Oh, boy. I've got lots of social media news and updates
today that I'm going to get into because it feels like every single
platform went 1, 2, 3, let's update things right the hell
now. So with that, let's get into episode number
342 of the Mindful Marketing podcast. If you're new here, hi, hello. My name
is Andrea Jones, and I'm a mindful marketing strategist where I am
determined to help you connect more, scroll less, so that we
can grow together. Before I dive in, let's get into a word
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Riverside. Alright. Today's
episode, a little bit different because there are
lots of updates. Now I wanna preface this by saying I don't
usually bring social media news and updates to this right here
podcast. Inside of my membership in the mindful marketing lab,
I have a social media news and trends channel where
I post social media news and trends as they happen, if you
will. And then once a month, we have a session called what's the scoop where
I go over all of the social media news and trends as well as some
of the top performing posts that I see out and about here on the interwebs.
However, a lot has happened. And so I sat down to
research it all after coming back of, like, a sickness
last week that I just kind of, like, went offline a
little bit for. And I was like, holy moly. There's a
lot going on, so let me record a video for my members. And then as
I was recording a video for my members, I was like, yeah.
This needs to go out to the public at large. So here you are. You're
welcome. If you're a member, you got this a week early. If not, you're listening
to it on the podcast. For context, I recorded this
January 21, 2025. So if anything's
outdated, that's why. Now first, big
news. And I'm gonna try to go in order of events here
because all these news stories kind of go
together. Like, they kind of go hand in hand. And the first one is the
TikTok ban. Okay? This TikTok ban is not new,
y'all. I have been talking about the TikTok ban for 5 years.
I went back and looked, and in my notes I have here, the
TikTok The TikTok was going to be banned first
the hint the first hint of the ban was July 2020.
July 2020 is when,
president Trump was saying that they were considering a
ban, of TikTok. This was kind
of because of, you know, COVID, corona, the
pandemic. Right? It was because of that. You know, it started
in China, and there was a lot of, contentious
comments about that. And so as he does, he kind of
just said it and spoke it into existence, and we were like, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. But over the years, there have been multiple
instances where TikTok, is going to be
banned. In fact, by August 2020, president Trump had issued an
executive order saying TikTok had to be banned due to the way that it
collected our data. By September, it
had blocked the downloading of the app for certain
government officials, things like that. I know here in Canada, for instance, it
is blocked as well. Again, how TikTok itself
gathers data and what the other
countries do with that data. This has been
appealed and rebanned and represented over the years by
July 2021. Joe Biden, president Joe Biden had existed,
issued an executive order revoking the ban. But then by
December 2022, the senate had proposed a new
ban. Fast forward to today, so by
January 19th, it was official. TikTok
is not supposed to be owned by
China. Okay. And this is where the ban the the order is coming into
place. It's not necessarily saying that TikTok can't exist.
It's saying that TikTok should not be primarily
owned by a Chinese company.
So technically, if someone
else were to purchase 51% of the company,
it wouldn't be mostly owned by a Chinese company and all would be
well. That has not happened, and so, technically,
TikTok is banned in the US officially.
I didn't think we'd get here, but here we are. The big drama
being that on 19th, or leading up
to 19th, users, of TikToks are to get little
notifications on their phone that says, hey. You can no longer you use this app.
It was removed from the App Store for US folks.
And while, at the time of the recording this, you
can now use it and you can download it, some people are
claiming, it technically isn't
allowed. K. Technically isn't allowed. Now president Trump did say that
he wants to reinstate TikTok, primarily because he
doesn't like Meta. And he's been very clear about this. Meta has
also been clear about how they have not
supported Trump up until now, which I will talk about because the drama is
drama ing. But
TikTok, president Trump wants
TikTok because he actually helped him with his platform
during his campaign. He likes
their algorithm, and I will say compared to Meta, the way
that they allow conversations to happen is much different than,
Meta's algorithm, whatever they try to claim. And
Trump likes that. He likes the the free speech. Let's put that loosely
in quotes, k, for TikTok. So
despite being unavailable for about 16 to 18
hours on 19th, TikTok is restored in the
US, and they're working on,
an appeal right now. Though, Apple and
Google still do not have TikTok in their in the app stores.
Okay? So they don't wanna be, you know, sued or fined or
whatever. Okay. But if you already have it, you already have it. Apparently,
there is a 75 day probationary period
where someone can still come in and purchase it, but
time will tell. Time will tell. So
the aftershocks of this are really everything else we're seeing
in social media news. Because I don't think people quite thought it would get
this far because this again, this isn't the first time TikTok has been under
threat of a ban, but this is the first time that it's gotten this far.
Okay? So thing 1 that happened is a smaller thing,
YouTube. YouTube has increased the length of YouTube
Shorts. So YouTube Shorts are now 3 minutes long instead of 60 seconds,
1 minute. It used to be the max, now it's 3 minutes. This is
in a direct response to TikTok, and it's my
prediction that if TikTok is to be banned, which now is
looking more likely than not, like, if it will in 75
days completely disappear or if it will be purchased or whatever
will happen, YouTube is, in my opinion, the
natural replacement for TikTok for a number of
reasons. One, it is the largest video platform
in the world. It's the 2nd largest search engine. So this
idea that TikTok was for search, which people really
liked, we can easily take that concept into YouTube. They've got the bones
there. YouTube's algorithm, especially for
suggested content, has always been great. K. Like,
you watch this video about tomato plants, maybe you'll like that video about
tomato plants. K. It's been it's been great over the years.
YouTube does not have the drama that other platforms have
and the, shall we say, negative associations with
the algorithm. So, like, right now, people aren't happy with Instagram or
Facebook's algorithm. It's not fun over there for those of us on those apps,
on all those platforms. So YouTube feels like
the natural, like, king of video here, and I'm here for it. I
would actually love to see YouTube Shorts be the
thing. It's a terrible name. TikTok has, like, a nice cutesy little
oh, I here's a YouTube video or here's a TikTok that I,
watch. YouTube shorts, it it's it's YouTube shorts.
The shorts piece is, like, not easy for me to say. And if I'm just,
like, texting you, YouTube short, I may just say a
YouTube video instead. I also am
hesitant because we do have long form video on YouTube.
The 3 minute video to me, I don't know how I feel
about it. I like a short being short, and 3 minutes does not feel short
to me. If someone sent me a 3 minute video and I didn't like it,
I'd be like, man, this feels like a long video. Right? 60 seconds?
Perfect. Beautiful. I liked the time limit. So
we shall see. We shall see. YouTube to me is like the natural next
replacement for TikTok. So that's the second update.
3rd update, Instagram and Meta. Let's talk about
Meta largely at first. Meta
has, over the years, specifically sends president
Trump's, campaign initially and
then his first term of presidency,
they've been very clearly not a fan. K? They've banned him from
the platforms. They've put in, you know, things in place
that are directly a call out to him. Things
like, you know, if someone shares fake news, they
have automation, or they did, that would say this, you know, this story has
not been fact checked. You know, check your sources.
And so Meta has been very specific about
labeling things as fake news, labeling things as, you know, make sure to
check your sources. This has been a direct response to
president Trump. Okay. And Zuck Zuck and Co,
the Zuckerberg, has not been a fan. Okay.
That changed recently with the one of their updates that they did
last week, which was they were removing the automated fact checkers.
And upon first glance, I thought this wasn't that bad
of a of a thing. X, formerly known as Twitter, has this
in place. It's called community notes. It's based on how the community
responds to whatever is being posted. So the
the consensus basically is, like, if somebody posts something and it is
factually incorrect, as a collective, we could say this is wrong, and
then there'll be a little note. Like, it's like a lot of people disagree with
this, or a lot of people say that this is factually incorrect.
Upon first glance, I was like, that doesn't seem too terrible because between
you and I, to be honest, some of the automations are not
great. And what was happening with, I saw this
numerous times with some of my clients, some of my members, is that
you would post something that wasn't fake, that wasn't,
you know, inaccurate, but the automation would think it was. And your account
will get trapped in this automated hell, basically,
and you would get flagged. Your account would get banned, and you'd have no idea
what happened because it was like a robot gone rogue.
Very frustrating. So for me, when I see that, I'm like, oh, okay. So power
back to the people. I love it. However, it is a very
slippery slow slippery slope, and it can be very dangerous for the
collective as well. I think especially for
bullying, for any sort of hate against
other group, a minor a minority group, it can go
sideways very, very quickly. I think about
certain certain things like, anti Semitic
comments. Right? If a whole bunch of,
let's, say can I say Nazis? Of
a whole bunch of people who think poorly of a certain group
of people, collectively decide to
bully someone, then the
community could decide that post needs to be removed,
taken down, whatever, when it shouldn't be. Right?
I think about this with, like, LGBTQ folks. Like,
there's so many ways this can go wrong if as
a collective, someone gangs up,
cancels someone based on
their existence, their mere existence,
this could go sideways very, very quickly. And so it is
dangerous for Meta to do this, but they've done it. And they've done
it perfectly timed a week before
president Trump was inaugurated into office for his second term.
So are they connected? I mean, they're not gonna come out and say
that directly, but the fact that Mark Zuckerberg
went on, Joe Rogan's podcast to talk about this
says a lot, because, yeah, it just says a
lot. It says a lot. The timing of it all says a lot. What it
says to me is that Meta is going, oh, new man
in power. We need to suck up to the new man in power.
And it seems like, you know, a lot of people want him to be because,
hello. They all voted for him to be. And so we wanna
we wanna, follow that that thread. K? Follow
the money, if you will. Again, not
a new strategy for a social media platform, but here
we are. So that is the news on that. So we've got TikTok being
banned. We've got YouTube increasing their YouTube shorts. We've
got Meta releasing their algorithmic
automation for, moderating fake news and that
sort of thing and and putting the power back to the people, which could be
very bad. And then we have some other changes
happening, in Meta. And this again is because TikTok is being
banned, and Meta is trying to, like, poach those people
over to, you know, Facebook and Instagram and maybe threads.
Instagram Reels and Instagram, the the grid. So
when you're looking at your Instagram feed, you know how you had, like, the aesthetic,
like, oh, my profile is everything is, like, color coordinated. The
size has changed. It's no longer square. It's a 4 by 5 size.
It's 10 80 by 1350. So, a little
bit more vertical, a little bit more, you know, portrait, if you
will. More more hot dog, okay, if you will.
So it has changed now. And if you have not been
using this new size, your feed looks all sorts of messed up.
Now I've been using this new size for a while. I've been telling my members
to use this new size for a while. However, when I make a new template,
I make it as a square. I don't know if it's just because I've been
doing this for 10 years now, but, like, squares reign
supreme for me. They always have. And so a lot of even my
templates in my template bundles, squares.
However, that's not the new size anymore. It's this new 4 by 5
size that, looks like the elongated profile.
To be honest, it kinda looks like your TikTok profile
where you have, you know, you have the videos. Right? You have the the the
portrait size videos, on your profile. Instagram is now,
okay, bet. We we're gonna do that too. That's what Instagram says. So
if you go and look at your feed on your profile, it looks all sorts
of messed up and things are cropped weird. That is why.
Instagram's trying to be like TikTok yet again.
This is not new news. They're just, you know, a little mimicker.
Again, I've been using this size since 2023. I look back at my Canva files.
I've been using this size since 2023, but I did not think they would change
the profile. So while my profile, for the most
part, looks fine, my pinned posts are a little messed up. I need to fix
those. But my profile, for the most part right now, looks fine
on my main. I have, like, my, you know what
do what do the kids call it? My Finsta? Like, my
secondary account that I use for other things. I didn't bother with that
one. It's all messed up, so I have to redo it. Anyways,
such is life. If you're with me, we have work to do. Or if you
don't care, just leave it. And going forward from today, use the new size,
10 80 by 1350. Another thing for
Meta is that they also increased their reels length to 3
minutes. K. Again, this is copying. YouTube did
it first. Now reels, they've been testing longer length. So
if you've had this available, it may not be new
to you, but it is, something that
they, have been testing and they now officially have have
released to the majority of people on the app. Again,
they're trying to poach people from TikTok even though people are still over on
TikTok and having a grand old time over there. So
with that being said, I wanna also talk about some alternatives
to TikTok because I've been seeing this float around a
lot of questions about, like, oh, if TikTok is banned, where are we going?
That's been the big question. If TikTok is banned, where are we going? And I
said earlier in this episode, I believe YouTube and YouTube Shorts
is the natural answer to me. If you're creating video
content, go to the place where people are already watching video content.
K? It's a natural next step. However,
if you wanna explore some of the other apps, I wanna give you my thoughts.
You didn't ask for them, but here they are. I tried this weekend
fan base. I swear when I first
logged in, my feed was just only fan creators, and I was like, nothing
against this, but this is not I'm here for work, not pleasure if you catch
my drift. So, it was a little bit startling. I did,
you know, set my preferences, and I started following people. My algorithm quickly
picked it up. But it feels very much
geared towards, people giving you
money for the for the things that you post. Like, when I
log into the app, there's there's the thumbs up option, which is like,
yeah, I like this video, but then there's a heart option where it costs
money to, like, give people hearts. I didn't like
that. But I was able to import over
my, Instagram profile. And so
all of my Instagram videos, all of my posts were
imported, my profile and everything I imported over. And I was like,
okay. That doesn't seem so bad. But then now I have another app to check,
and y'all know how I feel about that. Not a fan. 2 others
that I've tried in the past that kind of seemed like they had a little
bit of resurgence this week. One is
Lemon8. Now I will say this. Lemon8 is a sister
company to TikTok. So when TikTok was, like, having its
moment this or I guess it'll be a couple weeks weekends ago at the time
this comes out, Lemon8 was also having a moment. You weren't. You couldn't you
can't download it. You can't access it because it's a sister company. Same with
CapCut. CapCut is a sister company to TikTok. So they all are
owned by the same parent company. So if TikTok is
not allowed, Lemon8 is not allowed, and CapCut is
not allowed as well. The other one
is Clapper. Clapper has been around for a hot minute. I
downloaded Clapper last time TikTok was threatened to be banned.
And, again, very similar to TikTok.
It's a terrible name though. It sounds like
a UTI or not a UTI. It sounds like a
STI. I'm like, alright.
Terrible name for an app. But, let's see. I have 3
videos on there, and they don't they don't have bad views. They're from years ago,
though. Let's see. When was this posted? 2023. Again, last time TikTok was
threatened to be banned, I was I published on there.
I may publish again. I may not. I think that it's just
another place for me to check. And honestly, I'm not I'm
not that mad at Meta. I I don't
fully believe what the company believes, so my people are there.
And while it's not a safe space, I found safe spaces, if that makes
sense. So I I go where my people are. Last
thing I will say is this. At the time of recording this too, one of
my members shared with me this update about,
Instagram's new editing app. It is again a
direct direct competitor
to CapCut. It is called Edits, and it's
all about editing, Instagram videos,
specifically reels. And
I haven't tried it yet, but I will say this,
Instagram is terrible for editing, and I don't believe
them creating an entirely different app will solve the
issue. I don't know. I'm not an app designer, but
something to consider is that Meta is actively trying. They're trying.
Now if YouTube came out with a video editing app, I would be here for
it because I feel like YouTube. Again, I do strongly
believe YouTube is like the biggest contender here, and that's where I would put my
eggs if I were to and I probably will put my focus on
YouTube over meta products.
So that's the update. Holy bananas. We've got
TikTok being banned. We have YouTube starting to dominate. I
mean, they already dominate. YouTube likes fully stepping into their short video
form video roles. We've got Meta doing all sorts of things with,
quote, unquote, free speech and power to the people. We've got,
Instagram profiles changing, new
editing apps, people trying alternative places.
It's a lot. If you're sitting here going, Andrea, I still don't
know what the heck to do. Here's my advice.
Keep doing what you're doing because at the end of the day, not a lot
has changed. I do see people, like, doing a mass exodus of, you
know, meta products, for instance. I do see people, you know, downloading their TikTok
videos and taking them somewhere else. But majority of people are
staying exactly where they are. The majority of people are staying exactly
where they already are. And I think this is the challenge with going to
new apps is that you then become
you become a small fish in a big pond again. And you're
essentially starting from scratch, not only with, you know, trying to
bring your your community members over, but
you're also starting from scratch in learning a new app. And
while there are benefits to being power user in a new app, I talk a
lot about this a lot with threads and, like, my initial experience with threads, very
delightful because, you know, being a power user in a new app is,
it puts you in a in a in a really good position. Right?
But a lot of us, my people, y'all listening to this, we don't have time
for this. Right? We're running our business. Plus we've got the kids.
We've got our parents. We've got our friends. We've got daycare drop off. We've got
we've got so many other things to figure out. Right? Life life is life ing,
chronic illness. Like, if this is completely
overwhelming to you, I wanna let you know you don't have to worry about it.
I saw this a lot of conversation around this on Facebook. There's a lot of
beautiful Facebook groups that I'm in where a lot of people are having these really
deep and rich conversations about should we leave Facebook or not. And
the consensus for a lot of people has been, we don't agree with this app.
We're gonna be very vocal about some of the changes, but ultimately, my
people are here. And we've decided to make
the decision to vocally disagree with some of the policies and
still remain here. Okay. So if you're
feeling like you're feeling like, this
is a lot and I don't wanna change anything, don't change anything. But if you
do, YouTube, I think, is a really good place to focus.
And I do think meta like, there's Meta just has the most users, most
people on it. So if you are on Meta, I'm
kinda gonna stay on Meta. For me personally, I will
still continue to use TikTok. It will still continue to repurpose content there
and use it as, like, my fun place to hang out sometimes, but I may
start switching that over to YouTube more and more,
and I will continue to explore new apps and bring you my findings as
I find them. Thank you so much for listening and tuning in and
watching this episode of the Mindful Marketing podcast. I'll be back at you
next week with a new episode. Until then, bye for now.