Algo ranking factors, AI in commercials, and creator learnings from VidCon
July updates for creators and social-first brands.
gm or good evening (depending on where you are in the world),
We’re in peak summer and I’m so locked in for the 4th of July. Hope you are too, my stateside dwellers 🦅🇺🇸
There’s much to unpack this week so let’s dive in.
This week:
🏛️ The White House loves the creator economy so much its hosting its very own conference
🎥 VidCon reveals the best platforms for aspiring content creators
🧸 Toys come to life in new Toys "R" Us AI commercial
📲 Instagram's algorithm now highly favors private sharing
📣 Facebook Pages can now blast updates across multiple Meta platforms
🔙 𝕏 is attempting to woo back advertisers with a new safety focus
💄 Estée Lauder and TikTok team up to fund rising beauty creators
🚗 A car dealership's gold standard TikTok account is redefining brand content
🚽 Skibidi toilet finally gets a deep-dive analysis
🚨 Trend alerts for creators & brands
stay saucey 🍯
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AI & industry news
The White House to host its “first ever” creator economy conference
No, this is not satire. The White House really is hosting a “Creator Economy Conference” in August. The goal is to bring together social influencers, industry pros, and government officials to discuss the pressing issues of being an online content creator. I’ll admit I didn’t have this on my 2024 bingo card, but hey, at least some TikTokers might get to snap a selfie in the Oval Office. Poetic justice be damned.
According to VidCon, IG and YT Shorts are the best platforms for new creators
Instagram and YouTube Shorts are ideal platforms for new creators to start down the creator path, according to a panel last week at the annual creator conference VidCon.
Instagram is ideal for lifestyle content and building a personal brand, while YouTube Shorts offers better discoverability and monetization options. Both platforms have their strengths: Instagram for its engaged community and visual appeal, and YouTube Shorts for its potential to reach a wider audience. The panel creators suggest focusing on one platform initially to build a following before expanding to others. And as always, consistency in posting and engaging with your audience is key to success on any platform.
Commercial AI is here
Toys "R" Us released a new brand film that's entirely generated by AI using OpenAI's Sora technology. The film shows toys coming to life and playing together in various settings and marks one of the first major brand campaigns to use Sora.
While the AI created the base footage, human touch-ups were added for polish, with the company seeing AI as a way to bring imagination to life and create magical, unique experiences for kids.
platform updates
💬 Instagram is pushing "Sends" as a factor for algorithm ranking. IG wants users to share more posts privately with friends instead of just liking or commenting. Theoretically, this move could change how content spreads on the platform and might even impact how creators measure engagement (sends might become as important as likes). If you’re posting on the Instagram (or really any platform), the most basic way to think about it is this: make content people will want to send to their friends.
📣 Meta rolls out Broadcast Channels to Facebook Pages. And if you have more than 10K followers, you get access to the new feature, which lets you blast updates across Facebook and Messenger. Now you can cross-post from Instagram, preview content before it goes live, and let fans share your updates to Stories. It's Meta's latest push to deepen messaging engagement so get ready to slide into your followers' DMs en masse (but don't be surprised if they start hitting that mute button).
🪧 𝕏 rejoins brand safety alliance to reassure advertisers. 𝕏 has crawled back to GARM, hoping to lure advertisers who fled after Musk's takeover. For brands, this could mean better content moderation and safer ad environments on the platform, but 𝕏 still has a ways to go to make up for lost ground (aka advertisers jumping ship due to the very clear lack of brand safety).
💄 TikTok for beauty creators. TikTok and Estée Lauder have launched 'The Catalysts', a new funding program to support emerging beauty creators. Of those who apply, two winners will receive $250,000 in funding, ad credits, and expert guidance.
social clout
viral conversations & internet trends we’re hype for
🏆 This car dealership’s TikTok account is what brand social content SHOULD be. I don’t even know where Mohawk Chevrolet is, but based on their TikTok alone I’d go out of my way to buy from them if I was ever in the market for a Chevy (I’m not). You wouldn’t expect a car dealership's social content to be particularly riveting but they’ve managed to pull it off and every marketing team should take note.
Why it works: It’s a series of candid, mockumentary-style videos (think The Office) capturing the mundane yet absurd dynamics of the workplace — in this case, a car dealership. What's brilliant is that the videos are simple, usually featuring a woman named Grace with impeccable comedic timing. They don't constantly highlight the cars, making it feel organic and not promotional.
🚽 We’ve lived long enough for an analysis of skibidi toilet. I will not be elaborating but you can watch the breakdown here.
🚨 Trend alert: If you were to ask me on a deeper level. This viral meme sequence below (set to this song) turns odd interests into deep inner monologues. Start with a casual opinion and ramp it up to an exaggerated, heartfelt statement. Jump on this one to add a bit of humor and relatability to your content.
🚨 Trend alert: Inside out 2 memes. Pixar’s Inside Out 2 is on fire at the box office, already raking in more than $100 million in the US and spurring 350k+ videos on TikTok alone. The memes are giving relatable. I have no notes.
sauce snippets
trends, memes, and knowledge worth sharing
Why influencers aren’t getting famous like they used to
A VFX artist combined an animation tool with ComfyUI to create a customizable character workflow (detailed tutorial)
Lia Haberman’s recap of everything that went down at VidCon 2024
Figma announces a new presentation feature called Figma Slides, along with a ton of other updates
TikTok creators in 60-100 years
Barstool’s star podcaster snagged the first-ever interview with the "hawk tuah" girl
TikTok is preparing to launch its own AI chatbot called Genie
ElevenLabs just launched a free iPhone app that speaks text on screen with 11 different voices and various format reading capabilities
If you saw a typo no you didn’t ♥️