TikTok Launches New Marketplace, Digital Audio Listening Study & More

TikTok makes it easy for brands and content creators to discover each other. With the introduction of Marketplace, the platform makes it one step easier for marketers to find influencers that fit their target audience. TikTok Creator Marketplace provides discovery tools to match businesses with various creators for every campaign, brand voice and budget. It allows you to filter results based on the type of content creators post and average performance. The Open Application functionality makes it even easier for brands to “look” for creators because creators will come to them. Brands can post their projects that creators apply to; this will likely be a good opportunity for smaller players to work with brands. 

Anti-vaccine videos blocked. YouTube recently announced through a blog post that the platform would block all anti-vaccine content to further curb false information about COVID-19 spread through the network. In a blog post, YouTube claims that they have removed over 130,000 videos that had violated their COVID-19 policies. Videos that will be removed include content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of the disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines will be removed. A healthy discussion surrounding vaccines will still happen. For example, personal stories about the vaccines (good or bad) will not be removed as long as the channel doesn’t show a pattern of promoting vaccine hesitancy. 

A personalized playlist augments audio listening. In partnership with Neuro Insight, Spotify reports that the listening experience for digital audio was significantly elevated across all metrics compared to radio resulting in higher memorability and engagement. This makes sense as podcast and audio players allow users to curate their listening playlist, providing listeners with content that they are interested in. I will argue, however, that radio is here to stay. There’s still a big segment of the population with a deep radio-listening habit and who want the experience of discovering new songs and information. 
Facebook continues to defend Instagram for Kids product despite pausing its development. Not long after Wall Street Journal published a report that Instagram is harmful to teens, Facebook announced that it’s pausing the development of Instagram for Kids. WSJ investigation reveals that 6% American and 13% British users had suicidal thoughts that could be traced back to Instagram.