Elon Musk Appoints New Twitter CEO
It was announced on Friday that Elon Musk had finally found his successor as Twitter CEO in the form of the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, Linda Yaccarino. The change would still see Musk remain as both executive chair and CTO of Twitter, however, recent reports suggest that the change of CEO could bring big changes for the platform.
Over the course of her career at NBCUniversal, Yaccarino has been instrumental to the platform’s advertising business, including its ad-supported streaming service Peacock. This ties into Musk’s repeated remarks that Twitter isn’t just a social media platform, but instead a competitor for traditional news outlets, with the company striving to become ‘the most accurate source of information’ about world events.
As well as this, political commentator Tucker Carlson will soon launch a new show exclusively on Twitter, as Musk is apparently looking to expand his streaming service within the app, with exclusive programming that should attract more users.
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TikTok Teams up with Smartly.io for Video Shopping Ads
TikTok has partnered with Smartly.io to integrate video shopping ads, creating a new way to facilitate in-stream commerce within the app. This integration will allow brands to integrate their product catalogue and offers, streamlining the shopping process for users within the TikTok feed.
Smartly.io’s video shopping ads solution allows advertisers to have access to automated workflows to scale, optimize, and test ads that drive results. TikTok is focused on in-stream commerce, which has been successful in the Chinese version of the app called Douyin.
Despite its best efforts, TikTok has not been able to make in-stream shopping a thing in other regions. The Smartly.io integration might be a new way for businesses to list their products within TikTok, but whether it will become a more relevant consideration remains to be seen.
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YouTube’s New Experiment Blocks Content for Users with Ad Blockers
YouTube is testing a new pop-up message that blocks users from watching content when ad blockers are active in their browsers. The message advises users to disable their ad blocker or make an exception for YouTube to continue watching videos.
This experiment signals a shift in approach from YouTube’s parent company, Google, in more aggressively combating ad blockers in its apps. Google has been implementing restrictions on ad-blocking technologies for years to protect its core ads business, but most of those changes have been bypassed by ad-blocking developers.
However, this new move could indicate a more serious effort to halt apps that stop it from displaying ads. With Google also integrating generative AI in search, it makes sense for it to maximise ad exposure in other areas to mitigate any potential loss and keep ad partners happy. While this is currently a limited test, it could be expanded soon.
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LinkedIn Adds Topic Prompts to Help Creators Boost Their Presence
LinkedIn has added new topics and post prompts to help guide creators in building their in-app presence as part of its rollout of a central location to manage all aspects of content on the platform.
‘Analytics and Tools’, available on the left side panel of the app to those with Creator Mode active, show content performance over time, topics associated with your profile, and creator elements available in the app. The latest addition to the Creator Mode dashboard is ‘Conversations Happening Now’, which includes a new Post Ideas listing.
The feature prompts users with posts that might be relevant to them and their audience based on their previously posted content and topics that their audience might be interested in. The initiative aims to encourage more users to post regularly. However, relying on AI prompts for post ideas could create shallow opinions, and LinkedIn risks overlooking genuine expertise and insight.
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