Your Weekly Influencer Marketing Update 🚀
15.02.2021
☀️ Happy Monday! ☀️
TikTok takes on Facebook with US ecommerce push
TikTok has informed a number of advertisers about new product roll-outs coming up in 2021. Here’s an overview:
A tool for users to share links to products & automatically earn commissions, dubbed “old-school affiliate marketing” by one senior advertising executive.
The ability for brands to showcase catalogues of their products.
Livestream shopping, where creators showcase products that can be purchased within the app.
These developments will bring TikTok closer to Facebook, especially considering the partnership with e-commerce platform Shopify.
However, some are cautious, suggesting that TikTok’s current system remains a work in progress, where the advertising products have not matured enough for sophisticated advertisers to commit spend.
In order to compete with other rivals, TikTok does have plans to further develop its self-service ad platform, which allows brands to place ads, in order to compete with other rivals, and is also aiming to improve its tools for ad targeting.
Biden has in the meantime “paused” the ban on TikTok, and advertisers seem to be more relaxed about the app.
“The latest changes in the political leadership in the US has clients more comfortable in the platform,” said Kris Hoet, global chief innovation officer at ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding. “Our largest offices [globally] confirmed that [many brands] were already active or considering activating this year.”
TikTok also announced a major deal with WPP (advertising agency) last week, providing it with early access to its latest ad products, boosting WPP’s share price.
According to TikTok, 40% of its users do not have a Facebook account, and 63% do not have a Twitter account.
💡 Our Opinion
The products themselves aren’t riveting or game-changing in any way, but it will pave the path for TikTok to mature their offering and provide advertisers (and creators!!) with more ways to utilise the platform in ways that go beyond (sometimes immeasurable) hype and awareness.
Frankly, the most insightful item in this article is the very last bullet point, and that is a unique, and very strong selling point. Currently, you should be able to say with a certain degree of certainty that if you are advertising on social media, a singular user will more than likely have a Twitter, Facebook as well as an Instagram account. Embedded into our lives, and easy to access by advertisers. However, if what TikTok is claiming is true, then there is a huge potential for TikTok’s self-serve platform. It sounds like an easy sell to lure advertisers in with the idea of reaching an audience group that can’t be found by spending your advertising dollars on Facebook.
There is another interesting piece in the press release around the TikTok <> WPP partnership, which is the quote below:
TikTok will also collaborate with its talented creator community to build a diverse network of creators to partner with WPP and facilitate exclusive opportunities for collaboration with select advertisers.
WPP have a long-lasting history of influencing brands and their advertising (spend) decisions, and providing WPP with unrivalled access to creators that can be sold to their clients will more than likely lead to an uptick of big brands collaborating actively with creators on the platform and subsequently buying into the products that will be released in due time. A clever piece of meta-influencer marketing by TikTok.
🏭 Industry Headlines
Clubhouse Media Group Closes Acquisition of Magiclytics
Clubhouse Media Group, Inc., an influencer-based marketing and media firm with a global aggregate social media reach of over 100 million followers, is pleased to announce the closing of the Company’s acquisition of Magiclytics, the world’s first Revenue Prediction Software platform for influencer-based marketing.
Social commerce is leading the future of ecommerce
Facebook’s 2020 launch of Instagram Shops directly aims at Amazon by blending ecommerce with the world’s biggest social media platform. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global social commerce market is estimated to increase at a soaring rate of 31.4%. Social commerce will continue to grow in 2021 as shoppers stick with digital habits and as both ecommerce and traditional retailers quickly adapt to the post-COVID-19 environment.
Black-owned e-tailers are creating a ‘one-stop shop’ for BIPOC-founded beauty
“As a consumer, I would go to these lists to try to support and shop, and I was surprised by a few things. One being, here I am, a Black beauty founder who started a brand out of my apartment in my 20s, and now in my 40s had launched into my dream retailer at Target. I’m looking at these beautiful lists, and I’m shocked at how many brands I’ve never heard of before,” she said. As a result, she started planning the launch of beauty e-commerce site Thirteen Lune, which went live in December 2020.
Amazon set to launch its own digital currency
Amazon is laying the groundwork for a new digital currency for use on its own platforms and marketplaces, new job listings suggests.
The e-commerce and cloud computing giant put out a call for talent to join its Digital and Emerging Payments (DEP) division, which is in the process of developing a system whereby customers in emerging markets can “convert their cash into digital currency”.
Credibility: The true power of influence
For years businesses have engaged famous faces to act as brand ambassadors – think George Clooney and Nespresso or, presently and locally, Snoop Dog and food delivery platform Menulog. Those days and those ambassadors are by no means over, and can still be very popular and very effective for some brands. However, the industry is evolving and so too are the ways in which consumers are influenced by the brands they engage with. Today, the sway of relatability, credibility and authenticity – particularly amongst younger generations – are changing the way brands identify and leverage influencers.
Can luxury brands crack WeChat mini games in 2021?
Learnings for brands from the innovative world of Chinese marketing have often proven useful to them on a global scale, as trends like live streamingand influencer marketing spill over to other markets. “In the last few years, China has led the way in almost every aspect when it comes to retail innovation, not just in terms of creating that innovation but also adopting it on a wide scale in a way where it is no longer just some quirk, but it’s the mainstream way of shopping”
The Danger of the Social Media Filter – ASA Rules Adverts are Misleading
The beauty industry faces a constant challenge in relation to the truthfulness of the products it sells. Through the power of social media, beauty brands use influencers to endorse their products, adding a dimension of apparent authenticity to their advertising.
In an attempt to regulate such practices, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has focused on transparency, requiring that brands disclose their commercial relationship with the influencer, usually with the hashtag “#ad”. The beauty industry now faces yet more regulation, as the ASA has restricted certain uses of filters on photos that promote beauty products.