Instagram Publishes 2022 Predictive Trends Report ?

Instagram publishes 2022 Predictive Trends Report in an effort to keep the connection with it’s younger audience. The report focuses on the continuously changing movements throughout different categories. This will greatly benefit brands and marketers in keeping up with the changes.

“In order to create this report*, we tapped into the minds of Gen-Z to learn more about the rising Instagram trends across categories including music, fashion, creators and celebs, beauty, social justice, and so much more. ” Instagram said.

The report highlights key trends in a range of areas, such as wellness, memes, food,  fashion and beauty. 

They found:

  • 50% of teens and young adults are going to be trying bold fashion such as goblincore and Nostalgic wear in 2022.
  • 1 in 3 young people are interested in learning about buying clean makeup, such as plant-based skincare and vegan makeup. 
  • Nearly 1 in 4 want to buy more thrifted clothing online through websites such as Depop and Vinted.

This week TikTok shared the top songs and music trends on the platform in 2021. This includes genre trends, regional insights, most popular artists and more.

​​“After turning heads in 2020, TikTok continued its tremendous growth to be a dominant force in music and the music industry in 2021. Approximately 430 songs surpassed 1 billion video views as TikTok sounds in 2021 – a threefold increase over 2020. The staggering view counts on TikTok do not exist in a vacuum, but directly translate to commercial success for trending songs and artists. Over 175 songs that trended on TikTok in 2021 charted on the Billboard Hot 100, twice as many as last year,” TikTok said. 

According to a recent study by MRC Data, 75% of TikTok users in the US use the app to discover new artists, while 63% say that they hear music that they’ve never heard before for the first time via TikTok clips.

75% of TikTok users use the platform to discover new music. 63% say that they hear music they’ve never heard before on the app. This and TikTok’s ever increasing number of users show this influence can only be set to increase.

The top 3 music genres are:

  1. Hip hop
  2. Pop
  3. dance/electronic 

You can check out TikTok’s full 2021 music report here.

Twitter Adds Auto Captions for All Video Uploads in Tweets ?

Twitter has announced that all videos uploaded on the platform will have auto-captions enabled. The videos will have to be attached to Tweets.

Captions will also be available for in-stream videos that are muted on iOS and Android. However, desktop users will be able to turn them on and off as they choose.

Twitter’s auto-captions are available in 37 languages. Translation is not currently available, but the captions will appear in the device used to upload the videos language. 

The only downside currently is that the auto-captions are not editable. Translation and editing tools are still being developed.

Instagram is bringing back the chronological feed ?

In the past week, Instagram head Adam Mosseri has been in a hearing before a Senate subcommittee. Here, Mosseri said Instagram is working to create a chronological feed. The current feed is algorithmic, sorting the feed based on the users’ preferences.

The company’s algorithmically sorted feed, introduced in 2016, and then updated in 2017 to include recommended posts, is widely disliked by users who prefer to have their posts and their friends’ posts surface in a timely manner. The current feed uses AI to create what Instagram considers a more personalized feed, based on users’ activity. But it has remained generally unpopular among a vast swath of users, despite the company’s assertions otherwise.

The algorithmic feed was introduced in 2016 and in 2017 it was updated to include recommended posts. This was followed by backlash from users who said this made them miss out on important posts from their friends. 

AI is used to create the algorithmic feed, which Instagram describe as being more personalised.

The reason Mosseri was in front of the Senate subcommittee was to talk about child safety on the app as talked about in a previous newsletter. Whistleblower Frances Haugen provided internal documents to The Wall Street Journal. These documents suggested Instagram knew the app could be ‘toxic’ for teenagers. 

Would you be happy to see a chronological feed again?

TikTok Adds New Creative Tools for the Holidays ❄️

Just in time for the holidays, TikTok has added a new series of video editing features. These are helping to push engagement on the app. Creators can create more scroll-stopping content.

The main feature released was a new GIF option in the green screen tool. This will allow users to choose a GIPHY GIF to the background.

“Whether looking for the perfect reaction GIF or showcasing an iconic meme, GIPHY in Green Screen unlocks exciting new opportunities for creativity and storytelling,” TikTok said.

The continuous adding of new features on TikTok makes the options on video editing and creation endless. 

What do you think of this new feature?