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Welcome to Battenhall Monthly edition #110
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What an eventful few weeks it's been. The world's richest man, Elon Musk, initially set out to buy a 9% stake in Twitter and take a back seat, but eventually decided to go the whole hog and snap up the entire company for $44bn. It'll be fascinating to see what plans he has for the platform and whether it can be a challenger to the likes of Meta and TikTok in terms of users. Elsewhere, Meta has announced plans to reward metaverse creators, Facebook has axed podcasts, and LinkedIn has seen a major boost in user engagement. Read on for more!

Mark Stuart, Associate Director, Battenhall
Facebook has beaten Wall Street predictions to grow its monthly active users to 2.94 billion in Q1. The biggest leap, however, was made by TikTok. Analysts were predicting the platform to hit 1.5bn MAU by year end, but app analytics site data.ai says it has surpassed the figure in Q1 2022. It means TikTok enters the top five most used social media networks globally and is a serious challenger to Meta's apps. Meanwhile, Pinterest added 2 million to its active user base, and Snapchat announced an increase in daily active users to 332 million, but hasn't shared any monthly increases. 
What is BeReal and why are users calling it the 'alternative Instagram'?

BeReal is a newish social media app that prides itself on not being ‘another social network’. It was founded in 2020, but has just recently started to take off, amassing 3.2 million downloads in the first quarter of 2022. Find out more in our latest blog.

Elon Musk to become Twitter owner

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is set to become the owner of Twitter. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s offer of $44bn was unanimously accepted by Twitter’s 11-member board. Musk has since tweeted that he wants to “make Twitter better than ever” by introducing new features, making the algorithms open source, defeating the spam bots and “authenticating” all humans. He has also called for less censorship and more “free speech” on Twitter, which has raised concerns from human rights groups and users, who predict a rise in hate speech. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2022, with the full process taking up to six months. Read more here, here and here.

Meta rewards metaverse creators

The metaverse may still be in its infancy but Meta is wasting no time in thinking about how to generate revenue. The Silicon Valley behemoth is testing new features to enable creators to experiment with different ways of monetising what they’re building in Horizon Worlds – Meta’s flagship metaverse platform. So far the company has announced in-world purchasing of virtual items and a bonus that will reward creators for building worlds that attract the most time spent. Read more here and here.

Dorsey 'trusts' Musk with platform

Twitter co-founder and former CEO, Jack Dorsey, tweeted his approval of the deal, saying Musk is “the singular solution I trust”. Some analysts, however, believe the takeover is a political move, to give Musk control over the “largest megaphone” in the world and protect his own ability to tweet – a key element in Tesla’s success. Others claim that a private Twitter stands a better chance of success than a public company tied to its shareholders. Whatever happens, Twitter will not be able to run wild under Musk. EU regulators have warned that Twitter must comply with EU’s new digital rules, or risk a hefty fine and even ban in Europe. Read more here, here and here.

Twitter's edit button is really coming

Users have been asking for an edit button on Twitter for years, and it looks like it’s finally happening! The platform will begin testing an edit feature with Twitter Blue subscribers in the coming months, before rolling it out to everyone. The feature will enable users to edit typos out of tweets, without sacrificing generated engagement. It will also include a history of all the changes back to the original version of the tweet, to prevent harmful and potentially offensive edits. To find out more, read here and here.

LinkedIn engagement up over 20%

Microsoft has shared a performance update, which includes extremely positive details on LinkedIn, which it owns. According to the report, there has been a 34% year-on-year increase in LinkedIn revenue to $3.44bn, with user engagement growing 22% in the last quarter. Microsoft says that much of LinkedIn’s revenue strength comes from its Talent Solutions offerings, which further position LinkedIn as an essential platform in career development. The company has not shared details on the number of total users. Read more here.

TikTok expands AR effects tool

The TikTok ‘Effect House’ AR creation tool is now available to all creators in open beta, enabling anyone to build AR effects for TikTok use. TikTok says AR effects must “follow effect guidelines" and must not promote colorism or negative stereotypes against protected groups, nor depict cosmetic surgery. The initiative will also enable top creators to monetise their work and partner with brands. Read more here.

Instagram prioritises original content

Instagram is reinventing the way content is prioritised on the platform, shifting focus to “value original content”. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri announced the change via Twitter: “If you create something from scratch, you should get more credit,” he said. This is to incentivise creators to craft content natively on the platform, rather than re-sharing clips from other third-party apps. Read more here.

WhatsApp to improve Communities

WhatsApp is set to launch a new ‘Communities’ feature on its app, creating more structured group chats and admin controls. Similar to Facebook Groups, WhatsApp Communities will allow organisations to create networks for members to interact and share news and updates. With the introduction of features such as file sharing, 32-person group calls and emoji reactions, apps like Telegram and iMessage may need to up their game. Read more here

Facebook pulls the plug on podcasts

Meta has revealed that it is planning to remove podcasts entirely from Facebook in June. From early this month, users won't be able to add podcasts to Facebook, eventually leading to the complete removal of Soundbites and the central audio hub. Facebook's move into audio made sense as podcasts rose in popularity last year, but Meta is changing focus to short-form video content. Facebook doesn't plan to alert users of the change, leaving it up to publishers to decide how to announce it. Read more here.

Instagram removes in-feed video ads

Meta has removed the in-stream video ad placement on Instagram ads, changing the game on ad consumption and creation habits on the platform. Users will now be able to use Reels placement as an alternative for video ads instead. This shift aligns with the app’s interest in showcasing video content into a more immersive and ‘scrollable’ stream, similar to TikTok. More on the update here.

Facebook ramps up Reels activity

Having recently rolled out Facebook Reels worldwide, Meta is now introducing a new feature that will enable users to post Reels from third-party apps, making it easier for people to share videos from their apps directly to Facebook. It comes as no surprise from Meta, as the platform works to increase the popularity and reach of its Reels in order to compete more effectively with TikTok. Read more here.

YouTube and TikTok up accessibility

TikTok and YouTube are taking new steps to improve accessibility on their platforms. YouTube CPO Neal Mohan announced that creators can now outsource the creation and editing of subtitles in the YouTube Studio app. TikTok is also looking to expand its accessibility features by switching on English language auto-captions by default. Users can still include their own captions and turn auto-subtitles off. Find out more here.

Report reveals relationship between hashtags and engagement on Instagram

Socialinsider has conducted a study to establish the correlation between hashtag usage and user engagement on Instagram. The company analysed over 75 million Instagram posts published between March 2021 and March 2022 and found no significant differences in the average engagement rate regardless of the number of hashtags used. Even the highest engagement rate (3.41%), generated with posts with 3-4 hashtags, represents only a 0.2% increase in average engagement. Additionally, Socialinsider has found that for both big and small accounts, impression rates decrease the more hashtags are included. As confirmed by Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, the focus of hashtags is rather to categorise content, connecting users with what they are looking for. Read more here

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If you have any suggestions for articles for the next Battenhall Monthly, please get in touch with the editors using WhatsApp on +44 749 307 2286 or call us on +44 207 887 2647.
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