Each week Grey brings you five important things happening in the world of social and digital media.
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#5Things: This Week in Social "X and Oh, No!" 9/25/23
[00:00:00] Joey Scarillo: Welcome to the #5Things: This Week in Social.
We're back and back to school. This is the Webby award-winning podcast that looks at five lessons from your favorite subjects, including social… studies, data analytics, content, and tech to give you the full rundown of what you need to know this week in less time than you spent in homeroom.
If you want to grow up to be a marketer, an advertiser, or a creator, or anyone who makes a living using social platforms, then today is going to be your day.
Today on the pod, we have from her high school's golf and tennis team, it's Jessica Womack. Hello, Jess.
Jessica Womack: Hey, Joey. What's up?
Joey Scarillo: Did you have any traditions on the first day of school or anything that you liked about school growing up?
Jessica Womack: Man, I was really big into my first day of school outfit. I would lay that out the night before almost religiously. And it would be the best outfit I wore all year. I was really proud of it. And then I didn't really care pretty much the rest of the year. But that first day, man, that was my Met Gala.
Joey Scarillo: Nice, nice, nice. And we have from her elementary school's production of Alice in Wonderland, where she played the caterpillar, it's
Natalie McGee. Hello, Natalie.
Natalie McGhee: Hello.
Joey Scarillo: Natalie, what was your favorite subject in school?
Natalie McGhee: Oh gosh. I loved like art class. Like I think I loved any chance to kind of like not do schoolwork basically.
Joey Scarillo: Yeah, I feel that. I am former eighth grade class vice president, Joey Scarillo, where I ran for that role unopposed.
Okay, well that's the bell. Class is in session. Here are the five things.
First up, Jess gives us the big news of the week as Elon says X is going paid only.
Then Natalie tells us about Meta expanding its paid verification program to business accounts.
Then Jess explains how TikTok got fined again for mishandling user data.
Then Natalie sticks with TikTok, who buffs up their ad metrics.
And finally, Jess, again with the Clock app, tells us how TikTok is innovating social coverage of Fashion Week and crushing Meta's competition.
All right, friends, let's get into it.
Jess, kick us off with Elon saying X is going paid only. Well,
[00:02:20] Jessica Womack: you got most of it, Joey. Basically, Elon Musk discussed his plans for Twitter, now called X. I don't know about you guys. It's going to take me quite a long time to retire Twitter from my vernacular. On Monday, during a live stream conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister, why was he talking to the Israeli Prime Minister, you say?
Well, the discussion was supposed to be focusing on the theoretical risks of artificial intelligence technology and how AI should potentially be regulated, amongst a number of other policy discussions. However, Musk, as he does, decided that this was his time to not only defend X as an app and a platform, but also talk through a number of potential changes that he envisions for the future of the social network.
So among other things, he mentioned during this conversation that the network is going to be, quote, “Moving to having a small monthly payment for the use of the X system,” end quote. In order to combat, quote, “vast armies of bots,” end quote. He believes that turning users into paid subscribers would make it cumbersome and then thus unaffordable to deploy hundreds of bots.
Currently on X's system, the only people who pay are those who really, really want that blue subscriber badge next to their name. In turn, not only do they get that blue subscriber badge, but they also get to see their post prioritized in other users fees.
Under this new model that Elon Musk is talking about, everyone would have to pay, and if you didn't, the assumption is that you wouldn't be able to access the platform at all.
He didn't talk about how much the plan would cost, he didn't talk about what the features would be like, or what would be included in the lowest tier payment, but it is safe to assume that there is some form of subscription model coming, as in the past he's implemented over a very short period of time really widespread changes to the platform, including massive staffing cuts, a change of the name. It's safe to assume that something's going to happen purely out of his momentum. We don't know if it's fully going to be this subscription model just yet.
Joey Scarillo: When big changes like this happen, you know, you have to wonder what that's going to mean for the entire social media landscape.
Natalie, what do you think this means for apps like Blue Sky?
Natalie McGhee: I think that we'll see kind of an influx of people moving to apps like BlueSky. I think it was in the past week that, you know, we kind of saw BlueSky had their highest number of people flock to their platform following this announcement.
So, I think we'll see kind of a lean towards apps that are more democratic and how people are able to participate.
Joey Scarillo: And I guess the fundamental question, Jess, would you pay for X?
Jessica Womack: I don't even use X while it's free. Right now. I think one of the beauties of social media and social networks was that it was free and so everyone and anyone could get on it. I think that was one of the rare times in which a person could directly respond to the current president of the United States with a gif of Kermit the Frog.
In what other world would you be able to send a meme of a cat to President Joe Biden than the free era that used to be Twitter and what is now X? I think the answer is no. The answer, quite simply, is I will not be.
Joey Scarillo: Natalie, what about you? Would you pay for it?
Natalie McGhee: I am in the same boat as Jess. So, same answer here.
Like, I think that it's an interesting move as these apps move to kind of like monetize participation on the platform and I don't know if we'll see success from it.
[00:05:46] Joey Scarillo: Great. Well, only time will tell, and we'll see if this plan gets fleshed out a little bit more and find out what the pricing model is. I'm sure we'll talk about it.
All right, Natalie, let's talk about Meta as they expand their paid verification program to business accounts.
Natalie McGhee: Yes. So Meta is looking to expand its verified creators’ program. This program was first launched in February of 2023, and it's looking to expand to a verified for business package. So, this verified for business package is intended to give brands more authority over their account.
This business verification will come at a slightly higher premium than its current Verified Creators program. The business verification provides brands with increased impersonation protection, account support, and some boosted discover options. And of course, a verified badge to appear on their pages. I think this, like, Boosted discover options measure is kind of interesting to explore.
In the initial stages of Meta's current verified creators’ program, they had an extended reach option that was quickly kind of removed from the platform. So I'm curious to see how this boosted discover kind of like differs from that first extended reach option. We can see this as potentially impactful to the brands we represent as marketers and advertisers.
I'm really curious to see which brands will opt into the verified business approach or if there will be kind of a similar pushback to what we initially saw with X's paid verification. Although, as Jess noted, X is kind of continuing there. So, there must be some kind of profit or reason being generated behind these programs, looking at this from kind of like an influencer perspective and influencer manager point of view.
I also think it's interesting to see if this update impacts content creators, participation with brands. And if we'll in turn see this as kind of like a barrier to content creators, participating with brands and activating with brands.
Joey Scarillo: Jess, do you think there's a big payoff here for Meta? Like what, what does Meta get out of it?
[00:07:20] Jessica Womack: That's a good question, Joey. I mean, I think that it just further deepens the relationship that it already has. With businesses, I think even though TikTok is exploding in terms of user excitement and getting users and acquisition of users, I do think that Meta has kind of a choke hold and a really strong, strong hold in terms of its relationship with businesses, both big and small.
So, I think this is just going to further that. We'll see how it comes to fold. Yeah.
[00:07:44] Joey Scarillo: As these relationships expand, it's always good to see how the platforms are engaging with businesses. All right, Jess, talk to us about, this is kind of a big one, TikTok's in some hot water. They got fined again for mishandling user data. What are the specifics here?
Jessica Womack: We should start doing as a show, you know, those signs that workplaces have that are like, it's been zero days since the last incident. We should start doing that with. How long it's been since a social media conglomerate has gotten fined with mishandling its data?
Joey Scarillo: It would always be zero.
Jessica Womack: Yeah, it would always be zero. I think every episode, the number would be zero. Unfortunately, TikTok brought that number back to zero again recently, in which it was fined the U. S. equivalent of $368 million in the EU for alleged lapses in the way it cares for children's personal data. Particularly, the Irish Data Protection Commission found that they failed to protect minors against unnecessary data processing and didn't act in a transparent manner.
They gave TikTok a three-month ultimatum to bring its data processing back in line with, you know, strict GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, rules. But if you heard all that and you're like, I don't really get it, what does that mean? Basically, what it is, is for users that are underage, particularly users that are 13 to 15, there's a ton of rules that exist that are in place that TikTok did not follow.
Particularly from, like, if you need a more clear example, users that were underage were able to sign up for an account and that it was made public by default, which meant that they were publicly able to be, you know, commented on, contacted. Their information was out there when they had previously agreed that all underage accounts would automatically be private.
Even further, they had agreed that they would try to limit the number of underage accounts that were even made through their age verification process that seemed to have a number of holes in the system.
Joey Scarillo: So obviously anything that deals with minors, kids, it's always very sensitive, but it also seems like TikTok is being very sensitive about the data that it's sharing.
Natalie, how do you think this is going to affect TikTok's reputation, both with parents, users, and people on the app.
Natalie McGhee: You know, I think that we saw this with the Senate hearing too, like anytime there's some question around the safety of privacy on an app or as it relates to children, we see people be a little apprehensive.
I don't necessarily see this immediately stopping, you know, users on TikTok, but I think it's just something that's kind of another, another note on maybe a lack of like safety with privacy and things of that nature.
Joey Scarillo: Jess, what do you think is going to come of this? What do you think would be next for TikTok?
Jessica Womack: I think there's probably going to be a continued harsh examination of the way that user data is used on the platform. I don't think it's going to be that different compared to the way that Meta is also being examined. Our laws just don't keep up with this. We don't have policies and regulations in place to keep up with the speed at which technology develops.
Even further... We don't have a ton of policies protecting kids in this space either, so I think we're going to see an increased amount of conversation on this. It's not going to go away anytime soon. I think what's going to be also interesting is we're going to see a ton of conversation around laws regarding kids as influencers on the platform.
Particularly on TikTok, just because kid accounts are so popular from the standpoint of like, you know, there's the little boy who says like, “Thank you, mama,” every time she brings him food, or it's like very like innocuous, wholesome, like it's – it's cute content, but these accounts are raking in huge amounts of money, and we have no policies in the way that we would for any other entertainment business, because they're not considered child actors, and, you know, the material that they're using are just their own.
It's not scripts. It's not... IP protected stuff. It's just kids living their lives, making a ton of money on camera for doing so. So, I think that's where we're going to see it go.
Joey Scarillo: Yeah. We've seen a lot of that on YouTube as well. I feel like we could do an entire episode or an entire Thing on that ecosystem and that economy. It's, it's so, I don't know. It's.
Jessica Womack: It's a gray area.
Joey Scarillo: It's a gray area. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Let's stick with TikTok. I feel like we're going from TikTok in trouble to neutral TikTok to TikTok doing a good thing.
Let's jump up to TikTok doing a neutral thing. Natalie, tell us about TikTok buffing up their ad metrics to better track performance.
[00:11:56] Natalie McGhee: So, TikTok is looking to provide users and brands with more insight into the performance of their TikTok ads. Through the launch of this program, they're calling Attribution Analytics, TikTok is looking to offer, quote, a measuring solution that enables web advertisers to truly understand the consumer journey on TikTok.
TikTok is positioning their update to performance insights as different from what other platforms are providing because – Of course, TikTok is different. They view themselves as more of an entertainment platform, more so than a social platform, and they're focusing their update with analytics on consumer behavior, giving a quote, clear view of consumers non linear purchase behavior.
Attribution Analytics is looking to give advertisers the ability to analyze performance comparison in consumers path to purchase, updated overall analytics tools, and access to information. Also worth noting that part of TikTok's updates to attribution analytics comes with a note from TikTok on their desire to advance transparency in their measurements.
I see this as a strategy to keep TikTok differentiated from other platforms and on this like kind of continuous forefront of social media. Here, TikTok is looking to give brands a chance to see how their audience is interacting with their brand specific to the typical in app consumption behavior. I think in the DTC world, in the direct-to-consumer world, this could be big in helping brands understand their audience on TikTok and ultimately shape their content development strategies.
Joey Scarillo: Jess. In your opinion, how can brands and creators best use this new data?
Jessica Womack: Well, Joey, that's a great question. I think the best way that this data can be used is just enhancing stronger and more sophisticated models of consumer journey. It is not as much of a linear process as many would think, or at least as it is on other platforms where it's easy to navigate in and out of platform.
I think that this data is going to help enhance that to be a much more
accurate model of the way that consumers interact with brand platforms.
[00:13:32] Joey Scarillo: Yeah, that's really interesting. All right. Now, here's a little bit of emotional whiplash on TikTok. Jess, tell us about how TikTok is innovating social coverage of Fashion Week and crushing the Meta competition.
Jessica Womack: Listen, man, they may not be doing a good job of protecting the youth or anyone on the platform, but you know what they are great at? Getting us to watch interesting content. I think whenever we see the Fashion Week season end, I really hope that someone, maybe we, should do this, but I really hope that someone does a bit of a case study on the way that they approached Fashion Week this year.
One quick example, Burberry has about 20 million followers on Instagram. They live streamed their London show or their London catwalk. And only about 7, 000 people watched the brand's Instagram live stream of the show. They did the same thing on TikTok and they had over 160,000 people tune in. Meanwhile, the same thing happened with Tory Burch.
They posted a variety of content around their September New York Fashion Week show on Instagram, and then they also posted it on TikTok, and their views on TikTok completely blew them out of the water, with some of their individual videos amassing over 500,000 views, um, in comparison to single digit 5,000, or 6,000 views on Instagram.
So completely blew them out of the water. Aside from the fact that TikTok's algorithm may perhaps just be stronger. A lot of, uh, marketers in the space are taking note of the way that TikTok has really compiled its fashion week content to be so much easier for users to find. In the past, you would have had to follow a specific designer.
You would have had to follow a specific house, a show. You would have to be a level of education there for you to even know what to look for. And what TikTok did was they reduced that barrier, if not completely eliminated it, by launching a fashion month hub at the start of New York Fashion Week. So whereas in the past, not only would you have to like, know when Fashion Week was happening, you would have to know like, what accounts to go to, to see the stuff you wanted to see, where if you were to compare this to sports, not only would it be everywhere, but you could kind of generally just type in like NFL and you'd be able to find highlights.
The equivalent of that never existed for Fashion Week. And so TikTok launching this Fashion Month hub was a really big deal because users could access it just by searching keywords like fashion month or fashion week. You didn't even have to put in a city to get across this or get to this content.
There were tailored tabs that were stuff like from the runway, trending, behind the scenes that helped you navigate different types of content. And then on top of that, they invested in growing its creators with the launch of its TikTok collective. But that is just like more of like a standard influencer approach.
Joey Scarillo: Natalie, do you think there are just more people on TikTok, more fashionable people on TikTok, or did TikTok just make it easier?
Natalie McGhee: I, I truly believe that TikTok made it easier. I think that Instagram and Meta apps have like long been the home for this kind of like aspirational content that we see that comes out of things like fashion week and just in the fashion realm.
Period. But I think that that TikTok is making it easily accessible through general search, as Jess kind of talked us through, and things like that to lead you down into this like fashion week thing. Not to mention, once you're kind of in in that realm, your algorithm will likely kind of reshape to feed you more of that content.
[00:16:45] Jessica Womack: That's a great question though, Joey. I want to know, I want a survey of the 100 most fashionable people in the world, and I want to know what app they spend the most time on. That would be a fantastic survey.
Joey Scarillo: I would love to just find the 100 most fashionable people. (laughing) Maybe we could have them on the show.
We could make it a new thing.
All right, well, friends, that does it for us this week. If you don't already, be sure to follow us, share us, review us, like us, or write to us with your questions, comments, concerns, points of interest, or complaints. Or just send us a thing you want us to discuss. You can do all of that by emailing us at Podcasts@grey.com
Or you can connect with us on Spotify by sharing your thoughts on the show. Just look for the Q& A field. The topics discussed on this show are written and researched by the social and connections team at Grey New York. And a big thanks this week to our panel, Jess from Grey and Natalie from Tank.
This podcast is produced by me, Joey Scarillo and Samantha Geller with post-production by Amanda Fuentes, Guy Rosmarin, and Ned Martin at Gramercy Park Studios. Marketing and communication support by Adrian Hopkins, Christina Hyde, and Jayda Hines.
If you haven't listened to season four of Grey Matter: A Podcast About Ideas, now is a great time to start. Host Jason Kahner and our Grey colleagues have talked to so many guests that get right to the root of their ideas. We're confident that you will find at least one – if not all, of the conversations insightful and inspiring. You can find Grey Matter: A Podcast About Ideas, wherever you find this podcast.
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