In the latest of the app copycat wars, we spy a new update that looks an awful lot like Clubhouse with TikTok bringing a new live voice chat feature very similar to Clubhouse rooms. TikTok has also been spotted hiring Engineers who are experts in the messaging space, looking to up their social engagement game and bring a seamless shopping and user experience to the app. Plus even more tests were spotted from Instagram…

TikTok is working on its messaging and shopping features

Based on some serious sleuthing from AXIOS, TikTok is reportedly on the hunt for Engineers who specialise in social networking and private messaging. Acknowledging that their private messaging features are lacking, TikTok looks to be creating a more seamless experience for sharing TikToks with friends to reduce the amount of outside app sharing. And they’re looking for outside expertise to help to do it. In one of the job listings they specified their priority was “to expand the boundaries of TikTok by encouraging building meaningful social connections between users.” And the timing couldn’t be better with them expanding their in-stream commerce features to U.S. users with a new “Shop” tab popping up.

Love to see it and we hope this also improves engagement for brands already on TikTok.

TikTok is rolling out a Live Chat function

Spotted by Matt Navarra, it looks like TikTok is bringing out Live Chat Voice Call Rooms which suspiciously looks a lot like a Clubhouse room. Given how much fire the app has gone under for some of the X-rated content that has managed to slip by, we’re curious to see whether this feature will also be taken advantage of. We would love to see some really great communities and conversations being built. So fingers crossed it takes off and sticks around (unlike Clubhouse).

Meta restricts News in more regions

We saw what happened when Meta decided to take News away in Australia. But it looks like they’re sticking to their guns with their recent announcement that “we are announcing that in the UK, France and Germany we will deprecate Facebook News – a dedicated tab on Facebook in the bookmarks section that spotlights news – in early December.”

According to the article, they’re taking away the tab to focus their energy on what people want to see more of, including short-form videos. They reported that news is only 3% of what people are seeing in their feed, and therefore is a small portion of what people experience on Facebook.

Users will still be able to view links and access articles on the app and News publishers will still be able to share like normal (including using Reels and links to share information). However, they have stated that they intend to honour any existing agreements, but won’t be going into any new agreements with News publishers going forward. It seems to be a big part of their ongoing “promise” to provide more reliable information on the platform and reduce misinformation and spam. We can’t see that this change will have too much of an impact on publishers, but we’re glad to see they aren’t taking drastic action like they did with Australia, and learning the hard way from massive public backlash.

Meta is helping you get sorted this silly season

Meta has released a new Holiday Guide to get your marketing sorted this silly season. It’s packed full of lots of strategies to help you automate your marketing and a guide to help stay on track during this busy period. But as always, if you need a little help with a custom strategy don’t forget we can give you a custom DIY Digital Marketing Playbook to give you a plan of attack for the next 12 months and beyond.

Instagram tests sharing posts to Close Friends only

Instagram has been spotted testing sharing to Close friends recently. We’re guessing it’s another way to try to get more people engaging and feeling more positively about the app by seeing more of your close friends’ and families’ posts. Brands could use this feature to give sneak previews to those on waitlists for launches, communicate important messages to their customers or just send a little love to their most valued followers to reignite engagement on their account.

Instagram is testing out locations in Notes

Adam Mosseri recently popped a new test in his broadcast channel announcing that Instagram is testing out locations in Notes in hopes of getting more people using the unpopular feature. Interestingly, half of the group voted they’d use the feature and the other half voted that they wouldn’t. The feature was brought out in December of last year, however, the hype died pretty quickly with not all users having access to it quickly enough (they didn’t learn the lesson from Clubhouse). Even with the recent addition of audio clips and song highlights, it seems to mainly be popular with younger users. We know we haven’t seen it being used much, especially with business owners or other marketers and we’re wondering if it’ll stick around much longer.

Google Ads is rolling out a new AI-powered Ad Campaign

Google Ads is rolling out a new AI-powered Ad Campaign called Demand Gen, which will be available to all advertisers from October. According to a Google Ads Liaison “Demand Gen campaigns combine image + video ads in one place and can be used to drive conversions, site visits and actions like sign-up and add-to-cart across YouTube, Discover and Gmail.” Demand Gen comes with a range of new features, too, such as the ability to engage audiences with a variety of ad formats including carousels, portraits, short-form videos and square images within the same campaign. If you’re wanting to sign up for the Beta, you can do that here. But if you’d like us to test it out for you, book a chat here.

With all of the apps competing heavily against each other, it looks like users are going to benefit from this battle. We can’t wait to see how they continue to evolve and learn from each other’s mistakes.

Feel free to reach out if you’d like help from a dream team of marketers who can help you grow your business and take marketing off of your to-do list.

XOXO

OMD SQUAD