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

Spring has officially arrived in the Northern hemisphere, and with it the hope that COVID-19 vaccines will be rolled out to more people, and that we will be out of this situation soon. Although things are quiet in the streets of most places, the social media world has been busy. Check out this month’s hottest news in social media and influencer marketing.

1. TikTok Helps Brands Get The Most Out Of Short-Form Video Content

Photo credits: TikTok

Earlier this month, TikTok launched a new section on its TikTok for Business platform, where it provides brands with tips and guidelines to get discovered, produce creatives, drive performance and connect to culture.

Each category includes notes on creative elements, ad strategy, key trends and more, as well as an overview with example case studies and guides, giving further details on the main elements. 

If you are still not sure which direction to take on TikTok and would love some more inspiration, you can head to the ‘Top Ads’ section. This tool enables you to search the best performing TikTok ad campaigns and navigate through filters, including ad type, region and even performance.

Next to ‘Top Ads’, you can find the ‘Popular Trends’ tab, which highlights the latest trends in the app, and the ‘Showcases tab’, where you can check out different ad case studies.

Very insightful! 

2. Clubhouse Launches ‘Creator First’ Program

Clubhouse explosive growth has been a catalyst for a different category of content creators, and new influencers are arising from the platform. To help them build their audiences, connect with brands, and monetize their shows, Clubhouse announced its “Creator First” program.

Photo Credits: Clubhouse via Twitter

The program will be available to 20 select creators and includes the following:

• Equipment to host shows

• Concept and creative development with the Clubhouse team

• Matching creators to guests and talent for shows and events

• Design services for creative assets

• Support in audience building

• Promotion within and off of Clubhouse

• Providing a monthly stipend and matching creators with brands to turn ideas into profitable creative endeavors

This program is a strategic move from Clubhouse to provide additional value to its users, as the app faces more competition—specially from Twitter and Facebook—and struggles to keep its download rankings levels.

3. Twitter Spaces: Clubhouse Latest Competitor

Photo Credits: RTL

It did not take long for other social media platforms to take notice of Clubhouse. While its invite-only structure may have boosted the initial buzz around the app, it is now giving competitors an upper hand. This month, Twitter has launched a new audio chat feature to compete with Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces. 

Spaces enables users to have live audio conversations on Twitter. These chats are public and therefore open to its 192 million active users to join and tune into the broadcasts—without any invitation required. This also means that users can leverage their existing following base, representing an extra obstacle for Clubhouse to attract creators.

The main downside of Spaces, however, is that it still doesn’t have its own tab integrated on the platform, making it harder for users to spot when a Space is live.

Spaces initially launched in iOS and for select users only, but Twitter is already moving to make the feature more broadly accessible. The platform has announced that some Android users can now access the feature (currently in its beta testing), and that it will become available to everyone as of April.

Also, Twitter is allegedly working on a way to monetize Spaces for broadcasters by enabling tipping, which, added to its huge user base, could definitely make Spaces a much more appealing option for creators compared to Clubhouse. 

Interesting times ahead, and we’ll keep an eye out for you.

4. Instagram’s And TikTok’s Most Recent Platform Updates

Instagram is apparently testing out a new sticker for Stories, which will enable users to generate automated captions in their clips. Currently, select users have access to the new tool, although they cannot post it as “the process is currently only in testing and is not supposed to be available to the public just yet”.

How does it work? You add the sticker to your Story clip and you will get a prompt message indicating the app is ‘Transcribing audio’, after which you can start speaking and the automated captions will be displayed on the screen as you speak. Cool, right?

TikTok also has some updates of its own. It launched a new Q&A feature that allows users to engage with viewer’s questions. It often happens that viewers follow up on creators’ videos with questions, which are answered in the comment section or even in a second video.

With the new feature, creators can designate comments as Q&A questions, respond to questions with either text comments or video replies and add a Q&A profile link to their bios, among other things. Perfect feature to leverage on live videos!

Photo Credits: Tech Crunch

5. YouTube’s TikTok Rival, YouTube Shorts, Arrives In The US

This month, YouTube launched in the US the beta version of “Shorts”, its short video format feature. By dedicating a new space for this type of content, YouTube aims to “create a playground of creativity where we give creators the raw materials to produce great videos” as Todd Sherman, product lead for Shorts, said.

Shorts has been available for some months in India, but now US users can now create them, too. 

Shorts are videos of 60 seconds or less where creators can add backing music and text overlays, with speed and timing controls to alter audio and control when text appears. There is no Shorts app—instead, you can find it on a new carousel on the home screen of the mobile YouTube app, although the company seems to be experimenting with a dedicated tab.

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