ICYMI ‘The real FYP is what you send in group chats’Takeaways from ZCON; a business and marketing conference for Gen Z[ZCON at Second Home Hollywood] Quick note: I’ll be off next week. I can always tell when I need a break because it gets harder and harder to string words together in a way that make sense and everything sounds awkward. Hope you’ve also gotten a chance to unplug this summer and see you in two weeks. ⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
💻 ROADMAP📲 YouTube Updates YouTube is going all in on Shorts. Earlier this week, the company announced six new creator tools including a vertical LIVE feed! 1. Shorts LIVE: This is BIG. YouTube is now testing a mobile-first, vertical LIVE experience that lives in the Shorts feed. Once a viewer clicks into a Shorts LIVE, they’ll be placed in a scrollable feed of other live videos.This one’s in test mode and will roll out gradually over the next few months. This opens the YouTube LIVE experience up to TikTokers or Instagrammers who might not have considered the platform before. Hello, Pinkydoll! It could also encourage a format switch for YouTubers who previously streamed in landscape mode. 2. Split-Screen Collab: Just like TikTok’s Duets, YouTube will now let creators record a Short in side-by-side format with other YouTube or Shorts videos. Collab rolls out to all creators on iOS starting today, with Android to follow. 3. Q&A sticker: Similar to Instagram Stickers, a new Q&A sticker for Shorts is coming soon. Answers to the question will appear as Comments. 4. Audio and Effect suggestions: A new feature bundles the audio and effect from a Short as a creation suggestion. 5. Shorts playlists: It’s not exactly new but YouTube recently introduced the option to save Shorts to curated playlists. 6. Landscape to vertical tools: YouTube plans to test “recomposition” tools in the next few weeks that would allow creators to adjust the layout, zoom, and crop of a video, making it easier to turn horizontal videos into Shorts. 📲 Meta Updates
📲 Snapchat Updates
📲 Twitter Updates
🆉 GEN Z REPORTThursday, I got to attend ZCON, a Gen Z marketing and business conference co-hosted by JUV Consulting and Snapchat. What is ZCON: A two-day conference where Gen Z took center stage for panels and breakout sessions discussing brand social strategies, the creator economy, social impact, and the future of work, commerce, and community. There was also a heavy emphasis on public service with volunteer sessions planned for Day Two. Who was there: Alongside a slew of brands looking to connect with Gen Z, speakers included creators, activists, authors and athletes such as Duolingo’s Social Media Manager Zaria Parvez, Gen Z for Change founder Aidan Kohn Murphy, Black Girl Environmentalist founder Wawa Gatheru, creator Alexa McCoy and many more. Zoom In: “The real For You Page is what you send to your friends in group chats” In a session called "How to Navigate the Landscape of an ‘Always There’ Social Media Strategy" Duolingo’s Zaria Parvez shared the app’s litmus test for success. “If you're talking about a brand in your group chat then we made it because, let's be honest, no one really cares about advertising outside of marketers. We're 10 seconds of somebody's day so if they're talking about us… alright, we made it. This was a successful campaign.” This echoes a shift we’ve seen of teens taking their conversations to DMs, Discord servers, Geneva groups, Snapchat group chats, iMessage and other private spaces. It was also a sentiment shared later in the day by creator Jules Terpak, who said platforms were simply “a starting point” for ideas and connections before moving those conversation offline. “All these platforms utilize the word community a lot, but … is it really true communities online? I'm not so sure.” But how do brands actually measure the impact of being included in group chats? I caught up with Zaria after the panel and asked her how marketers should think about the ROI of content shared off the feed. It’s definitely more qualitative at this stage, she told me. But there are some signals she and the team look at: Duolingo’s social efforts are referenced as group chat fodder during the recruitment process — everyone from marketing to engineering candidates bring it up; it’s mentioned during conversations with friends from outside the company; and they even get feedback about social content from investors. That may not be enough to convince executives at every workplace to allocate resources but it’s one way of thinking about the value of being included in group chats where, for all you know, your brand content is killing it. Thoughtful Moments: There were a lot of thoughtful conversations taking place at ZCON, these are just a few that stood out:
👀 Gen Z’s Favorite Influencers:Over the summer, I taught several courses at UCLA Extension that required students to incorporate influencers into their social media marketing assignments. Here’s a sampling of influencers who’ve made an impact on these undergrads. Feel free to take notes! Celebrity Influencers Fresh Faces (names that may or may not be new to you) Food Specific Influencers (for a pizza-related assignment) 📖 ON YOUR RADAR
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