The duel for best content creation features continues:
YouTube Shorts launches six new features to improve content creation
The competition is heating up between TikTok, Instagram and YouTube as the quest for best content creation features continues. YouTube introduced six new tools to its short-form section, Shorts, to help encourage and inspire content creation. These features aim to help brands experiment with different features, improve engagement, and increase conversions.
- Collab – Film Shorts in a side-by-side format next to other YouTube videos or Shorts.
- Q&A stickers – Creators can pose questions to viewers and engage with their responses in the comments section.
- Mobile-first vertical live – Previews of live content will be discoverable in the Shorts feed.
- Creation suggestions – Automatically bundle or mix and match the audio and effects from a Short you may be remixing.
- Shorts playlist – Creators can now save Shorts to playlists directly onto YouTube.
- Transform horizontal videos to Shorts – Choose a video to remix and adjust the layout, zoom and crop to turn it into a Short (trialing over coming weeks).
AdParlor POV:
YouTube Shorts provides advertisers a captivating short-form video platform with innovative features, complementing other platforms for extended reach and engagement. Ultimately the increased reach and engagement should aid advertisers in increasing conversions and, thus, ROI. With more than two billion logged-in users a month, the audience on this platform features a wider range of demographics overall. This feels like a more organic way to get on YouTube without necessarily shifting an entire strategy if your brand is also on Instagram and TikTok. Additionally, this rollout of new features helps keep YouTube competitive with TikTok and Meta that are continually rolling out video-first, creator content tools. While a lot of YouTube Shorts new features may seem very familiar, it’s still an added benefit for creators who have followings across each of the platforms to help them tailor their content to the platform for a more authentic engagement experience.
“…this rollout of new features helps keep YouTube competitive with TikTok and Meta ”
– AdParlor
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YouTube Shorts launches six new features to improve content creation
YouTube adds new tools to shorts
Express your creativity with text posts on TikTok!
TikTok has expanded its text posts format, allowing creators to share their ideas and express their creativity in a new and unique way. This new format expands the boundaries of content creation, giving creators a dedicated space to showcase their written content in 1,000 characters or less. Text posts offer a simple publishing experience, allowing creators to create stories, poems, recipes, and other written content. To try it out, access the Camera Page where you can choose from three options: photo, video, and text. By selecting text, you’ll be directed to the text creation page, where you can type out the content of your post. Users can customize text posts by adding sound, stickers, hashtags, location tags and more.
AdParlor POV:
New formats and features are always exciting. We see text posts as a way for marketers to connect and interact with an audience in a new way. From a user standpoint, this new feature could appeal to an audience that was previously untapped on the platform. Some may have shied away from creating video content in the past and text posts could help open conversations in a different way. For Brands as well, this could prove to be an interesting tactic to test new product announcements or reminders for upcoming events in a fun and entertaining way. Oddly enough, the timing of the launch came on the same day that Elon Musk replaced Twitter’s iconic blue bird with an “X,” which has stirred conversations that this new feature is TikTok’s way to appeal to users that are looking for an X/Twitter alternative. Time will tell how the TikTok community embraces this new text feature.
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Express your creativity with text posts on TikTok
From Sunset to Sunrise:
Dive into Snapchat’s ‘After Dark’ Experience
Snapchat has introduced a new feature called “After Dark,” which allows users to create exclusive, momentary stories during the night. This limited-time window is available on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 8 pm to 5 am. Users can add snaps to an “After Dark” story, which will become a peek into memories, adventures and favorite moments captured by friends during the “bewitching” hours. “After Dark” is only visible if users have also posted in it the previous night and users can only post once in the “After Dark” story per night, making it a fun and exclusive way to capture and share their nighttime adventures with a select audience. Snapchat plans to add a similar shared Story for early birds in the future. Snapchat After Dark and BeReal share an intriguing common thread, highlighting the universality of digital expression.
AdParlor POV:
Snapchat is now re-establishing itself within the younger audience by launching new features like ‘After Dark’, which allows users to post exclusive content for friends. The feature aligns with BeReal active sharing approach, encouraging in-the-moment posting and stronger relationships through shared experiences. We anticipate ‘After Dark’ will increase time spent on the app and boost engagement, which is a win-win for brands that are actively targeting an engaged, younger demographic.
Source:
Meet After Dark, the private club of Snaps has just opened
What are After Dark Stories and how do they work?
Trend Watch: The rise of UGC
Influencer rates are increasing, brands are seeking communities, and Gen Z is becoming wary of influencers’ promoted products. As a result, marketers are leaning into user-generated content (UGC) to reach audiences, encouraging people who may not have large followings to post about products in more authentic ways. In other cases, brands simply repost content from a user who’s tagged them. Some argue that UGC can replace big-budget influencer deals, while others view it as a supplement to engage audiences at all levels.
One of the biggest questions is whether quantity can outweigh quality when it comes to UGC partnerships.You might trade off a certain amount of creative control, but the positive aspect is that it typically comes at a lower cost. It’s projected that the global user-generated content platform market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 29.4% from 2023 to 2030 (source here).
AdParlor POV:
User-Generated Content (UGC) and influencer marketing, in our opinion, serve different functions. UGC harnesses genuine customer voices, which can help foster authenticity and community engagement, while influencer marketing capitalizes on trusted personalities for targeted reach and credibility.
UGC is budget-friendly, nurturing brand loyalty, while influencer marketing ensures curated exposure. We believe there is space for all: nano influencers, UGC creators, mid-tier influencers, and celebrity partnerships. Utilizing a combination of tactics can create a holistic strategy that optimally boosts brand visibility and fosters meaningful connections while maximizing brand awareness and engagement.
At AdParlor, we also just launched our CreatorFuel offering that allows brands to unlock the full potential of influencer and UGC marketing to help drive growth and connect them with their target audience in a more authentic and impactful way.
If you are looking to unlock growth and grow your business, we can help! Let’s chat
About AdParlor
AdParlor, an agency established in 2008 and now a division of Fluent (NASDAQ: FLNT), is a leading provider of data-driven digital media strategy and execution that unlocks explosive growth for world-class and disruptive brands. Through our GrowthFuel framework we offer proprietary performance marketing solutions that have scaled our clients’ programs profitably, with our clients’ success being our sole agenda. Our custom technology solves problems related to creative insights, creative production, real time cross-platform reporting and more. Brands choose AdParlor because our unmatched expertise in ecommerce digital media delivers impactful full-funnel performance campaigns for profitable growth.