TAKUMI TRENDS LETTER #33 📈
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• Influencer Marketing • Social Updates • Creator Culture • Industry Insights •
TAKUMI’s insights team is curating the most impactful industry news and weekly developments for brands, right here 👇.
TikTok Launches ‘Interactive Add-Ons’ to Help Brands Build More Engaging Ads | 19th April 2022
“TikTok’s Interactive Add-Ons provide a range of engagement features that prompt users to take action on your ad, by inviting them into the experience.”
TAKEAWAY 🔥: Brands on TikTok could soon get some exciting new features to optimise their in-stream ads 😍. There are Interactive Add-Ons to suit different marketing objectives, from building brand awareness to driving conversions. Gestures, Pop-Out Showcase, and the upcoming Super Likes 2.0 feature - floating icons which appear when users engage with your ad, and lead to a CTA pop-out card- are just some of the Add-Ons in the roster. By adding prompts and clickable add-ons into an ad, users are encouraged to engage and brands are able to drive traffic towards specific landing pages 📈. Voting stickers can help brands gain insights from their target audience through immersive participation, while the Pop-Out Showcase and Display Card help to increase product discovery, brand awareness, and interactions. If brands want to scale on TikTok, making the most out of upcoming and existing ad tools is a must ✅!
Should we still invest in social media influencers? | 27th April 2022
“While users can still like posts and view their own like counts, the greater control given to users by Meta, the owner of both platforms, over who views this metric has shifted what marketers view as success on social media.”
TAKEAWAY 🔥: Last year, Meta gave Instagram and Facebook users the option to hide Likes on their posts in a bid to allay concerns that the platforms are harmful to mental health, especially in young people. Other features such as 'Limits', which lets users temporarily hide unwanted comments and DMs, and more recently the return of an (optional) algorithm-free feed, are slowly extending greater control to Instagram users over how they consume and interact with content 👏🏻.
This article asks: should we still invest in influencers, if they are able to hide likes and comments? Fortunately, the influencer marketing industry will not topple with the loss of a few vanity metrics.
These metrics, while important, shouldn't be taken alone as an indicator of success. It's not that maximising ROI isn't important, nor is it the idea that engagement and impressions don't matter 📊. Sales are high priority, but they aren’t all we have to go by. We now have the technology and resources that allow us to look beyond the quantifiable and dig deeper into the data, to reframe how we measure success and apply smarter strategies to achieve it.
Brand lift studies, social listening, and creator surveying, can help gather valuable insights on everything from psychographics and sentiment, to brand affinity. It is this kind of insight which truly optimises campaigns, maximises results, and helps to apply an in depth and holistic approach to strategy. Communities respect creators in their decision to prioritise mental health- whether that is hiding Likes, or taking a short break from socials. Either way, if a creator has captured the trust and attention of an audience through their content, that is what brands are truly investing in 🙏.
Did we mention we are on FIRE? 🔥
ALL of our TikTok campaigns for 2022 (except one 💁🏽♀️) have been featured in TikTok’s Top Performing Ads! That’s 4 straight months of top campaigns, and we aren’t slowing down 🚀.
Most recently:
🌱 Best Environmental Protection Ad in the WORLD (on World Earth Day)
✨ Best Cosmetic Ad in terms of video retention
💸 Best Commercial Banking Ad
🐶 3 assets in the Top Performing Pet Ad
+ Top Performing Ads in 3 other categories!
If you’re a brand and want to learn how to incorporate TikTok into your strategy, register your interest in our 1:1 TikTok sessions here.
The state of ecommerce conversion rates | 28th April 2022
“In the US, desktop computers had the highest ecommerce conversion rate of any device during Q4 2021, at 3.8%. Tablets followed with a 3.2% conversion rate, while mobile registered a substantially lower rate of 2.3%.”
TAKEAWAY 🔥: This chart from eMarketer maps US retail eCommerce conversion rates on different devices throughout 2021. Interestingly, mobile phones yielded the lowest conversion rate but the highest percentage of online shopping sessions, with 67% of sessions in the US taking place on mobile compared to 31% on desktop 🛍. Shopping is intricately weaved into our mobile experiences, especially on social platforms, but our short attention spans and distractions from multiple apps can hinder purchase completion and conversions 💸. However, shopping on mobile does fulfil our desire for convenience, ease, and impulsivity, and is a key driver of product discovery. Brands should evaluate their marketing funnels and consider the devices their target markets spend most of their time using.
Instagram Head says hashtags do not help posts get more views | 24th April 2022
“[…] contrary to popular belief -- adding hashtags to posts are not likely to help users receive more views on videos.”
TAKEAWAY 🔥: Adam Mosseri recently revealed that hashtags do not help users get more views, explaining that he wouldn't 'think of hashtags as a way to try and get more distribution'. We know that the algorithm considers 'likes, comments, direct messages, and other interactions on Instagram', but haven't we had it drilled into us that hashtags - on any platform - boost engagement? 🤔.
They provide the algorithm with context about posts, and at least provide some level of reach in as much as hashtag pages are concerned. What's more, users can now follow hashtags which means that posts containing those tags will appear - depending on their ranking - in a user's feed. So, it seems they do still have some merit, but play less of a role on Instagram than say, TikTok.
Hashtags are a key component on TikTok for staying up to date and involved in the latest trends to sweep the platform, and they serve a huge purpose for the app's many communities and subcultures 🌍. While Instagram hashtags may assist in finding content that piques interest, this only helps if the tag is niche. Some further clarification from Mosseri could be helpful, but ultimately the takeaway here is simply not to rely on hashtags for hitting your key objectives ✅. Think about how your hashtags can add context and purpose to your post 💭.
IMS NYC 💥 PLATINUM SPONSORS 💥 Wednesday 27th April 2022.
This week, TAKUMI's US team headed to the first-ever Influencer Marketing Show in New York City!
The long-awaited event was filled with world renowned brands, agencies, and industry stakeholders, uniting for a day full of networking and learning 🙏. As platinum sponsors, TAKUMI kicked off the day's speaking sessions with a panel centred around ✨ data ✨. We brought along 3 incredible panellists to join us on stage- Kim Garcia (CMO, Tagger), Max Osborne (Co-Founder and Co-CEO, ThisThat), and Jordan White (aka @hautehouseflower, content creator).
Moderated by TAKUMI's COO, Sara Joy Madsen, the panel had a candid chat about the 360 degree process which is integral to a successful campaign; how to inform our strategies with the right mix of data points, and how a combination of talent discovery, audience targeting, creative strategy, and platform specificity are the perfect recipe to achieve maximum ROI for brand and agency goals 💯.
Keep an eye out on our socials (@takumihq) for behind the scenes content, our FULL speaker session video, and more…
We’ll be back soon with more insights and updates.
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