A year ago, all the rage was the 

• Mastodon – decentralised social media platform,
• The anti-filter app BeReal,
• Clubhouse – a by invitation – social audio app,

Enormous growth faltered within months; they are all a fraction of the size at their peak. Social media platform growth is fickle – fortunes rise and fall – many lose steam in months and disappear forever. 

Today – there are two new social media rockets

• Twitter alternative T2,
• Artifact a personalised news app,  

Most businesses (and people) are heavy users of 2-3 social media platforms. Marketing agencies specialise across a select range of platforms due to constraints on time, creativity and people.

Overnight U.S. Threatened to Ban TikTok if its Chinese Owners Don’t Sell their controlling Stakes.

 

• TikTok, a video-sharing app, says the forced sale won’t resolve the U.S. national security issues. 
• Its C.E.O. will appear before Congress next week to answer questions about the national security risks TikTok poses to the U.S.A. 
• Tiktok may face a possible U.S. wide ban of the app,
• The technical and legal challenges of making a TikTok ban happen are vast, 

Australia is part of the ‘Five Eyes’ security framework; member countries are the U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S.A. – Five Eyes is the peak body of the spy and military agencies. 

If the U.S. bans TikTok, many or all Five Eyes members will likely follow. 

Agencies and social media experts are now rapidly trying to determine how and what to advise clients who have enjoyed enormous success on TikTok. 

Fundamental questions arise

• Determine which other social media platforms will western users of TikTok go to if banned,
• Where to invest time and money to concentrate and find former users whilst not spreading themselves too thinly now,
• How to retrieve as much data from TikTok now, 
• How to be increasingly strategic for clients about how to invest in target audiences that may splatter everywhere, 

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating said at the National Press Club a couple of days ago that Australia was going in the wrong direction on Foreign and Defence policies against China. He asserted that China is 

• Not and will never be an invasion threat to Australia, 
• Not to confuse the international politics of business as a military threat. Wine tariffs are not a threat to invade Australia, 
• Not to let the U.S. military and spy agencies run Australian policies,
• Not to invest in Aukus submarines, 
• The U.S. was running a containment strategy against China – a dangerous game to play – when China is now economically 20% bigger than the U.S. 

What is happening with social media today as the geopolitical debate? 

 

• Agencies are increasingly spending more on creative services – up about 30% year over year; the race to create better quality content to attract more ideal viewers is on, 
• People care about what businesses say – until they do not. If your business has nothing of value to say – you will get no engagement – no results, 
• Segmentation and fragmentation continue – how to find your ideal buyers, customers, and clients as they change preferences across platforms, 
• Agencies and brands are doubling down to find specific segments with their targeting assets, which comes at increased costs,
• Content creation and cadence costs are rapidly rising as brands and agencies find new buyer segments,
• The surge in video creation continues across all platforms. Social media teams have adapted and found new ways to scale content across multiple channels, 
• Channel influencers are rapidly scaling how to create relatable and natural content to connect with sub-communities and niches, 
• Web3, artificial intelligence, and gaming platforms are increasingly providing new opportunities and threats, 

We now live in a Social Selling economy. Every industry is changing: it’s a global phenomenon.

Now the most valuable asset in the world today is attention. Getting your ideal buyer’s attention across multiple platforms is the vital key. 

Who would have thought that U.S. defence policies would make this even more difficult?

 

Regards 

David