TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and Sam Altman is celebrating the “twelve days of OpenAI.” We’re not sure about partridges, but AI lovers can probably expect to find a shiny new text-to-video tool under their virtual trees.

Today’s News

LET’S REWIND

TikTok’s 2024 recap sums up its most demure, mindful year yet

The recap: It’s that time of year again. One day after YouTube revealed its top creators and topics of 2024, TikTok has followed suit with its own annual recap. The two retrospectives share a fair amount in common: for starters, both YouTube and TikTok crowned Tommy Richman‘s “Million Dollar Baby” as their #1 song of the year and named breakout star Sabrina Carpenter as a top search topic.

The cultural impact: TikTok’s recap also highlighted the ways it uniquely influenced the cultural zeitgeist in 2024. The app pointed out that “demure” and “brat” were respectively named the words of the year by Dictionary.com and Collins Dictionary. (Both terms rose to prominence on TikTok thanks to creator Jools Lebron and musician Charli xcx.)

The positive PR: TikTok also took the opportunity to serve up some good PR. As the platform battles ban threats in the United States, educational initiatives like TikTok’s STEM feed have helped it drum up positive press—so we’re not surprised to see related stats in the platform’s year-end review. According to TikTok, the number of science-focused posts on the app is up 45% year-over-year, and the #TeachersOfTikTok hashtag has accumulated more than 5.5 million posts to date. The first ten months of 2024 also brought 1.2 million posts to the #BookTok tag as TikTok-owner ByteDance set itself up as a publisher.

The ecommerce angle: TikTok’s wrap-up wouldn’t be complete without a nod to the rise of TikTok Shop. According to the platform, the number of shoppable streams on TikTok Live nearly tripled year-over-year between 2023 and 2024. (That’s a big milestone for TikTok—but we’d still like to point out that bragging about how much money it makes is neither demure nor mindful.)

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Emily Fan’s secret weapon for multiplatform success: video on Spotify

Emily Fan—aka "Not Even Emily”—is the creative force behind Much to discuss...!, a video show combining sketch comedy and commentary. After thriving for years on YouTube, Emily added her videos to  Spotify in May 2024 to reach new audiences. 

Here’s a snapshot of Emily’s experience with video on Spotify:

1. Emily’s audience grew: Expanding to Spotify allowed Emily to reach millions of new fans without affecting her viewership on YouTube. The takeaway: video creators who cut their teeth outside of Spotify don’t have to worry about losing their established audiences. 

2. Emily learned more about her fans: Emily says Spotify’s innovative interactivity and analytics tools allow her to better connect with fans and understand her content’s reach.

3. Spotify gave Emily a place to stand out: In the past year alone, Spotify has seen an 88% surge in users consuming video podcasts. Emily jumped on that demand and discovered that “the novelty of introducing video onto the platform gives me an edge.”

If you’re already a video creator, it’s time to bring your content to Spotify.

 Get started → 

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Instagram is bringing more interactivity to its bulletin board-style Broadcast Channels by allowing creators to share Prompts and solicit Replies from fans. (Tubefilter)
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• According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, users can now follow accounts on fediverse platforms like Mastadon directly from the Threads app. (Engadget)
  
  

• Taylor Swift has emerged as the most-streamed artist on Spotify for the second year running. (Variety)
  

• In a recent panel, YouTube global managing director and head of creators Kim Larson revealed that the number of creators who receive a majority of their watchtime on living room screens has jumped by over 400% in the last three years. (TheWrap)

BEAST OR BUST

Amazon is bringing Jimmy Donaldson to Roblox with a Beast Games PR sweep

The virtual experience: As the December 19 premiere of Prime Video’s ambituous and controversial Beast Games series approaches, Amazon and MrBeast—aka Jimmy Donaldson—are ramping up their marketing efforts for the “biggest game show in history.”

A promotional tour is bringing a version of the program to Roblox. That’s where a branded Beast Games experience will allow players to take part in weekly MrBeast-style challenges with on-platform prizes. According to Roblox strategist and consultant James Purell, the experience is due to kick off on Beast Games‘ release date, with a multi-million dollar prize pool and an in-game currency dubbed “Beast Bucks.”

Donaldson has been active in Fortnite before, but this initiative marks his first big foray into Roblox—a virtual world that already adores all things MrBeast—and he isn’t going it alone. The creator is working alongside studio Twin Atlas, with help from notable Roblox creators Minitoon, Socksfor1, and RB Battles and longtime associates like Karl Jacobs.

The podcast appearance: Donaldson’s attempts to pull viewers’ attention from Beast Games’ production cycle go beyond Roblox, too. The creator showed up as Theo Von‘s guest on an episode of This Past Weekend, which ranks 11th on Spotify’s U.S. podcast charts. Expect it to be the first of many appearances on podcasts that top the charts.

The start of these PR efforts - which really began when Donaldson dropped his latest main channel, athlete-studded upload - demonstrate a commitment to the success of Beast Games. Amazon and Donaldson are optimistic and have 100 million reasons to think the excitement and engagement generated will resonate with audiences and trump any negative press around the production.

PROMO PROBLEMS

80% of sponsored posts on Instagram last month weren’t disclosed as ads

The problem: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) doesn’t mess around when it comes to correct disclosures of branded promotional posts. The commission has rolled out increasingly specific guidelines for sponcon over the last few years—but despite those instructions, as many as 80% of sponsored posts uploaded to Instagram in November were not labeled as ads.

The study: That stat comes from a study published by marketing analytics platform Ravineo, which was co-founded by Socialbakers founder/CEO Jan Řežáb and launched last month.

For Ravineo’s latest study, Řežáb told Adweek the company’s AI looked at every Instagram post that mentioned a specific brand and used a set of established criteria to judge whether those posts are sponsored. It also rated their prominence on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being “super-prominent.” Ravineo then took posts rated 9 or 10 and employed manual human verification to determine whether they were actually sponsored or organic.

Řežáb said over 90% of the posts Ravineo’s AI flagged were manually confirmed as sponsored. In all, it found 13,432 sponsored posts published in November, with a whopping 80% not properly disclosed.

The impact: Řežáb expressed sympathy for brands affected by that problem, noting that improper disclosures can make it challenging for companies to judge the success of campaigns. The FTC, however, is more concerned about another affected party: viewers. The commission’s sponcon guidelines are designed to ensure that audiences understand when a creator is being paid to sell them something.

Bypassing those rules is risky, but some creators worry that platforms purposefully suppress sponsored content that doesn’t directly benefit the platform itself. Others may fear being seen as sellouts. If the nondisclosure problem is as widespread as Ravineo suggests, however, creators may need to rethink their approach to sponsored content—because another FTC crackdown could be right around the corner.

WATCH THIS 📺

YouTube viewers are lawyering up

The trend: We already know law firms like Morgan & Morgan have embraced YouTube marketing as a central part of their promotional strategies—but lawyers aren’t just showcasing their talents in ads. They’re also attracting major views as creators.

The lawman: Mike Mandell (aka the titular attorney who runs the Law By Mike channel) has attracted over 8 million YouTubs subscribers by dispensing legal advice in short-form skits and taking on long-form challenges. That strategy paid off in a big way last week: over the course of just seven days, the lawyer brought in more than 171 million views.

Of course, Mandell had to do more than pass the bar exam to attract all those eyeballs. The attorney’s most recent challenge—a mukbang featuring illegal (and concerningly toxic) food from around the world—was one of his riskiest endeavors yet.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.