Social Media News Round-Up: 03/12/21
This week’s social media marketing news at a glance:
Scroll down to read the full news stories
⚖️ Facebook may be forced to sell Giphy due to unfair monopoly
🔁 Jack Dorsey steps down as Twitter CEO and is replaced by Parag Agrawal
📲 LinkedIn adds some new tools to ‘Creator Mode’ including LinkedIn Live access and newsletters
💸 TikTok expands creator tipping and video gifting
Facebook may be forced to sell Giphy due to unfair monopoly
Facebook could be forced to sell Giphy, which it acquired in May 2020, after a ruling by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The ruling deems Facebook’s acquisition of the popular GIF company unfair, concluding that it would allow Facebook to “increase its already significant market power in relation to other social media platforms by denying or limiting other platforms’ access to Giphy GIFs, driving more traffic to Facebook-owned sites”. The CMA also made reference to concerns around data protection, saying Facebook’s control of Giphy would allow it to “change the terms of access by, for example, requiring TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat to provide more user data in order to access Giphy GIFs.”
Jack Dorsey steps down as Twitter CEO and is replaced by Parag Agrawal
On Monday, it was announced that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey would be stepping down from his role as CEO of the company. Dorsey is to be replaced by CTO Parag Agrawal, who will almost certainly continue along Twitter’s path of ambitious growth and experimentation.
LinkedIn adds new tools to ‘Creator Mode’ including LinkedIn Live access and newsletters
LinkedIn is introducing some new tools to its ‘Creator Mode’, including LinkedIn Live access and a newsletter option for creators. Initially, LinkedIn Live was only made available to members and pages with more than 150 followers/connections and who met particular criteria. Now, all members with Creator Mode turned on will be able to broadcast live to their followers, maximising community engagement and boosting their presence on the app. Certain creators will also be able to create a newsletter via a new publishing tool that will appear when writing an article on the platform.
TikTok expands creator tipping and video gifting
TikTok is continuing to expand its creator monetisation tools, rolling out video tipping and gifting to regular TikTok videos. Tipping and gifting have been available features on livestream videos since last year, but this expansion means users can engage with creators in this way on all videos on their For You Page.
