🍊 Introducing Prosek's Digital Download
The best digital marketing newsletter in financial services.
Hey, hi, hello!
We are so excited to finally share the first edition of Prosek’s Digital Download. Our goal is simple: to be the best digital marketing newsletter in financial services.
We’re aiming for monthly delivery but might surprise ourselves with a bit more frequency from time to time. With each edition, we’ll aim to inform and entertain and hopefully leave you smarter and smiling.
In today’s newsletter, we cover Instagram’s bombshell revelation that they don’t consider themselves a photo app anymore, LinkedIn’s new Creator Mode, and TikTok’s new 3-minute video length. We’ve also got a ton of social platform updates, some interesting reads and financial marketing inspiration galore.
This newsletter is a joint effort from the Prosek Digital team—special thanks to Ines Montfajon, Alexis EauClaire and Madeline Monaco for helping with this edition.
You didn’t ask, but my song of the summer is Peaches by Justin Bieber, I’m currently reading Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac, and can’t get enough of Recode’s Land of the Giants podcast.
Today’s newsletter is 872 words and a 4-minute read. Enjoy the download.
- Joe Scannell
Digital Updates
Pivot to Video: CEO Adam Mosseri announced that “Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app” and detailed their plans to lean into video to better compete with TikTok and YouTube. This is a huge announcement and acknowledgment of a dramatic strategic pivot.
Desktop Uploads: Instagram is finally testing image and video uploads from desktop, as social media managers around the world rejoice.
Link Stickers: Instagram is testing link stickers in stories for all users, which would give access to a version of “swipe up for a link” to users below the 10,000 user threshold. Now we can all be influencers.
New Profile Features: added a series of new profile features including Creator Mode, video cover stories, and optional gender pronouns.
Organic Post Boosting: added a new option to quickly boost organic posts directly from your page without setting up a separate campaign. Bonus: check out LinkedIn’s Boosting Best Practice Guide.
Profile Verification: Twitter reopened public applications for profile verification, then temporarily paused it a week later due to overwhelming demand (who could have seen that coming?). But fear not, applications are open again. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Spaces Features: Twitter appears to be testing more features for their Social Audio product Spaces with a focus on discoverability. If you thought the tweets were mean, wait until you hear their voices.
Live Audio Rooms & Podcast Support: Facebook officially launched their Clubhouse competitor called Live Audio Rooms (of course). They also are rolling out native podcast support in the US, somehow becoming the first social platform to do that, despite it being the year 2021.
Newsletter Platform Beta: Facebook is also launching a beta test of a newsletter platform called Bulletin. If a newsletter falls in a forest and no one but your grandmother is there to read it…does it make a sound?
TikTok
Expanding Video Length: TikTok is officially expanding video lengths from 60 seconds to three minutes. No more like and follow for part 2…hopefully.
Brand Lift Studies: TikTok is adding a brand lift study option to give advertisers more insight into the impact of their campaigns, and how they relate to recall, favorability, engagement and more.
In-House Creative Agency: Reddit announced its first-ever in-house creative strategy agency called Karmalab to help advertisers deliver campaigns that actually resonate with redditors and avoid unnecessary cringe.
Good Reads
Shedding More Light on How Instagram Works: Ever wonder how Instagram’s algorithm really works? Instagram’s CEO has got you covered.
How to Successfully Generate and Amplify Earned Media for Your Brand: Earned media is often overlooked by digital marketers, but that’s a mistake.
Your Quick & Easy Guide to Harness Targeting Options on LinkedIn: Need a refresher on LinkedIn Targeting Options? LinkedIn released a 14-page guide with definitions and visual examples.
Increasing Followers on Your LinkedIn Page: Tips and Tricks From LinkedIn Marketing Labs: LinkedIn has been on a roll lately with helpful content—including how to grow your audience.
How brands are making noise and driving impact with sound on TikTok: TikTok recently partnered with Kantar to release a report on the power of sound.
A Small Business Guide to TikTok: While TikTok isn’t right for many brands, we still think it’s an important platform to keep an eye on. This infographic from ZenBusiness is a great primer.
Andreessen Horowitz goes into publishing with Future: a16z is taking owned content to the next level, launching a new media property called “Future” focusing on…well…the future.