Franzou is the author of this Reddit thread that he created to warn about the dangers of workaholism – and how to still hit your goals without working 15-hour days.
He shared some interesting productivity tips, so let’s give it a read:
- Don’t be proud of your 15-hour workdays. Working for that long isn’t a demonstration of your work ethic, but rather a demonstration of poor time management and lack of productivity. Plus, Franzou notes it can cripple you mentally.
- Money shouldn’t be your sole source of motivation: When starting out, Franzou was dreaming about owning a Porsche. One day he rented one and he realized that the car was just an illusion. Happiness comes from people around you, not things. That’s an interesting hack. If you crave something, try to rent it and see how you feel. You might find out it’s just an illusion.
- Break down your long term goals into daily, weekly, and monthly goals.
- Spend time where it matters. Perfect is the enemy of good. If you’re not seeing any results, it’s probably not because of your site logo or color scheme.
- Track everything you do. Download a productivity tracking tool. Franzou says that if you work 5 hours without social networks and phones, you will achieve more than in your 15 hours of “work”.
- Kill perfectionism: Focus on the inputs that create bigger outputs. The 80/20 Pareto rule should tell you something here.
- Enjoy the small victories and don’t compare yourself to Jeff Bezos. Or other people that are miles away from you. Success comes from compounded small victories.
- Don’t rely on other people to do something. If something’s taking too long to get done, do it yourself.
- Execution is more important than planning. This is similar to the ‘perfect is the enemy of good’ point above.
And to wrap it up, keep pushing and enjoy the ride, because the way up is half the fun!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
FACEBOOK: We told you it’s giving season! Indeed Facebook introduced “Account Near Restriction”. An extra step before banning your account.
BIG TECH: The EU has said that it plans to work with the United States on standardizing tech governance rules, once a presidential transition has been made in January. We’ll see what this means for the future of big tech!
INSTAGRAM: India’s version of Instagram Live now supports up to 3 people in an effort to increase engagement on the platform. It wouldn’t be surprising to see this come to other countries in the coming months.
MARKETING: This interesting new piece from MarketingWeek tells the story of how a fake pop-up shop helped to educate bikers about accidents.
GOOGLE: A couple new announcements for local businesses, including new updates for easier messaging and communication with potential customers.
BRAIN TEASER
What goes place to place but doesn’t move?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Satan meets 2020, and they fall in love
Ryan Reynolds has been on a roll lately.
If you’ve spent any quantifiable amount of time on YouTube, you’ve probably seen some of his hilarious Mint Mobile ads. Or, maybe you’ve seen the frenemy-style coffee commercials he’s done with Hugh Jackman.
Whatever the case, he’s back with a new ad from his agency Maximum Effort. It’s an ad for the dating app, Match, and it’s hilarious.
We recommend just diving straight in. You can catch it here.
The TL;DR? Satan meets 2020 and falls in love. Again, we recommend just watching the video.
And, we’re excited to see what Reynolds will do next.