FEBRUARY 2021
What's inside
- 🪂 Our newest blog post
- Important social media platforms in 2021
- 📹 Modern education
- 💡 Clout Café presentation
- Frameworks for your digital content
- 🗞️ Social media news
- TikTok is stepping up its game big time
- After Apple, Facebook takes on Australia
- Snapchat keeps growing
- LinkedIn is building a freelance marketplace
- 🎡 Recommended reading - pt. 1
- 🗿 Recommended reading - pt. 2
- Digital art, crypto, & the metaverse
-
📩 Past newsletters:
- Check out what you might have missed!
|
|
🪂 Important social media Platforms in 2021
|
|
Even though 2021 is already 16,67% done, it's still early enough to take a look at which social media platforms really matter this year.
In our newest blog post, we took a look at all the platforms - new and old - that are most important for your social strategy.
With the purpose to give you a quick overview of all the major players out there, we assembled our own 'top list' with short descriptions of what you need to know about each one.
TL;DR - There is lots of opportunity out there to build reach on all platforms - depending on who your target audience is and what your goals are. So dive in and get ready to grow!
|
|
📹 Recent videos by our neonacademy team
|
|
A few months ago our Lisbon-based creative team (aka content expert João and neon co-founder Karim) started to create and put out valuable videos as an addition to our neonacademy online courses.
If you're looking for some short bites of useful state-of-the-art digital marketing knowledge, make sure to head over to our YouTube channel.
In their videos, Karim and João explain in an easily comprehensible way what you need to know e.g. about Facebook Advertising (incl. retargeting and iOS14 updates) and current digital marketing trends.
You can find the videos in full length on our YouTube channel or as even shorter snippets on TikTok and Instagram.
|
|
💡 Frameworks for your digital content
|
|
|
As already mentioned in our last newsletter, Misch Strotz, Co-Founder & CEO of neon, recently shared his thoughts on Twitch, TikTok, and the 'Creator Economy' in an online presentation for the Clout Café series, which is hosted by Clout Collective.
You can now watch the second short snippet of his presentation on Instagram.
|
|
🥊 TikTok is stepping up its game big time
|
|
|
After TikTok and Shopify announced their global partnership last year, the increased integration of the two platforms is now available beyond the US in 14 new countries.
This will allow Shopify merchants to capitalize on the creative formats offered by TikTok to present their brand, share their products to a targeted audience, and generate sales on their online store. The increased integration will e.g. allow brands in Germany to create ad campaigns on TikTok without having to leave the Shopify platform.
But TikTok did not only share this major announcement in February.
The short video platform is also making another push into the world of sports content by working on an elaborated multi-year partnership with the UFC (mixed martial arts). Bringing exclusive content and live streams to TikTok could be a massive icebreaker not only for a new audience but a whole age group. The UFC usually aims at an older target audience than the one that TikTok users represent - until now.
|
|
💥 After Apple, Facebook takes on Australia
|
|
|
The power battles among 'Big Tech' companies continued this month. But now, it also reached a new level by additionally facing off with a foreign government.
Quick summary: Australia’s media industry wants to get paid for the right to show its content. Publishers have pushed regulators to create a law that leaves Facebook and Google no other choice than to directly pay them by forcing the platforms into binding arbitration.
Google has signed a deal with a number of influential publishers. However, Facebook decided it wouldn't do so. The social media platform stopped the linking and sharing of news stories in Australia instead - a decision it later reversed though.
In any case, the situation shows how powerful companies like Facebook have actually become. Read more about it here and here.
|
|
|
Despite heavy competition by Instagram, TikTok & co, Snap Inc. (the company behind Snapchat) keeps putting up impressive numbers. As announced at its first-ever virtual investor day, Snapchat globally has 265 million daily active users (up 22% in Q4 2020 year-on-year) and reaches nearly half of all U.S. smartphone users.
With Snapchat being especially popular among Gen Z, the Santa Monica-based social media company expects its revenue to grow by 50% or more for the next few years. It reaches over 70% of 13 to 24 year-olds in countries comprising over half the world’s digital ad spend.
Despite the strong growth, Snap's CEO Evan Spiegel said one exciting thing in particular (which is aligned with our thinking on the subject matter): “AR is the next major shift in computing and we are committed to leading the way". Deadline has more on Snap's great numbers.
|
|
📌 LinkedIn is building a freelance marketplace
|
|
|
LinkedIn is building a gig work marketplace (called 'Marketplace'...) to take on Fiverr and Upwork. With this move, the world's biggest professional network is once again proving that a social platform can have multiple income streams.
Besides advertising options, job listings, subscriptions, and online courses, the Microsoft-owned platform will soon bring in more money through marketplace fees. How much they can make a financial impact for the Seattle-based mother company is up for debate though. The Hustle looks at this update in a bit more detail.
|
|
|
recommended reading - part 1
|
|
🎡 The 'Creator Lifecycle'
|
|
|
We have shared content about the 'Creator Economy' by Hugo Amsellem before (you can find it in our past newsletters).
Since he recently has published another insightful piece on this developing part of the digital world, it was a no-brainer to also include it in this edition of our newsletter.
This time, Hugo breaks down the four steps of how creators can turn their audiences into empires. Find out more in his great analysis of the 'Creator Lifecycle'.
|
|
|
recommended reading - part 2
|
|
🗿 Digital art, crypto, & the metaverse
|
|
|
Have you already you heard about digital trading cards and art pieces like 'CryptoPunks' (pictured above) or 'Non Fungible Pepes'?
Just FYI, they are being sold for thousands (and even hundreds of thousands) of dollars on the Ethereum blockchain these days.
If all this sounds completely random to you, it is about time that you take a closer look also at this part of the internet. There is a truly seismic shift in 'owning things' happening in front of our eyes.
To explain this and much more, check out the great 'beginners read' about NFTs and much more that Rex Woodbury (Investor at Index Ventures) recently wrote.
|
|
📩 Check out what you might have missed
|
|
|
In case you missed a newsletter or want to look up articles, blog posts, and news from the past, we created a collection of our newsletters on a neon.link page. You can find all the links and recent content on neon.link/newsletter.
|
|
Join our online community on Facebook and LinkedIn to start connecting with like-minded peers and get hand-picked digital marketing news and insights from our team.
With the neon social club, we want to foster the exchange of knowledge between members and share curated content that we think is useful for succeeding in the 'digital entrepreneurship age'. More info here.
|
|
... want to get in touch with us?
|
|
|
|
|
