Welcome to the February instalment of Social Butterfly – TCD’s state-of-social-media wrap with Digital Content Producer Tessa Charters and Social Lead Jamie Hatch.
I’m back and I’ve brought a friend with me. Staying up to date with the social media landscape just got twice as good. We’re doubling the brain power and the opinions so get ready for us to spill the piping hot social media tea.
Let’s jump into it.
We’ve got ChatGPT on our minds
ChatGPT has well and truly entered the building and if you haven’t heard of it yet, you might like to climb out from under that rock you’ve been stuck under.
Given the app’s low cost and eerie similarities to human-like responses it’s no surprise it’s making everyone feel like an expert in any field of their choice. For accessibility of information, great. For creativity and independent thinking, not so great.
While ChatGPT can draft a blog article, social media post or eDM in a heartbeat, if everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, you risk cookie cutter outcomes that are unlikely to cut through with your audience.
If you do choose to implement it into your content marketing strategy, we would highly recommend a fact check, a tone of voice re-write and a creativity sense check before sending it out to the masses.
It’s worth noting that AI generated content can also have potential impacts on your SEO with Google traditionally penalising auto-generated content due to its ability to come across as low in quality. We also wonder if Meta ads will deem ChatGPT content as going against its advertising policies, particularly in the areas of misinformation and low-quality or disruptive content.
As with anything new and shiny we will have to wait and see how the cookie crumbles.
Living in a blue world
Once upon a time a clout-chasing influencer, celebrity or brand would sell their soul for the coveted blue tick. But first Twitter and now Meta are opening the doors for every person and their dog to become verified.
While Twitter seems to be at least giving their Twitter Blue users early access to added bonuses like editing and undoing tweets, custom navigation, tweeting up to 4,000 characters and prioritised ranking in conversations, Meta just seems to be charging for the blue tick icon.
Flaunting a blue ticket on your social profile can prove that you’re an official profile, positioning you next to the likes of global brands, public figures and celebrities. But does it still feel special if anybody can have it?
A Meta Verification subscription bundle is currently in the testing phase, aimed at creators wanting to build their communities and increase popularity on social media platforms. Us Aussies will be the first to have the option to pay for the blue verified tick on Facebook and Instagram, so we will see for ourselves shortly.
Pinterest is showing off
According to recent reports, Pinterest is now up to 450 million active users (an increase of five million) and Pinterest trends are 20 per cent more likely to take off quicker and last longer than trends across other platforms.
Rather than following the crowd (something we are seeing from a lot of platforms at the moment), Pinterest is also choosing to do something different. Making their focus to be on creating a more positive place online utilising ‘AI that’s additive, not addictive’.
One study with UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, showed that daily interaction with inspiring content on Pinterest helped Gen Z college students to become more resilient against burnout and stress. Showing that in a time where we are encouraged to switch off our screens it is more about switching to the right kind of screens.
With that being said, if you’re looking to refresh your Pinterest tactics for 2023, you might like to check out its new e-learning platform – Pinterest Academy – here.
TikTok has moved to the slow lane
It seems after a long ruling period, TikTok’s user growth has stalled. Don’t worry, it is still the app of the moment and one of the most popular platforms in the world, with over 1.5 billion users. However, we will likely see a few changes going on in camp TikTok as they try to reignite.
In shall we say, weird news, TikTok’s latest partnership is with Mercedes Benz and sounds to be mildly illegal…? With TikTok explaining the move as a way to pass the time waiting while stationary in your vehicle or enjoying a moment to yourself while your car is at rest. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the wild. Knowing the TikTok hole we get into ourselves, there would likely be a green light, or two, missed.
In great news for all us content marketers and creators TikTok is also trialling the ability to download your TikTok vids without the watermark – #win! Not only will this make repurposing videos across channels just that much easier, it is also cutting out the need for third-party editing apps.
And in Instagram news
The platform is trying to increase user engagement with in-Feed prompts to re-share old posts on Stories, create more personal interactions with creators and their followers through Broadcast Channels and is scrapping live shopping.
Chat next month…
