After a few quiet weeks, we’ve had a very interesting seven days on the business side of social media platforms, with chaotic weeks for both Meta and TikTok. So, without further ado…
US Congress approves possible TikTok ban
After several months of umming and ahhing, the news that Bytedance has been fearing has been confirmed; it needs to sell TikTok out of Chinese ownership or face losing access to one of the world’s most lucrative markets.
- TikTok of course says that it will fight this, as you’d expect.
- Forbes has pulled together a useful timeline and does cast its own doubts on whether or not this ban would actually happen.
- Martech took a look at what this means for marketers and the take wasn’t what I initially expected, but makes a lot of sense. In short – not only do you need to potentially rethink your marketing plan, you also need to deal with 16 different state laws that massively overcomplicate compliance and clearly come from a place of misunderstanding.
- My own view – if you’re based in the States, are relying on TikTok and aren’t already considering your options, then now would be a good time to start contingency planning. If you’re only focussed on other markets, I would keep a close eye on what’s going on, but I wouldn’t be too concerned about changing everything up just yet.
Meta earnings call sparks stock sell-off
Any schadenfreude that Zuck and the rest of Meta might have enjoyed from TikTok’s woes has surely been dampened down this week following a stock sell-off which is set to erase nearly $170 billion from the company’s market value.
The sell off follows a less-than-impressive set of quarterly earnings call which revealed that the company’s big bet on AI will likely take years to pay off.
As a marketer I wouldn’t be unduly worried just yet – but it does show the reality that the rest of the world might not be quite as sold on the potential of AI as we are in our digital marketing bubble. One more positive note from the call is that Threads now apparently has 150 million monthly active users, and is increasingly emerging as a credible channel.
Further Reading
A great one for those writing pitch decks at the moment – Electronics Hub have pulled together an infographic showing average screen time and social media usage split out by region.
Search Engine Land has pulled together a more-than-decent guide to SEO on TikTok and how you can harness it.
Google has now fired over 50 workers following a series of anti-Israel protests. It has also announced that it will be delaying its cookie phase out once again.
That’s it for this week – if you found this interesting then I would really appreciate if you shared this with your friends and colleagues.
If you’re feeling particularly generous, then I won’t stop you from buying me a coffee. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you next week!