Top 5 Trends in Social Media and Influencer Marketing | July 2021

Although the rainy Dutch summer is slowing down our personal lives, July has been busy and really exciting in the social media world. If you can’t relate and had no time to catch up on social media news, no need to worry—we put together a list of everything you need to know. Without further adieu, here are this month’s top 5 trends in social media and influencer marketing.

1. TikTok Becomes the First App Not Owned by Facebook to Reach 3 Billion Installs

Photo credits: Sensor Tower

Despite the tough competition and the struggles faced with country bans and privacy issues, TikTok keeps rising and establishing its position among the bigger players in the industry.

According to the data and insights platform Sensor Tower, earlier this month TikTok reached 3 billion app installs globally across App Store and Google Play. Additionally, even though the app installs were down 38% year-over-year (which was partly due to the app’s ban in India), Tiktok’s consumer spending increased 73% from $530.2 million in the year-ago period.

With the 3 billion downloads milestone, TikTok maintains its spot at the top of the charts—normally dominated by Facebook’s app ecosystem (WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram). TikTok’s continuing momentum is making its competitors acknowledge that creators are an integral part of their products, as they are the ones who keep users coming back. Now, these platforms are increasing their efforts of attracting and nurturing creators, by constantly improving their monetization opportunities.

2. Instagram is moving away from being a photo sharing app to compete with TikTok and YouTube

Photo credits: Instagram

This month, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, announced through a post that the social media app no longer wants to be seen as a photo sharing platform, but instead it is looking to focus on entertainment and video. Mosseri further highlights that the platform is going to start prioritizing creators, video, shopping and messaging.

He also mentioned that upcoming changes are on their way, including topic recommendations and more immersive videos.

It is still uncertain how Instagram will move towards being a more entertainment-focused app, however, the company clearly understands that captivating younger audiences is key. With TikTok attracting Gen-Z, it is likely that Instagram will give its new updates and features a big push.

3. Facebook’s efforts to combat racism in the wake of Euro 2020

Photo credits: Adam Mosseri via Twitter

Amid discriminatory incidents on social media targeted at members of the English football team following England’s loss in the European Championship final, Facebook shared a detailed outline of what the company is doing to fight racism on owned platforms. “This is an incredibly serious issue that we’ve been working on for years, which has included working directly with football organizations and law enforcement.” says Facebook.

It is not the first time the tech giant has faced concerns surrounding this issue, specifically from UK football fans. Back in February, when players from major English football teams received race-based attacks by fans, Manchester United called on Instagram's parent company Facebook to improve its efforts to protect users from such incidents.

It seems that the racist comments were not registered by the platform’s AI as such because of how they were used (through emojis for example), passing them as bening comments. We hope to see Facebook’s AI evolve and provide users with tools to ensure a safe user environment for everyone.

4. Clubhouse x TED partnership

Photo credits: The Wrap

With the Creator Economy booming, it looks like winning in the social audio landscape will greatly depend on the partners and talents linked to each platform. We have already seen some strong partnerships happening—for example, Twitter and NFL joined forces to guarantee exclusive content for Twitter Spaces.

Although Clubhouse was in a strong position with its talent partnerships, Twitter Spaces and Facebook’s Live Audio Rooms are giving the original audio platform a hard time. But this month, Clubhouse announced another partnership that might give its edge back: TED is going to offer exclusive chats through TED’s Clubhouse club.

Spotify’s #2020WRAPPED report indicated that TED Talks Daily was the second most popular show globally on its platform last year, which shows that not only people enjoy TED’s content but also that it already has experience in the audio scene. By partnering with Clubhouse, TED can further interact with its listeners—something not possible with the podcast format, where listeners take a more passive role. This partnership could not make more sense!

5. After Less Than a Year, Twitter is Retiring its Stories-Like 'Fleets' Option

Photo credits: Twitter

After 9 months of its launch, Twitter confirmed that the platform will no longer operate Fleets, its Stories-like feature. From August 3 onwards, Twitter Spaces will be the only option sitting at the top of the app.

"Big bets are risky and speculative, so by definition some of them won’t work. If we’re not having to wind down features every once in a while, then it would be a sign that we’re not taking big enough swings." says Twitter.

According to the company, there was a lack of activity, especially from users that it was aiming to target with this ephemeral format—those who are more reluctant to create a Tweet due to its permanent nature.

But one thing is clear, Fleets was not working for Twitter, so the company’s decisive action to take the format down was the right one. This of course does not stop Twitter to continue its experimentation and we will probably see more additions to the platform, especially in regards to Spaces which is now Twitter’s main focus.

Do you want to leverage the latest social media and influencer marketing trends in your strategy? Check out our previous work and