Is Instagram Going the Way of AOL?

Have you hovered over the Instagram app recently, too exhausted at the mere thought of all the notifications, widgets, inboxes and posts awaiting you to open it?

It wasn’t always this way. Until recently, Instagram’s success had always come from its relative simplicity. It didn’t even let you post photos from your desktop until 2021.

In July, after the platform announced plans to pivot to a more TikTok-like interface, users, including the all-powerful Kardashians, revolted; the swift backlash of fury prompted Instagram head Adam Mosseri to release a video on Twitter effectively admitting how unpopular the redesign was and halting its further rollout, although he maintained that it would eventually arrive. Just last month, Instagram announced a slew of new features including group profiles, BeReal-style candid stories and 60-character notes you pin to your profile.

THE TAKEAWAY
BeReal and TikTok are siphoning off Instagram users in part because they both know something Instagram forgot—that simplicity sells.

Instagram now feels less like one coherent user experience and more like an awkward assemblage of semi-random features begging you to use them in sometimes contradictory ways. It wants you to be a public-facing content creator, making highly produced video content, but it also wants you to spontaneously take dual-camera photos on the spur of the moment and update your friends with ephemeral story content. And somewhere in there, you’re still meant to share regular old photos. It’s a lot. And it flies in the face of what has made Instagram stand out among all the other social networks.

The current one-app-fits-all state of Instagram is especially ironic considering that it began as an antidote to social media maximalism. The platform we know today launched in 2010 as a Foursquare-like app called Burbn and pronounced “bourbon.” Creator Kevin Systrom quickly scrapped the check-in gimmick, realizing it was too complicated for users, and focused on sharing photos instead.

There was something subversive at the time about an app that asked its users to just share one photo at a time. Young urban millennials—aka hipsters—looking to distinguish themselves from users on already mainstream social networks like Facebook were Instagram’s first demographic. The bloated post-night-out Facebook album was suddenly lame. The single, filtered square Instagram post was cool.

Once Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, it started to support a few basic social networking features like hashtags and photo filters; a year later it would add the ability to tag other users in posts, a feature lifted directly from Facebook. Within a month, it also allowed the uploading of 15-second videos. Each of these new features worked incredibly well. Over the next five years, Instagram launched its boomerang looping video tool, changed its feed from chronological to algorithmic, added direct messaging, introduced Stories, and, in a full-circle moment for the app, in 2017 brought back the photo album in the form of a carousel of 10 pictures and videos. During that time, it grew from 100 million daily active users to over 500 million.

Looking at those first five years of Facebook ownership, you might assume that regular feature additions are what helped Instagram grow into a cultural juggernaut. But no internet service exists in a vacuum. As Instagram was adding one or two Facebook-lite features a year, Facebook itself was changing a lot more, adding stand-alone messaging and news apps, trending topics, instant articles, emoji reactions, GIFs and live video, plus cycling through a handful of fundamental changes to the algorithmic news feed. The Facebookesque features Instagram added were also comparatively pared down. Instagram videos were only a few seconds long. Its carousels maxed out at fewer than a dozen photos. It didn’t have groups or hyperlinks. For the bulk of the 2010s, Instagram was an intimate experience compared to other platforms.

Of course, this general overloading of things to do is also true for other apps. Over the last decade, all of our social platforms have accumulated a glut of widgets. But it’s Instagram that seems the most lost. For years, it remained the social network most focused on a single central experience: posting curated photos and videos of your life. Those photos and videos may have arrived via Story update, direct message or your main feed. You may have caught up on some influencer drama or consumed some very effectively targeted ads (Away suitcases, you know where I live), but posting was ostensibly what you were there to do.

Now Facebook is Meta Platforms and Instagram is trying to be everything at once. It even briefly looked like Instagram might try to fill the void Twitter’s chaos has left in the social media landscape—The New York Times reported that Meta was considering adding some kind of real-time text feed to Instagram. The notes feature has been called “Twitter-like,” although in practice it feels more like an AOL Instant Messenger away message than anything else.

Meta’s revenue forecast is not nearly as optimistic as it once was, which means the company now needs more out of Instagram. It plans to add more ads and—despite a major push early last year toward more creator videos—it cited Reels as especially difficult to monetize. A bigger problem, perhaps, is that Instagram isn’t driving culture the way it used to. In fact, users seem to be craving the exact opposite of the glossy Instagram-friendly experience. TikTok has become the internet’s main hub for fashion and entertainment; U.S. users are spending more time on the short-form–video app than on both Facebook and Instagram combined. The well-lit, algorithmically optimized food photo that was once an Instagram hallmark has now been replaced, according to Eater, by the “messy meal photo dump,” led largely by apps like—you guessed it—BeReal and TikTok.

So far the company seems unable to see what’s driving the popularity of these scruffier upstarts, which is funny, because it’s the same thing that pushed Instagram past Facebook all those years ago—we know what to do with them. You can’t beat a focused, easy-to-handle, cheeky social app by loading on endless features. By continuing to do so, Instagram risks becoming the very thing it was meant to subvert—a clunky portal.

It’s possible Instagram’s longtime users will stay no matter how busy the app gets. But keeping users is only half the battle for a social network. At a certain point, Meta will have to find a way to grab new users or else resign itself to going the way of America Online and all the portal companies that came before it—into irrelevance.

My thoughts：

The article discusses how Instagram’s increasing complexity is causing user dissatisfaction and how its simplicity, which was the key to its initial success, has been compromised. Instagram’s recent decision to pivot to a TikTok-like interface has not been well received, and users, including the Kardashians, have revolted against the platform’s new features. Instagram now feels less like a coherent user experience and more like an awkward assemblage of semi-random features, and it has lost sight of what made it stand out among all the other social networks. The article also explores Instagram’s history and how it evolved from a simple photo-sharing app to a cultural juggernaut. However, Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram led to the addition of several features, and Instagram started to support some basic social networking features. The article highlights how Instagram’s current one-app-fits-all state is ironic considering that it began as an antidote to social media maximalism.

Citation：

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/is-instagram-going-the-way-of-aol?rc=ixubfq

Instagram Reshuffles Internal Teams; Meta’s Ad Business Recovers

Before we get into Meta Platforms’ first quarter earnings report, we have some new details about internal changes happening at Instagram as a result of Meta’s latest job cuts.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri, in a note to Instagram employees last week, said the app needs a “flatter structure that gives everyone the opportunity to meaningfully contribute to our highest priority projects.” That means Instagram is doing some internal shuffling and will have four product groups called Sharing, Home, Communities and Business, according to the memo, which The Information viewed.

The descriptions of each team gives a view into Instagram’s main priorities as a company, which include creators and teens, as well as positioning the app as a place for entertainment and connecting with people you know. This is an extension of the three priorities Mosseri laid out publicly at the beginning of this year: “inspire people to be creative,” “help people discover things they love” and “spark connections between people.” But it’s more concrete and shows how much Instagram’s focus has morphed. In late 2021, Mosseri said the priorities for 2022 included doubling down on video, messaging and creator monetization.

Here’s what the memo laid out:

• The Sharing product group will center on helping teens and creators make content, express themselves and connect with audiences. The division will also include the Creators and Reels product group. This team will also support Project 92, Meta’s effort to create a decentralized social media network similar to Twitter. It’s significant the company is still working on that initiative despite shutting down other crypto projects, such as NFTs on Instagram. It comes at a time when Twitter alternatives are proliferating after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company, including decentralized offerings like Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky Social.
• The Home product group will focus on helping users “discover and interact with the people and things they love.” The Reels Engagement team, which includes staff working on the Reels Tab, and the Instagram Design Systems team will also join this group.
• The Communities product group focuses on making the app “safe and equitable” so users feel like they can express themselves and build communities. It will move the “Relevance Integrity” team from Home to Communities. Such shifts will help it “dedicate more resources overall to our equity work, which will benefit Instagram, along with the rest of the family of apps,” Mosseri wrote.
• The Business product group will remain focused on helping users find businesses and products. Its three “pillars” include opportunities, experiences and recommendations.

Plus Mosseri announced a personnel move: Connor Hayes, previously vice president of product management at Instagram, will take on a new role leading product and design for Meta’s Generative AI organization, under Ahmad Al-Dahle, the memo said. Al-Dahle is vice president of AI, machine learning and core tech at Meta, according to his LinkedIn account. Instagram said it plans to fill Hayes’ role. (See more on our Meta org chart.)

Instagram is also closing its London office. Mosseri, who announced he’d moved to London last August, will relocate back to the U.S.–Sylvia Varnham O’Regan and Kaya Yurieff

Now on to Meta’s Q1 results…

Meta’s advertising business is on the upswing after three straight quarters of declines. That’s a sign of hope for creators—especially after YouTube’s lackluster results Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Facebook parent company’s revenue rose 3% to $28.6 billion during the first quarter compared to the same period last year.

Meta is also signaling good news ahead: It projects second-quarter revenue growth will increase by as much as 15.5%. The stock rose in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

The company’s call with investors was dominated by talking about artificial intelligence, which could include introducing “AI agents” or chatbots, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. Meta is exploring chat experiences in WhatsApp and Messenger, visual creation tools for posts on Facebook and Instagram and ads, and over time, video as well. “I expect that these tools will be valuable for everyone from regular people to creators to businesses,” he said.

Zuckerberg disputed media reports that the company was backing off from the metaverse, a more immersive version of the internet. “A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision, so I just want to say upfront that that’s not accurate,” he said. “We’ve been focusing on both AI and the metaverse for years now, and we will continue to focus on both.”

Creators weren’t much of a topic, a contrast with calls over the last two years. Meta CFO Susan Li did point to a challenge with Reels: People view a Reel for longer than disappearing Stories or a post on the feed, resulting in fewer opportunities to serve ads between posts. “That will make it likely more challenging to close the monetization efficiency gap than it was with Stories,” she said on the call.

Zuckerberg also took the opportunity to point out a key new stat: Facebook now has 200 million daily active users in the U.S. and Canada. Is it just me – or was that a subtle jab at arch rival TikTok? The short-form video app recently announced it has 150 million monthly active users in the U.S.

MY thoughts：

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s memo to employees suggests that the company is restructuring its product teams to prioritize projects that give everyone a chance to contribute meaningfully. The restructuring will include four product groups, namely Sharing, Home, Communities, and Business. The memo outlines each team’s focus, indicating Instagram’s primary priorities as a company, including creators and teens, entertainment, and connecting people. Mosseri’s memo also announced personnel moves, including the appointment of Connor Hayes to lead product and design for Meta’s Generative AI organization.

Meta projects an increase in revenue growth for Q2, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussing the company’s focus on both AI and the metaverse. Creators were not a significant topic during the call with investors, but CFO Susan Li pointed out a challenge with Reels, where people view a Reel for longer than disappearing Stories or a post on the feed, resulting in fewer opportunities to serve ads between posts. Zuckerberg also took the opportunity to point out that Facebook has 200 million daily active users in the US and Canada, which may have been a subtle jab at rival TikTok’s 150 million monthly active users in the US.

Citation：https://www.theinformation.com/articles/instagram-reshuffles-internal-teams-metas-ad-business-recovers?rc=ixubfq

Children reading more books thanks to social media trends

Evening Standard

Tue, 25 April 2023 at 10:29 am GMT-4

School aged children are reading more, as the number of books read by children has risen by almost a quarter compared to the last academic year. Researchers say that social media trends have helped increase the number of books read young people thanks to trends such as #BookTok

Thoughts：

A typical example of how social media is a neutral technology or tool instead of virus that we should simply ban because of fear. It is like what I said during my second presentation about mental health and social media,the engagement of teenagers with social media is high enough and their plasticity also allows them to be largely affected by social media, both positively and negatively. What we should do is to better understand the social media as a tool and use it in the right way, isn’t it?

Regulators should step in to cooperate with social media platforms to promote the positive trends for our kids instead of restraining them and act like a enemy to each other.

See original article and video here: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/children-reading-more-books-thanks-142902317.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJ6hICwmywdMh56qa40R-sZKaluITySjRDKRbBOsZiHSLgjs54QnJINUyYWf1QVu1-Sm0ZKSC0VmmE5mNrlGtMp98w7KoQiIHahF8Y29jCht_s_Uuh-lXVEyMy43F2HWgsk0KmGq5Qxmleh1Wgj38g8QgaMfuk1WK1gFTYeT9Hqx

(it is possible that the video cannot be seen here, I am not sure how that can be done for 100%)

8 Ways To Limit Your Time On Social Media To Gain Focus And Clarity

ALTHOUGH SOCIAL MEDIA IS GREAT FOR CONNECTING WITH OTHERS, IT’S ESSENTIAL TO KNOW WHEN TO LOG OFF TO PRESERVE YOUR ENERGY AND TIME.

Do you ever doom scroll or constantly pick up your phone to check your social media profiles? If the answer is yes, you aren’t the only one. A recent study reported that, on average, people touch their phones 2,617 times daily, with the top 10% touching their phones more than 5,400 times daily, providing a stark reminder of how much time we spend on our phones and how easily distracted we can be due to social media. Not only is social media taking away from our in-person interactions, but it’s also lowering our levels of productivity and focus. 

According to data, social media reduces productivity: 1 out of 4 employees find themselves distracted during the workday by browsing social media sites. But why are we so drawn to social media as a distraction? A study describes social media’s strong pull factor as “hedonic appeal” or flat-out temptation, which makes users “drawn to distraction” and leads them to minimize and avoid their primary goals and tasks. Unfortunately, social media users tend to actively leverage the platforms to fulfill specific needs and gratifications, such as belonging, connection, and stress relief, although it may be a distraction. 

Users may also use social media to unknowingly procrastinate on their tasks, as they may be overwhelmed, stressed, or tired – social media can serve as a release or escape from everyday life and work pressures. However, self-control and overriding impulses to achieve a higher-level goal are crucial to resist the temptation of social media distractions.

But how can we limit our time on social media when our peers, colleagues, and loved ones are active? Here are some tips to help guide you.

1. 1. Set a time dedicated to working on projects without your phone nearby. 

2. Download a social media blocker.

3. Turn off those notifications. 

4. Curate a schedule for checking social media. 

5. Delete social media platform apps off your phone to only have web browser access. 

6. Post less frequently 

7. Reward yourself 

Thoughts:

Well, this post is only a practical suggestion for everyone,lol. As far as I am aware of, most of our class have been sticky and even addicted to social media, including me. I even remembered that I have said to my friends two years ago that I will never use TikTok,let alone getting addictive to it; however, things do not go my way.

For me I would say, suggestion 2 and 5 would be good ways for us to try. Like what we do when we try to help someone quit substance or alcohol, we have to decrease the exposures that would trigger their motivation or whatever zone in the brain. Like the TedTalk We have watched in the class, the true mechanism that anchors us to social media is actually “wanting” instead of “liking”. And other suggestions mentioned above are pretty much related to isolation, like keeping your phones away or turn off the notifications. Don’t give yourself a chance because humans do that.

See original article: https://www.essence.com/news/watch-what-we-love-about-black-men/

Musk Concedes – Accounts with Over a Million Followers Get Free Checkmarks

Screenshot from Twitter

Last week, Twitter removed legacy checkmarks from non-paying accounts and limited verification only to Twitter Blue subscribers, triggering celebrity backlash and prompting a #BlocktheBlue movement. Only 19,000 out of 407,000 legacy verified profiles have signed up for Twitter Blue, and fewer than 100 signed up after the legacy checkmark removal. To dilute negative sentiment around Twitter Blue, some previously verified accounts, including those of deceased celebrities, got their checkmarks back, despite not paying for it. Twitter gifted the checkmark back to around 10,000 of the most followed profiles, despite many saying that they don’t want it and that it is potentially illegal. The top 10,000 most followed users and brands have free blue and gold ticks, respectively, in a bid to maintain credibility and interest in Twitter’s subscription revenue push.

However, Twitter is still far from its 50% revenue goal from subscriptions, and its efforts to stimulate take-up, such as removing legacy ticks and forcing advertisers to subscribe to keep running ads, have had a negative impact.

My thoughts

Eventually, Musk gave in to the game. When celebrities and official accounts join together and refuse to pay for verification, it’s not just the loss of those subscriptions, but more importantly, it affects the credibility of the subscription and the value of the blue and gold ticks. If the top accounts don’t need these ticks, are they still so valuable to the average Twitter user?

I think it was Musk’s previous overly aggressive fee policy that caused the discontent of many official accounts and sparked widespread resistance. Now he will be in a more difficult position because he has made this decision to give up advertising revenue and move to subscription revenue. But for now, it is very difficult to achieve this goal. What should he do next, and will he continue to cut staff?

My observations after tracking Twitter & Musk’s news for the semester

1. Most of the news is negative.

2. The news content is more like discussing strategies from the business level than from social media itself.

3. Twitter is in a difficult position, but its long-established user stickiness and non-replaceability are slowing its life.

4. Musk has a grand vision for Twitter (to be a first-hand news platform, a payment tool, everything on Twitter), and if it can be realized, Twitter will change people’s lives to a great extent.

5. The coverage and penetration of social media make it more than “a field.” It has already become another world in our lives, and various social platforms are building more functions and communities that can substitute for those in the real world.

The original article: Andrew Hutchinson, Twitter Reinstates Free Blue Checkmarks for Accounts with Over a Million Followers

What Comes After TikTok

It’s hard to imagine what would happen if the era-defining short-form video platform disappeared overnight—but that makes it all the more important to try.

Last month, the U.S. issued an ultimatum to TikTok, owned by Chinese AI company ByteDance: either sell the app or face a federal ban. While we await ByteDance’s response, over 25 U.S. states have already banned the app from state employees’ devices, and Congress is working on potential legislation in case ByteDance refuses to sell. This is a complex situation, as there is no precedent for banning a website or social network in the U.S., making it difficult to envision a TikTok-less future.

The leading contender for legislation to kill TikTok is the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats That Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, or the Restrict Act, which has bipartisan support and the endorsement of the Biden administration. However, it is broad in scope and could potentially apply to any type of tech product, with proposed penalties of up to 20 years for users caught accessing sites falling under its jurisdiction, even if accessed via virtual private network or by downloading an app like TikTok while abroad and returning to the U.S. with it on their phone, as pointed out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Imagining a future where access to TikTok is blocked raises significant questions about how Americans interact with the internet and vice versa. It would signify a fundamental shift in reliance on the First Amendment for unfettered internet access and would create a future where no platform is truly safe.

The central issue in the push to ban TikTok is the accessibility of data from the app in China. There has been debate about the relationship between TikTok, available outside of China, and Douyin, ByteDance’s original Chinese video-sharing platform. While ByteDance maintains they are separate entities, with largely similar features but some additional tools for augmented reality and e-commerce in Douyin, the murkiness of this relationship has contributed to the current situation.

My thought：

TikTok, with approximately a billion monthly active users worldwide, has become the fourth most popular social network in the U.S. Its impact has been particularly felt in the music industry, as viral TikTok clips have changed how new artists are discovered, prompting Spotify to redesign its interface to compete. This rising popularity of TikTok has also caused other social platforms to react, with Meta Platforms pushing Reels on Instagram, YouTube launching Shorts, and Twitter introducing a new timeline called For You. While the U.S. government has not blocked TikTok, other countries like India, Pakistan, Russia, and Hong Kong have issued temporary bans or banned it altogether for various reasons.

The question of whether TikTok would still be relevant without its massive U.S. user base is complex. While the U.S. is not the top country in terms of TikTok’s market penetration, it is the most visible market for the app globally, and a ban could potentially inspire other countries to follow suit. Losing access to TikTok would pose challenges for U.S. creators in finding alternative platforms to stay relevant, as the app has reshaped the internet landscape with its short-form video format. Even if TikTok were unavailable, short-form video content would still thrive, and users could easily download TikTok videos and upload them to other platforms. Thus, the question arises whether it is worth fundamentally altering the legal architecture of the U.S. internet solely due to concerns about the popularity of one Chinese-owned app. Perhaps, the issue is not solely about TikTok, but about larger shifts in global web culture and the evolving dynamics of internet platforms.

Citation：https://www.theinformation.com/articles/what-comes-after-tiktok?rc=ixubfq

TikTok Struggles to Enlist U.S. Merchants for Shopping Service

The passage discusses the challenges faced by TikTok’s shopping service, TikTok Shop, in the United States. Despite TikTok’s efforts to attract U.S. merchants to sign up for TikTok Shop, the number of registered merchants and actual sellers has been low, with fewer than 100 U.S. sellers actively selling on the platform. This is attributed to U.S. merchants’ focus on expanding in physical retail and concerns over potential bans on the TikTok app. In contrast, overseas sellers are eager to tap into the U.S. e-commerce market, but TikTok has blocked foreign merchants from selling on the U.S. version of TikTok Shop. This is in contrast to dominant U.S. e-commerce sites like Amazon and Walmart, which allow overseas sellers. The passage also mentions that TikTok’s decision to block foreign merchants may be a strategy to attract U.S. sellers who have expressed frustration with the presence of foreign merchants on other e-commerce platforms. However, some merchants are cautious about setting up storefronts on TikTok Shop due to uncertainties about the potential ban on TikTok by the U.S. government. The passage also highlights that TikTok Shop allows sellers to set up storefronts directly on their TikTok profiles and encourages live shopping streams hosted by influencers, but merchants also have other options to sell on TikTok, such as integration with Shopify or linking to their own online stores in their TikTok bios.

My thought：

TikTok Shop is facing challenges in gaining traction among U.S. merchants due to various reasons, including concerns about potential bans on the app, competition from other e-commerce platforms, and the decision to block foreign merchants from selling on the U.S. version of the service. However, TikTok Shop’s success in other markets and its integration with popular social media features like live shopping streams may indicate its potential for growth and success in the future.

Citation：https://www.theinformation.com/articles/tiktok-struggles-to-enlist-u-s-merchants-for-shopping-service?rc=ixubfq

Wall Street Wants to Dance With TikTok—but Not When Anyone’s Watching

JPMorgan Chase & Co. had a busy week on social media.

JPMorgan, along with its retail brand Chase, is actively engaged in posting pictures, videos, and messages on various social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, boasting a large following. However, when it comes to TikTok, the bank’s official Chase Bank account page remains starkly empty, with a black background and a message stating “No content. This user has not published any videos.”

This stands in stark contrast to the bank’s active pursuit of deals with ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, as well as other major U.S. financial institutions that have been courting ByteDance behind the scenes. Despite the potential reach of TikTok’s massive user base, which rivals that of other major advertising platforms, Wall Street banks seem reluctant to engage on the platform.

This reluctance is noteworthy, given the eagerness of Wall Street to broker deals and work on financial projects for ByteDance, even as the Biden Administration has called for the company to divest itself of Chinese ownership to continue accessing its U.S. user base. If such a spinoff were to occur, Wall Street banks are expected to vie for highly lucrative roles as lead managers and advisors for a potential initial public offering, which could come with substantial fees for navigating the company through a corporate restructuring.

It appears that Wall Street banks are hesitant to be active on TikTok, possibly due to perceived risks associated with the platform, while actively pursuing business opportunities with its parent company, ByteDance. The reasons for this divergence in approach may vary, but it underscores the unique dynamics and considerations involved in the banking industry’s engagement with social media platforms.

My thought:

The example of JPMorgan’s joint venture with ByteDance to build real-time payments infrastructure for TikTok influencers, and the subsequent condemnation from Senator Marco Rubio, highlights how political risk can arise in such partnerships. Senator Rubio’s concerns about potential data sharing between ByteDance and JPMorgan, and the perceived risk of U.S. payment data being funneled to the Chinese government, could have led to increased caution among banks in engaging directly with TikTok.

In today’s complex geopolitical landscape, companies, including banks, are increasingly mindful of potential political risks and regulatory scrutiny, particularly when it comes to data privacy and security, and their dealings with companies based in or affiliated with certain countries. This may lead them to be cautious about engaging directly with platforms like TikTok, which has faced regulatory challenges in some countries.

Citation:https://www.theinformation.com/articles/wall-street-wants-to-dance-with-tiktok-but-not-when-anyones-watching?rc=ixubfq

Whole article：

JPMorgan Chase & Co. had a busy week on social media.

The bank’s Instagram account shared a picture snapped by one of its employees, Jock G., from atop a 13,000-foot peak in Colorado. Another post showed footage of a corporate run for workers in India. Meanwhile, over at its Facebook page, the bank celebrated the crowning of Miss New Jersey USA, who happens to be a global investment strategist for JPMorgan Private Bank. The bank’s Twitter page shared the company’s insights on generative AI, while its LinkedIn account promoted its “Women on the Move” podcast.

But things were dramatically different on JPMorgan’s official Chase Bank account page on TikTok. There the background remained funereally black, with only this messaging: “No content. This user has not published any videos.”

JPMorgan and its retail brand, Chase, prolifically post videos and messaging to social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, where the bank boasts anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. Since it joined YouTube in 2006, it has uploaded 840 videos. A similar willingness to self-promote can be seen on the social handles of rival big banks, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and US Bank, each of which aggressively courts eyeballs with virality-thirsty content featuring hashtags like #CantStopBanking, messages such as “Supporting clients in the Metaverse” and 23-second ask me anything–style videos with executives at South by Southwest.

But as with JP Morgan, each of the banks has instituted a total blackout of its TikTok channel. Shilling on TikTok, it seems, is too risky for the nation’s bankers—even as they’re aggressively chasing deals with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance.

Wall Street banks’ unwillingness to post on the world’s most heavily trafficked site isn’t just notable for what banks are giving up: access to a purported 150 million Americans every month, an audience that has made the app a major advertising rival to Meta Platforms, Google’s YouTube and Snapchat. It’s also unusual, given how eager Wall Street has been to broker big deals and work on financial projects for Beijing-based ByteDance.

While Wall Street evidently doesn’t want the public to see it engaging on the TikTok platform, a bevy of major U.S. financial institutions has been actively courting ByteDance as a client behind the scenes. The Biden Administration has told TikTok to divest itself of its Chinese ownership if it wants to continue accessing its U.S. user base. In the event of such a spinoff, Wall Street’s biggest banks will be jostling for highly prized, highly lucrative lead manager and advisory roles for a potential initial public offering (which comes with the promise of millions in fees for steering the company through a corporate restructuring).

Large institutions must perform a tightrope act when dealing with ByteDance, which generated more than $80 billion in revenue last year,  The Information was first to report. While the banks avidly seek to do business with the company, including raising billions for the corporation and helping it construct its payments infrastructure, they are also reticent to produce content for an app that has been struck from the devices of many Western governments over the past year.

The reason for prohibitions on TikTok use by government agencies and legislators seems clear-cut: Like other social media platforms, TikTok collects a range of data from users, including location and biometric details, technical information such as device models and IDs, service carriers, file names and types, and even keystroke patterns. Lawmakers in the U.S., Europe, Australia, India and elsewhere are concerned that the Chinese government could compel ByteDance to hand over sensitive information about their nations’ citizens.

However, that hasn’t stopped many multinational corporations, including Coca-Cola,  Nike and the NBA, from becoming avid TikTok content providers. Even companies that contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, like General Electric, have TikTok accounts. Banking appears to be one of the few sectors where maintaining silence on TikTok is the industry standard.

JPMorgan has internally evaluated promoting itself on TikTok’s platform,  according to a person familiar with the matter. Like other big banks, it has reserved an official user handle on the platform for its retail-facing Chase Bank brand. But it ultimately decided against posting videos on the channel, the person said. The bank declined to comment when asked why it wasn’t using its TikTok account.

At the same time, the bank has willingly worked with ByteDance in other ways. JPMorgan was one of several U.S. lenders that participated in a $1.3 billion refinancing deal for the company in 2019, backed by U.S. venture capital firms including Sequoia Capital, KKR, General Atlantic and SoftBank. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs led the refinancing, which also included Bank of America and Citigroup. Citi provided one of two bank accounts used by ByteDance India, and HSBC provided the other. Indian authorities blocked both accounts in 2021 because of alleged tax evasion on the part of Singaporean-based parent entity TikTok Pte. Ltd., according to Reuters. The app has been banned in India since 2020.

Like JPMorgan, Citigroup has reserved a verified account on TikTok but also does not post videos to the platform. A spokesperson declined to provide reasons why. However, one person familiar with the matter said the bank monitors potential reputational risks arising from viral videos, such as when rock musician Baby Storme, who has 1.5 million followers on TikTok, used her channel to accuse the bank of racially profiling her (her videos on Citi garnered tens of millions of views).

Goldman Sachs can also see the potential of spreading its message on TikTok, having recently hired marketing groups to produce TikTok videos—hosted by influencers and broadcast on third-party channels—aimed at driving recruitment among Gen Z workers, according to a person familiar with the matter. However, the high-profile investment bank decided against creating its own TikTok account, the person said. Goldman’s biggest rival, Morgan Stanley, also doesn’t have an account.

The most likely reason for banks’ TikTok blackouts has to do with perceptions of the growing political risk of being active on the platform. JPMorgan recently faced a political dust-up when ByteDance recruited it to build real-time payments infrastructure for TikTok users. The product, which allowed TikTok influencers to receive instant payments, covered 200 million worldwide users. But the move drew sharp condemnation from Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who warned the biggest U.S. bank it could be funneling U.S. payment data to the Chinese government. (The senator cited a now-removed page on the JPMorgan website explaining that the system “allows real-time exchange of data between ByteDance and J.P. Morgan.”) A letter Rubio sent to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in January demanded answers within 30 days about the ByteDance joint venture. But the senator did not receive a reply, according to Rubio’s office.

Even the use of TikTok on employees’ phones has presented security concerns for some financial institutions. The Australian branch of global consultancy PwC last week told employees who own a PwC-managed device and work with federal and state government clients that TikTok “must not be loaded on or accessed from your device. This is because clients such as governments may place additional security requirements on our partners and staff when engaged in projects.” (This note has been seen by The Information and has not been previously reported.) The Australian government in early April banned TikTok from federal government devices. A PwC spokesperson said that the ban was “uniquely applicable to the Australian market” and that global policies had not changed.

In early 2020, at a time when President Donald Trump considered banning the popular app, Wells Fargo told employees with corporate-owned devices to delete TikTok from their phones due to “concerns about TikTok’s privacy and security controls and practices,” as first reported by The Information. A spokesperson said Wells Fargo’s policies “do not allow employees to install or use unapproved communication applications, like TikTok, for company business.” Wells Fargo has reserved an account on TikTok, although it has not produced any content.

It’s a pattern repeated by many accounts of the largest U.S. financial institutions reviewed by The Information, such as KeyBank and US Bank. PNC Bank’s own TikTok account, which produces no content, suggests the lender’s employees won’t even check messages it receives on the platform. A short bio on its account instructs users looking for customer service to instead “send us a Direct Message on Instagram.” PNC Bank declined to comment when asked why.

These policies stand in sharp contrast to those of asset management giant BlackRock, which joined TikTok in 2022 and is continuing to produce regular content that seeks to explain issues such as multiasset investing, Women’s History Month and the metaverse. Other firms with active accounts include Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, as well as French investment bank BNP Paribas, which has a large U.S. presence.

Big financial firms strive to ensure that third-party applications aren’t vulnerable to hackers and often guard themselves against the reputational risk of using certain platforms. However, TikTok may also expose an institution to risk in another way—via the collection of individual-level data, according to a former Defense Department cybersecurity expert who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The risk arises when managers and executives use  an application that tracks and analyzes individual user data. That leaves them vulnerable to inadvertently divulging commercial secrets, compromising personal information or other sensitive material. In other words: It’s not just about swiping through dance videos.

Of course, there’s no getting around the temptation of reaching TikTok’s 150 million users with a well-crafted marketing message. While JPMorgan currently steers clear of TikTok itself, restaurant website The Infatuation, which JPMorgan acquired in 2021, runs several TikTok accounts. And then there’s a page on Chase’s website that provides advice to small business owners who do their banking with Chase. It counsels customers that nearly all small businesses maintain a presence on at least one of the following: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok.

“If you’re selling trendy apparel, LinkedIn is not where you want to invest your time,” the bank advises. As an alternative, it suggests, “TikTok might be your showroom.”

Staying Away from the Toxicity

Photo Credit: https://www.buffalobills.com/news/bills-jordan-poyer-named-first-team-all-pro

Football is coming, and it will be here sooner rather than later.

The annual NFL Draft is set to kickoff at the end of this week. Which means that NFL teams are strating to prepare for next season. As college prospects will soon find out where they are heading, NFL veterans are retruning their facilities to prep and begin workouts for the new upcoming season.

One team on the horizon is looking to get back into gear and some of its players have a new mindset. Heavy Sports highlights that the Buffalo Bills are returning with a new attitude.

Quarterback and NFL star Josh Allen says he has never been more locked into the game and cannot wait to be back around the team. Other players feel the same, but are embracing the mindset a little differently…

Jordan poyer, star safety, has decied to delete his twitter account prior to rejoining the team. The safety recently resigned with the squad after testing out the waters of free agency.

Jordan’s reason for deleting the account were to avoid the toxicity of comments and the negative attention/distractions it can bring. Once noted of his deactivation, his wife was asked about and and she commented:

He doesn’t like all the weird vibes & negativity many spew daily and I don’t blame him 😅 much more peaceful without the nonsense .. https://t.co/GTedNV39lS

— Rachel (@Rachel__Bush) April 10, 2023

Despite deactivating his personal twitter. He will remain on twitter via his charity page called the Jordan Poyer Foundation.

MY THOUGHTS:

I think this is a classic case and exaple of there’s good and there’s bad on social media.

I completely understand his reasoning for wanting to delete it. As someone wh works in the sports world, I resonate with him and the fact that there is so much negative comments and energy channeled towards athletes and teams via social platforms. It truly can be distracting for someone to be exposed to that constant pressure and messaging day in and day out.

On the other hand, it is positive that he is still able to run his twitter and help people through those mediums. But it would be nice if we had the ability affect the social game in terms of limiting comments or taking some sort of mesaures so that professional athletes, who are only doing their jobs, dont have the need feel like they must remove themselves from the social landscape in order to protect themselves from these things.

So You’re Saying There’s a Chance…

Photo credit: https://frontofficesports.com/wrexham-afc-united-states-debut-tst-mcelhenney-reynolds/

Wrexham AFC, a professional football club in the United Kingdom has defied the odds.

For the first time since 2008, the club is being promoted to the 3rd teir of English professional soccer after being stuck in the 4th tier and in the basement of the league for so long.

The reason this story is so notable is because famous United States film actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought the professional club in 2020.

Yesterday, after a 3 year climb, their hardwork has paid off and they won their league’s championship in a 3-1 match against Boreham Wood. The victory, for lack of better words, broke social media in the sports world.

Paul Mullin has Wrexham on the brink of National League promotion with this beauty ☄️

(via @btsportfootball)pic.twitter.com/aETwXKsGKw

— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 22, 2023

Wrexham fans storming the pitch after securing promotion 🥳

(via @MarkOgden_)pic.twitter.com/3tBYjWoaBs

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) April 22, 2023

Impossible to not like and root for these two. The class and energy they’ve brought is to their absolute credit and even the most cynical must see how much this achievement and Wrexham means to them. Congratulations and deservedly back in the Football League https://t.co/Ns6Jpjzsj2

— Ian (@brodders_be) April 22, 2023

The two celebrity owners understood the challenges they were up against when purchasing the club. But, they were determined to turn Wrexham into a winner and a club that the community can support and be proud of. yesterday was a major milestone in that goal.

The purchase of the club and its growing success under these two has gained major attraction from many around the globe. The team also just completed its firsts eason of a docuseries called Welcome to Wrexham.

Fans will now be more than tuned in for the next season set to kickoff this upcoming fall which will highlight the clubs newest win and promotion to the new league.

Wrexham under Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney:

• Bought the club for $2.5M.
• After a 15-years, promoted to the EFL.
• Gained over 1M social media followers.
• Sponsorships with TikTok, Expedia, etc.
• Season ticket purchases tripled.
• Produced a docu-series on FX. pic.twitter.com/kiGsJ7dAdq

— Adam Maina ™ (@AdamMaina_) April 22, 2023

The club will begin play in the new elevated league next season.

MY THOUGHTS

This is an awesome success story. The whole reason that Wrexham is in the spotlight is because these two celebrity “influencers” bought the club for this transformation product. This goes to show how popular influencers have major impact on brand followings, especially within sports.

After the club’s triumphant win yesterday, many sports fans feeds and pages are blowing up about the club, its win and its promotion. Even the top story today on SportsCenter, perhaps the #1 sports news outlet in America, is highlighting the club and its historic step yesterday.

It will be interesting to see how the club handles new heights. More people will begin to follow the club, only increasing the pressure of performance both on the field and in the media. One thing is for sure, the club’s presence has shot to the moon since the purchase from the US celebrities and they are certainly making the positive impact they had hoped to create thus far.