Now Hiring: Chief Tractor Officer 🤳🏿🚜

TODAY’S EDITION

• John Deere is bringing a creator in-house and will pay them nearly $200K

• TikTok’s Instagram competitor arrives in select regions

• TikTok is holding creators to a higher standard with its latest Community Guidelines updates

• Meta brings its AI assistant to all its apps, bringing more competition to OpenAI and Google

• Amazon expands its live shopping experience to FAST Channels

DEEP DIVE

John Deere Is Searching for Its First-Ever Chief Tractor Officer

John Deere is searching for its first-ever Chief Tractor Officer, offering a $192,300 contract for someone to be the face of its social media presence. This individual will play a dual role, both behind the camera and in front of the camera, creating content for social platforms, starting with TikTok, to celebrate the company's farmers, contractors, groundskeepers, and brand enthusiasts.

How to Apply

Interested individuals can apply by submitting a 60-second pitch video. John Deere also encourages applicants to share these videos on TikTok and/or Instagram. Finalists will be chosen based on originality, creativity, quality, and brand knowledge.

Creators Going In-House

John Deere is joining a growing list of companies that are embracing initiatives to bring creators in-house, whether in full-time positions or on a contract basis. Some notable examples include:

• Nerf: Hired TikTok creator Sophie Jamison (Sophie Lightning) as its first Chief TikTok Officer.

• Made by Gather: After a stint at Nerf, Jamison transitioned to become the Chief TikTok Officer for the kitchenware company.

• Jack in the Box: Hired Twitch streamer Kodie Turner as its inaugural full-time Twitch creator, focusing on engaging the gaming community.

• Duracell: Enlisted creators to spearhead the launch of its TikTok channel, through its Duracell Labs Techs program.

• Olipop: Appointed two 'Soda Consultants' to embark on city tours, documenting their experiences featuring the brand.

• Ridge: Brought Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) on as a Board Member and Chief Creative Officer.

Recognizing the Value of Creator Talent

While the titles of roles may vary, these brands understand that the talent of creators is crucial for building and expanding their digital presence. This is especially relevant on TikTok and Twitch, where engaging specific audiences, notably Gen Z, requires communication in a certain way.

Talent Acquisition Meets Marketing Strategy

These initiatives do more than acquire talent for adapting to the evolving digital landscape; they can also serve as a marketing and PR strategy. The application process usually includes a competition or challenge, requiring applicants to submit a pitch video on social media. This not only generates brand-related content but also often attracts media attention.

Attractive Opportunities for Creators

For creators, these opportunities can be attractive as they often come with lucrative paydays and stability, at least for a period. This can mitigate some of the burnout that creators are experiencing today with brand deals being more inconsistent for many.

Olipop’s search for 'Soda Consultants' alone received over 90,000 applicants, highlighting the popularity of these ‘dream roles.’

And while not every creator can transition these roles from one company to another like Jamison, creators can leverage them to obtain future opportunities, whether it's brand partnerships or other in-house gigs.

The Future of Hiring Creators

Not every brand needs to launch a big, splashy campaign to bring a creator in-house. However, due to the conversations they drive, we’ll see more brands continue this approach. Yet, brands that want to reap the benefits of today’s creative talent can look within their own companies for people who might be doubling as creators on the side or reach out to creators who are part of their influencer programs.

NEWS, TRENDS, AND INSIGHTS

TikTok Launches TikTok Notes in Select Regions

TikTok has launched TikTok Notes, its photo and text app, in Canada and Australia. It describes it as 'a lifestyle platform that offers informative photo-text content about people’s lives, where individuals share their travel tips and daily recipes.'

The app is relatively basic, with key features including the ability for users to link their TikTok account to TikTok Notes to navigate between the apps, filter between 'For You' and 'Following' tabs, and search for content using keywords. Users can upload up to 34 photos, write up to 4,000 characters, and include a headline in their posts.

Why It Matters: TikTok Notes gives TikTok a direct competitor to Instagram, and it also resembles Pinterest. It provides an experience focused on photos and captions, akin to Instagram's early days, which will attract creators and users nostalgic for that era. With social media apps becoming increasingly bloated over the years with various content formats and features, TikTok is embracing simplicity with its new app while trying to gain market share with photo-first creators.

Is anyone else wondering what will happen to Lemon8?

TikTok Updates Community Guidelines for Creators

TikTok has updated its Community Guidelines for creators, which will take effect in May. The key highlights are as follows:

• Warning Strike: Creators who violate the Community Guidelines will receive a warning. These warnings won't count toward their account strikes, but future violations will. In some cases, creators' accounts may be immediately banned.

• 'For You' Eligibility: If creators repeatedly violate the guidelines, their entire accounts may temporarily become ineligible for recommendation in the 'For You' feed.

• Account Status: Creators can review their accounts to see if they are in good standing and whether they have been restricted from features or the 'For You' feed.

• Creator Code of Conduct: Creators participating in TikTok initiatives are expected to abide by these standards on and off the platform.

Why It Matters: These updates provide more clarity and transparency regarding the consequences of creators' violations. Some updates, like warning strikes and a Creator Code of Conduct, draw inspiration from other platforms like YouTube and Pinterest. Given that violations may result in reduced visibility or account suspension, creators should take the time to familiarize themselves with the Community Guidelines.

Meta Brings Its AI Assistant To Its Core Apps

Meta has rolled out its AI assistant, Meta AI, across Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and its own dedicated website. Accessible via the search bar, it features Meta’s most advanced Large Language Model (Llama 3).

In addition to its previous capabilities, such as providing recipe suggestions or serving specific types of Reels, it now offers responses using real-time web information.

Other updates include the integration of the assistant into Facebook's feed, allowing users to request additional details about a post. Plus, Meta's text-to-image generator, Imagine, has been updated for use on WhatsApp and the web. Users can witness their images being generated and evolving in real-time as they type their prompts.

Why It Matters: Meta takes another significant step in bringing AI experiences to its entire ecosystem, further advancing the intersection of AI and social media.

With Meta AI, users can obtain answers to questions, discover ideas for activities, explore content across Meta’s apps, create images, and much more, all from the convenience of the apps they already frequent. With the most powerful LLM, Meta is better positioned to compete with OpenAI and Google.

The question is whether users will get into the habit of using Meta AI instead of ChatGPT and other AI tools.

Instagram Tests Redesign of Story Highlights

Instagram is currently testing a redesign for Story Highlights. The new design features larger, vertical rectangles with rounded edges instead of smaller circular covers, with the highlight name integrated into the cover.

Why It Matters: While customizing Story Highlights covers used to be popular, this practice has waned in recent years. However, with this redesign, creators may put more effort into curating Story Highlights and customizing covers, especially those who use them to organize different types of content, including affiliate links, as they will be more prominent for profile visitors.

“Regardless of all the complaints, I personally like this update as it feels way easier to get an insight into the highlights. The previous format felt too small and noisy, so this is definitely refreshing,” Sunfwer, an art and lifestyle creator with 433K followers on Instagram, shared with me.

Threads Adds a Video Player for Instagram Reels

Threads has added an updated viewing experience for Instagram Reels on mobile devices. Users will now encounter a video player for Reels within Threads, replacing the previous link preview. Plays generated on Threads will contribute to the total Reels plays on Instagram.

Why It Matters: By enabling direct consumption of Reels, Threads enhances the viewing experience, eliminating the need for users to navigate to Instagram to watch videos.

Integrating plays from Threads into the overall play metric provides creators an additional avenue to increase views for their Reels content.

Brands can further optimize their Reels-focused influencer marketing campaigns by incorporating a deliverable for creators with a Threads presence also to share their sponsored content to Threads.

YouTube Experiments with Personalized Subscriptions Feed

YouTube is experimenting with an optional 'Most Relevant' view for the Subscriptions feed on mobile. Those in the test can filter the feed by 'Most Relevant,' which will show them content from channels they've subscribed to that they most often watch or have interacted with recently.

Why It Matters: The Subscriptions feed has historically shown videos in chronological order, allowing users to easily keep track of new uploads in one place.

This test allows viewers to continue having a central location for subscribed content but adds a dimension of personalization by showing users videos based on what they are actually watching and interacting with from the channels they've subscribed to.

Twitch Plans to Roll Out Its Discovery Feed Next Month

Twitch is rolling out its Discovery Feed in May. The feed will be available via a tab in the mobile app and will feature two separate feeds for live streams in Live and short-form videos in Clips. It will include content from creators users follow and recommendations.

On the Live feed, users can tap a creator’s avatar to watch their live stream. On the Clips feed, users can scroll through a feed featuring short-form videos. Ads will also be displayed throughout the feeds.

Why It Matters: The Discovery Feed will create new opportunities for viewers to discover new creators and content, addressing one of Twitch's biggest issues. Providing feeds for both real-time and short-form videos gives viewers the option to consume the content they want at that time—a more interactive, lean-back experience with streamers or easily digestible videos at scale.

As clips play a larger role for streamers, marketers activating streamers for sponsored streams can also have streamers create clips featuring a segment of their integrations, which can be discovered via the Discovery Feed and shared to other social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

Amazon Launches a FAST Channel for Amazon Live

Amazon has launched a FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) Channel for Amazon Live, available on Prime Video and Freevee. The channel offers 24/7 live shopping programming featuring creators, brands, and celebrities.

It also includes Amazon's 'Shop The Show' technology, which allows viewers to search "Shop the Show" in the Amazon Shopping app on their phones and be directed to a shopping carousel highlighting the products they're watching in real-time.

Why It Matters: This expansion is driven by Amazon Live's significant viewership, with over 1 billion customers in the US and India tuning into live shopping streams on mobile, desktop, and Fire TV.

By bringing live shopping to streaming channels, Amazon makes it more accessible. With the incorporation of 'Shop the Show' technology, the viewing experience becomes more interactive and convenient, aligning with the trend of multi-device usage during TV consumption. According to Samba TV, 75% of US adults look at their mobile devices while watching TV.

Amazon's move also aligns with the trend of creators increasingly finding their way onto TV screens, as social media platforms expand their presence and more streaming services add creator programming on FAST Channels. These help expose them to new audiences and monetization.

For more news, trends, and insights on the creator economy from the week, visit my website.

WHAT I’M READING

Meta’s Threads expected to have ads this year (Digiday)

According to advertising executives interviewed by Digiday's Krystal Scanlon, ads are anticipated to debut on Threads sooner rather than later and likely will start with Partnership Ads — a prediction of mine.

Don’t blame MKBHD for the fate of Humane AI and Fisker (TechCrunch)

Marques Brownlee, better known as MKBHD’s review of the Humane AI Pin, was a significant topic of discussion this week, as the YouTuber labeled the much-hyped AI gadget the 'worst product' he has ever reviewed. Dominic-Madori Davis and Amanda Silberling delve into why MKBHD isn’t to blame for the fate of the recent companies he’s given bad reviews.

Cannes Lions 2024: Inside the Revamped Influencer Marketing Plans for Creators (AdAge)

It’s not uncommon to see creators at Cannes Lions, but this year, they will play a more significant role with the launch of the new 'Lions Creators Program,' which will include presentations, panels, and roundtables focused on creators and influencer marketing. Gillian Follet has the details.

THANK YOU

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