#5Things: This Week in Social

#5Things: This Week In Social. "The Dollar Store" (Transcripted edited for clairty)

Joey Scarillo: Welcome to the #5Thing: This Week in Social. This is the Webby award-winning podcast that looks at five stories from social data, analytics, content, and tech to give you something to talk about this week with your coworkers, your clients, or your kids. If you are a marketer, an advertiser, or a creator, or anyone who uses social media for a living, then you are listening to the right podcast. Today on the show, we are recording in the same space. This is not something we get to do very often, so it's very exciting. And we are all in one place at Grey's new office in lower Manhattan. Back on the show, we are excited to have from the creative department. It's Kofi Roberts. Hello, Kofi.

Kofi Roberts: Hello, hello.

Joey Scarillo: Question for you. Are you more of a salad or sandwich for lunch guy?

Kofi Roberts: I'm more of a sandwich guy, gotta have the chips, adds the crunch.

Joey Scarillo: Oh yeah. You got to add that crunch. And returning to the pod from the Social and Connections team, it's Kylie MacDonald. Hello, Kylie.

Kylie MacDonald: Hello, happy to be back.

Joey Scarillo: Glad you're back I understand you are a coffee drinker, so do you drink your coffee hot or cold?

Kylie MacDonald: I am strictly a cold coffee drinker. I will be having my iced Americano every single day, all the way through the winter.

Joey Scarillo: Amazing. I'm Joey Scarillo, and I will pick a sandwich over a salad on most days, and I like to drink cold brew until temperatures hit 40 degrees, or December strikes, whatever comes first. Okay. Here. Kylie breaks down misinformation policies and measures that are being put to the test across social media platforms amid the Israel Hamas war.

Second, Kofi tells us about the latest from X, who are considering a basic subscription for 1 a year. Then Kylie explains ByteDance launching... CapCut for business to assist in brand video creation. Next, Kofi tells us about BeReal, looking for the realist. And finally, Kylie looks at TikTok, who continues to announce partnerships with entertainment brands such as Disney.

Alright, lots to uncover today. Kylie let's get into the first thing about the misinformation policies and measures being put to the test across social media platforms and before we get into this one, I just want to say that we will only be discussing social media's role in this conflict. All right, let's dive in. Kylie.

Kylie MacDonald: Alright, so, obviously a very serious topic that we're all considering lately. As the Israel-Hamas war becomes more intense, social platforms are increasingly being used to disseminate critical information, both within the impacted regions and for our worldwide audiences. So, at the same time, the EU continues to call on these social networks to deal with fake information or face consequences like fines that are literally percentages of global revenue and they're doing this by enforcing the Digital Services Act. The U. S. already issued notices to Meta, X, and TikTok to remind them of these more stringent obligations and they have a few responses so far. So getting into those Meta had a full overview of its crisis response process and then X had actually a very lacking response that resulted in the EU launching a separate investigation into the platform's misinformation measures and capabilities.

So more in detail about X. They've been pretty public about its new free speech lines approach to content moderation, which is now especially being put to the test many people in the region have turned to X for their real time updates, which in turn has made it a valuable breeding ground for partisan propaganda, which is obviously problematic for the platform and then in X's actual response to the EU pressures. It promised updates to community notes so to get them up on individual posts much faster and then also a change to its public interest policy, which will see more people that are actually able to keep their posts related to the conflict active.

And in the interests of ensuring users are much better informed. However X’s heavier reliance on crowdsource fact checking with these community notes continues to fail at actually catching all the incidents of misinformation around the attacks whereas Meta's policies, like, remain much more established and much more robust, meaning that...

They can actually remove content that violates its policies from the platform, and then they're also limiting recommendations of net new problematic content.

Joey Scarillo: It sounds like X is in some hot water and Meta seems to be doing a better job Kofi, I would, I'm wondering what advice would you give people to best stay informed about what's going on.

Kofi Roberts: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, try to find that healthy medium. Obviously, like, you don't want to take everything from X, because as we're hearing, this is more of like a... community based verification system. Whereas with meta, we have these more stringent practices, which some people have also been upset with, but at the same time, you have an entire room of people who speak Arabic in these like languages to actually be able to check it.

Like you have actual humans, whereas Musk has gone a bit more towards like software and things like that. So I think it's finding, you know, that middle ground of like. Where, and, and, and like using that critical thought to be like, okay, like, are these from verified sources peer reviewed sources, colleges, like things like that.

Just like making sure that the stuff that you're looking at has been checked by someone that you would trust to get information from.

Joey Scarillo: Kylie, what do you think the platforms can do to better stay ahead of myths and disinformation with global events like this?

Kylie MacDonald: Well it's, like, you have to look at it in two ways. So you have one platform that is really editing, like, the labels and community notes that are on the individual posts. And then you have a platform that's just simply being very hyper vigilant about taking down posts and not recommending posts. So those are two very different approaches.

So when you decide, like, what are the best practices moving forward, you either have to combine the two to make sure you're balanced, because you do have people accusing Meta of shadow banning now. So they're being a bit too stringent in some circumstances. But then on Twitter, there's posts getting by, so you have to have a combination of both limiting recommendations and removing posts, but also having those like post labels.

So you have to not just go down one avenue, you have to do both.

Joey Scarillo: Sensitive for sure and something that, you know, I really hope that these platforms do end up getting right.

But, you know, I would hope that people are still getting their news from news sources that are verified and just keeping themselves informed as best they can. Okay. We're going to lighten things up here a little bit. We're going to switch over to X. Kofi, tell us about their new idea for a basic subscription for 1 a year.

Kofi Roberts: Absolutely. Yeah. So this one's pretty straightforward, I think, but it is overall kind of a shift to how we've seen social media operate. So X is launching a 1 sub that is basically access to the site. So things like liking, retweeting, sharing content, those will all be locked behind that 1. You will still be able to like view things, follow people and see things, but it's just like, you can't be as active as a participant.

And this is because, and the service is called not a bot and the, and the purpose is you guessed it to combat boots and spammers that Musk has said has been like proliferating on X especially since his takeover. So but yeah, overall existing users will not be affected by this, but people who want to sign up.

They will be asked to sign up for this service, and, you know, if you don't, again, you, you will only be able to view and read posts, so you can still be kind of in the know of the conversation, but you may not be guiding it as much as you may want to and there will be three tiers of this service based on ads that you see, and this will start in New Zealand and the Philippines, so not here quite yet.

Joey Scarillo: Hmm. Okay. Kylie, why has X made battling bot accounts their number one priority? And do you think a dollar subscription is the answer?

Kylie MacDonald: I'll answer the first part before we get into the second part so I think that this is very much in response to X is trying to make its platform much more valuable for brands and brands are. like, seeing a lot of bots on their content, and they don't like being, like, they don't like the fact that users are lurking in their comment sections, so I think this is another push from X to make its product much more beneficial for brands. However, I don't think a 1 subscription where people are just able to read and view, like, posts, I don't think that's gonna solve the issue, just because all you have to do is not pay 1 for the subscription so there's obviously workarounds and bots are always looking for workarounds anyway, so I don't think this is the answer for it.

Joey Scarillo: Kofi, do you think the public will catch on with a $1 subscription?

Kofi Roberts: I mean, I think people, well, you know, I think at first I would have said no, but then Twitter blue has had some level of success like people, especially people like launching brands and things are like, this helps you look more official. So people may be more willing than we think, you know, I personally don't think I would want to because social media, you know, I could do with like a little less, but I think people might.

Joey Scarillo: Amazing. All right. Well, a lot of brands have been talking about subscriptions lately, so we will definitely keep an eye on that one.

Alright let's switch over to Kylie. Tell us about ByteDance launching CapCut for Business. Tell us about it.

Kylie MacDonald: Yeah, so as a social media marketer myself, this one is super valuable so TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, has announced the launch of CapCut for Business this is a business focused version of its advanced video creation editing tool the platform is going to offer a few updated tools, including AI generated ad scripts based on prompts that us marketers can give it business CapCut templates for brands to safely use, which I find especially useful when briefing in creatives and product URLs that are automatically turned into actual paid ads based on the URL. So the URL essentially becomes interactive on the platform. And then AI characters that, Actually, like, talk through and present branded content.

So these are all great tools that are being launched by this new platform. And additionally, like, a great part of this is that the tools won't be confined to TikTok, which is big. And a very large shift, I would say in paid social. So CapCut is actually going to be supporting downloads that can be used on any digital platform of your choosing.

So. Not specific to TikTok, and now just encouraging that cross platform recycling of content, which is great to see. Yeah, that's great.

Joey Scarillo: Kofi, as a creative, what comes to mind when you think about how brands could benefit from a tool like this?

Kofi Roberts: Yeah, I mean, I think this goes into the whole AI conversation now of, you know, of how it can be used as a tool. And yeah, as someone who's Had to make TikToks and you're like, and you just get told you can't use this. You can't use that. Cause it's all, you know, commercially used content that we didn't have access to.

This will be great where it'll kind of take the wheels off for, is just the best idea wins because we know that all of this is already green lit. So, you know, I think in the larger conversation of AI used as a tool, this is pretty exciting just because it's like, yeah, it's kind of getting all of us social creatives to that point where we can kind of make the, hopefully the stuff that we've seen that we're like this could be great, and now we can use all this stuff.

Joey Scarillo: Nice. Alright, well, that is, I mean, that sounds really cool and, you know, any tools that make life easier is always better. Alright, so let's move into this fun one, Kofi I still use BeReal, so I'm looking forward to this, but tell us about BeReal looking for the quote unquote realist.

Kofi Roberts: Absolutely. So BeReal, you know, the app where you just take a photo a day, and now with the update it's three. But you know, the idea that you just want to have your closest friends on there because it's... That's the app for you and your closest friends so with this new competition, it's asking for all of those BRLs that you've taken over the time that it's been active to find the craziest, raunchiest, funniest, whatever one and send it in for a chance to be featured across time.

Across Times Square and any other, like, hot bed place, like, that's where they're promising that they'll put your b roll up on and then it'll be a trip for you and three of your friends to go on anywhere in the world. You'll be able to control the b roll clock. So, you know, they're really kind of giving you all of the keys to the castle.

And I think it's kind of this moment for the idea of like B Roll felt like a thing almost for like college kids. Like that would be the crazy times of like your life. I think this is a big moment for them to shine and get a pretty cool trip with all their close friends.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah. Kylie why aren't more platforms engaging users in this way? That's

Kylie MacDonald: it as often, but they are, like, Spotify does Spotify Wrapped, and everyone's always posting those. However, they haven't rewarded their users for posting their Spotify Wrapped. But, like, Twitter literally put organic tweets up on Times Square billboards.

So we're seeing that happen just in very small, like, individual siloed activations and I think this is really a great way for BeReal to actually tap into trends that are happening on other platforms. So like on Instagram, you have your add yours feature where lots of people are like, Oh, add your like baby pictures and there's 20 to a hundred thousand versions of.

Baby pictures on there. So now this is going to be another version of that where users are taking their top photo on BeReal and now they actually get rewarded for it. So I think it's a very cool transition from trends on the platform to rewarding your users.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, it could be really cool. Uh, Kofi, how can people find it?

Kofi Roberts: Um, so you just download the b roll app and then it will just pop up right under it of like enter this competition send it in Its super integrated. So like if you're using b roll, you've seen this and you've probably thought about it And then you were like, maybe I'm a bit too old already, you know.

Joey Scarillo: That was my thought process for sure do you guys think you'll enter?

Kylie MacDonald: I stopped using BeReal a while ago, so apologies.

Kofi Roberts: I am using it, I just don't think that a million BeReals of me at my desk working is gonna, you know, get the, you know, get it done.

Joey Scarillo: It's a lot of beverage content for me. A lot of seltzer and coffee. Yeah. Alright, Kylie take us home here with the fifth and final thing. Talk to us about TikTok continuing to announce partnerships with entertainment companies and brands like Disney.

Kylie MacDonald: So this is a fun one for anyone that's very religiously on TikTok like I am, we're seeing so much more long form content on the platform.

Like, we saw Paris Hilton do her extremely long three hour like, TikTok video that was paid, like a paid TikTok video. And then now the platform is responding to those long form content trends by literal paid partnerships.

So, Platform's rolling out an official partnership with Disney recently where Disney has a dedicated destination within the app where fans can watch videos from Disney brands create their own Disney music and special effects, play Disney themed trivia, and they can even collect character cards within this separate part of the app for their favorite characters.

Like, players and characters. And then another partnership that recently came up was with Paramount Plus, where Paramount Plus dropped the entire long form Mean Girls movie on TikTok in a free 23 chunks for all fans of Mean Girls, for Mean Girls Day, of course, for all fans to view. So this was the first time a movie, newer classic movie really, has been released in full by a major Like movie brands on Tik Tok.

So these two partnerships are just the beginning of Tik Tok starting to take into account, like, Oh, our users are actually watching like full entire TV shows, movies they’re watching everything a celebrity will post in full, like whether it's two minutes or three hours long they’re responding to that by having these very official brand partnerships, which is really nice to see as a marketer myself.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah. So watch out YouTube. Kofi with Disney's nearly endless stream of content and IP does this feel like a perfect match or do you feel like these two brands are sort of forcing it a little bit?

Kofi Roberts: You know, I think on TikTok, anything can be a perfect match. You know, like I think everyone's algorithm is so catered and cut to exactly what they like, that, you know, you might not see any Disney on it, or you might see all Disney on it. Like you might see all Marvel stuff or whatever. So I think that, you know, that's what brands are tapping into is that TikTok is this constantly morphing social media and it goes towards like towards everyone and, you know, going towards that longer form content.

Like they already had the 10-minute long TikToks. Like it's like, I think brands are just. Realizing that best practices, at least on TikTok, sometimes you can throw out the window and just kind of do cool stuff.

Joey Scarillo: Kylie.

Kylie MacDonald: Well also, like these streaming companies and brands have seen so much pushback for the fact that you're paying for a separate subscription for each one. So I feel like partnering with TikTok is now the workaround to give more brand love again because they're dropping content for free. And so users are gonna be like almost vigilantly watching to see what's next from these streamer brands on the platform, which I think is a great pro.

Push from them to like, not only engage their fans, but get their content a little bit more exposure without a paywall.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, that's cool.

Kofi Roberts: And I mean, it's really interesting too, because I know like YouTube, for instance, does this like 24 7 live stream sometimes that they'll have, you know Cartoon Network or like any other brand will just like run shows all day. However, there's no like guiding narrative towards it. So like, I feel like it just hasn't always picked up like a ton of steam, except for people who just want to watch Ed, Edd, & Eddy all night or something. Whereas on like TikTok, where you have this like part one, part two, part three, it's getting fed to you by like your algorithm. I think that, you know, TikTok has found a way to tap into something that's kind of already been happening, but kind of given itself more onus to give it to you, which I think is a really interesting point.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah. Would you guys engage with this content?

Kylie MacDonald: Oh, I already do. I've watched all of Charmed on TikTok at this point in random order of episodes, and it's incredible. So I'm a big fan of this type of thing.

Kofi Roberts: Yeah, I don't know if I've been fed this exactly, but yes, two other versions of this that are just long, five, six-part things, and I'm just invested. TikTok has me, and it's too late.

Joey Scarillo: Is it weird to watch a movie vertically?

Kofi Roberts: You would think.

Kylie MacDonald: I actually just saw on Instagram, there's a whole account dedicated to transitioning, like, Landscape screens, like movies, like old western movies and very classics that have never been in vertical format, of what they would look like in the vertical format. And it's actually really cool because AI kind of generates that longer screen and gives you more details into what could be in the movie.

So that's been one of my favorite accounts to follow actually, and I don't remember the name of it, but we'll pass along. Yeah.

Kofi Roberts: And I mean, like, I think as a movie purist, I don't see myself watching a full movie, but I have, like, TikTok does a really good thing of showing you clips of movies that you might not have seen, and then you watch this iconic scene and you're like, how is, like, how are all these actors in one scene together?

And then suddenly I'm like, okay, like, let me go find this movie to watch, in what I would say properly. However, I will definitely, you know, get that excitement from TikTok.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah.

Kylie MacDonald: Well, also like Tiktok has Tiktok sounds, which I feel like for the longest time have been pulled from TV shows and movies, and brands can't really use those very often. So now they're able to take the full clip and drop it on Tiktok once a user sees a sound but doesn't know where it's from. So I think this is gonna be a big game changer for those movie and entertainment brands.

Joey Scarillo: Wow. We will definitely keep an eye on that and look out on, look out for TikTok and all this new content.

Alright, well 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 at Grey.com. Connect with us on Spotify by sharing your thoughts on the show.

Just look for the Q and a field. The topics discussed on this show are written and researched by the social and connections team at Grey, New York. Big thanks this week to our panel, Kofi Roberts, and Kylie MacDonald. This podcast is produced by me, Joey Scarillo, and Samantha Geller, with postproduction by Amanda Fuentes, Guy Rosmarin, and Ned Martin at Gramercy Park Studios. Marketing and communications support from Adrienne Hopkins, Christina Hyde, and Jayda Hinds.

Listen to the entirety of Season 4 of Grey Matter: A Podcast About Ideas. Another podcast from your friends here at Grey. On Grey Matter, we speak to founders, artists, and innovators about the moment an idea was born.
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