Your Influencer Marketing Update 🚀
17.08.2020 [#43]
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🤿 The Deep Dive
💡 What fashion and beauty needs to know about Reels
Everything is about TikTok right now, even when it's not about TikTok. This week our deep dive focuses on Instagram and the launch of its new Reels format. We found this great piece on Vogue Business.
Let's start with the basics. Instagram Reels (I'll call it IGR for short) provides users with the ability to create 15-second videos and put music or augmented reality behind it. It has now launched in the US, UK, Japan & Australia.
According to the author, Reels has been criticised as a copycat feature, but holds great potential for fashion brands. The article uses the brand Ivory Ella as an example, which currently one of the most followed fashion brands on TikTok (>400k).The launch of Reels and the appeal of its reach could shift its content creation priorities back to Instagram. For example: Gabby Murray got on the Reel wagon real quick and posted a video within the first day of the new format launching. She wore an Ivory Ella t-shirt and the video collected a whopping 17 million views in the first 24 hours, even though she only has >400k organic followers.
We're adding in a small note here (unrelated to the article) for context: because content creators on Instagram rely on their organic reach to get their message out there, the idea behind Reels and how it allows to reach people outside of that organic audience could whet brands' appetite to collaborate with influencers utilising the new format, and its reach benefits.
IGR also offers a safety net for those not willing to invest in TikTok at the moment, with brands hesitant to spend, and creators nervous that they may lose their hard-earned audiences when a ban comes into play.
In addition, IGR offers a more robust analytics, advertising and commerce infrastructure, and benefits from marketers familiarity to Instagram.
While IGR is not open to advertisers yet, it may well follow the success of Instagram Stories and become another format for brands to reach their consumers through organic and paid-for content. Currently, though, Instagram is investing in creator relationships, with their director of product quoted:
“We're continuing to focus on creator monetisation, shopping integrations and different ways that we can help creators turn their communities and the engagement of their communities into sustainable businesses."
Some think that Reels may not be enough to convince TikTok creators to brave the cross-over, as the platform seems to have a good understanding with Gen Z and their social media behaviour.
VP of Global Digital Strategy at Nars Cosmetics adds “My first impression is that it will be a safer and more comfortable place for brands but present less opportunity for virality."
IGR’s success will depend on the ability to attract creators, says founder of influencer marketing agency Obvious.ly, noting that Levi’s does not share content on its own TikTok account, but instead relies fully on creators to deliver its messaging.
TikTok has opened up a billion dollar-fund for creators. Instagram is on a slightly different path but is paying creators to help support its Reels launch.
Instagram is trying to appeal to a younger audience, but the older users on its platform may be more attractive to brands. Fashion & beauty have been slow to embrace TikTok because of its younger audience.
In the midst of TikTok and Instagram, a third platform called Triller reached a valuation of $1.25 billion, showing that confidence in short-form videos is sky-high, and may well become platform agnostic. Because of this, brands may end up duplicating content and approaches on both platforms. For example, Aldo plans on modifying its existing TikTok campaign and sharing it on Reels.
The article highlights that if brands have the resources to commit to TikTok and Reels, they should - adding that a healthy mix of marketing channels is better for brands.
In the short term, most think that content will be more than likely be duplicated, with Instagram perhaps enjoying the upper hand due to the fact that creators can post content to the various different formats available within its platform.
🌡️ Our Opinion
I want to preface this by saying that this is a highly speculative topic and it’s hard to predict just how Reels will develop, although I’m reading a lot of people banking heavily on its success.
We shouldn’t forget that Facebook has tried to develop quite a few standalone apps to help drive out competitors. It built Poke in 2012, which was pulled in 2014, Slingshot in 2014 (pulled in 2015) both of which failed to take on Snapchat. It also tried to compete head on with TikTok which resulted in Lasso 2018.....Which closed down last month.
Instagram can’t seem to find much traction with IGTV, either.
Stories however, is a different...Story. Instagram copied elements of the widely popular content format from Snapchat, embedded it perfectly within its own app, andwon that battle. An approach that seemed to work much better than building a standalone app and trying to lure away users.
Back to Reels. Embedding the TikTok copycat format within the existing Instagram app provides the platform with a future advertising advantage. Instagram is widely known to have an older user base that are expected to have more purchasing power, while TikTok has seen brands hold off thinking that the audience may be a little too young.
The idea that an advertiser can create a variety of different content formats within the same app, not having to work with the same creators across different platforms (and various different follower counts), is an appealing one. Allowing marketers to collaborate within the same uniform environment could prove to be incredibly important going forward. Consider also that advertisers wouldn’t have to enter into a different advertising environment for each different content format, adding familiarity and convenience.
This leads to my final thought. Perhaps Instagram doesn’t mind competitors as much, and the ability of the behemoth to simply usurp functions that make their competitors so unique is incredibly powerful, with the added bonus of Instagram being able to build out its user base (and appeal to advertisers) in the process.
Championing creators and tweaking the algorithm to give them a head start - then opening it up to advertisers, and of course the important step of slowly but surely decreasing organic reach just might turn out to be a recipe for success.
I’m very interested to see how this will play out - although I’m not extremely excited about the prospect of seeing duplicate content. Instagram & TikTok will have to work hard to differentiate and win this battle, based on the assumption that TikTok will still be there come October, of course.
📰 Headlines
Ban TikTok? Move to Triller? Can influencers really get people to switch apps?
“If TikTok does get banned, we will probably take their place,” said Mike Lu, CEO of Triller. “This weekend, we saw our servers literally blow up” as people flocked to the platform.
Why Instagram Reels Will Beat TikTok Especially In The New Heartland
"Will the majority of social media creators and consumers change their behavior and lean into TikTok? Or will they change their attitude towards Instagram and find a way to make Reels work for their needs? My money is on Reels."
Nanoinfluencers Are Slyly Barnstorming the 2020 Election
"A few strategists that we spoke to were more reserved, however, admitting that they are still working out the “efficiency” of orchestrating nanoinfluencers for large-scale effect. This is, in part, due to the manpower required to assemble large numbers of nanoinfluencers, which are not commonly on the advertising platforms used to coordinate influencers."
WTF is Triller?
"Like TikTok, Triller’s experience is rooted in music, particularly Hip-Hop. People can film multiple takes of themselves rapping to songs and then use the app’s artificial intelligence to automatically pull the best of those clips to make professionally-looking music videos. Unlike TikTok, however, Triller is all about the music, having raised investment from Snoop Dogg, 21 Savage and Migos."
Reels and other short-video platforms attract TikTok beauty influencers
While optimistic about Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of TikTok, the app’s top beauty influencers are weighing their options on newly launched competitors including Instagram Reels, Triller and Byte.
How a TikTok ban would affect the influencer economy
This week on our Vergecast interview series, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks with Taylor Lorenz, internet culture reporter for The New York Times about what might actually happen to TikTok users, creators, and the influencer economy if a ban on the app is implemented in the United States.
You & Mr Jones elevates influencer offering with acquisition of Collectively
There is no small appetite for influencer campaigns. That’s why You & Mr Jones targeted Collectively as its most recent acquisition. At a mere seven years old, Collectively is one of the oldest US influencer marketing companies. Its all-women executive team is led by chief exec Ryan Stern. Clients include Adobe, HP, Old Navy and Intuit.