Auto-captions for TikTok
Accessibility is important but it’s taken social networks a long time to realise that.
This week TikTok announced its latest accessibility tool. Auto-captions for videos. These are going to be available to creators using the US English and Japanese language.
When you upload a video you will get the option to auto-caption. When the captions have been created you’ll be able to edit them before publishing.
It’s great to see Tiktok embracing accessibility, particularly as in their early years they made some misjudgements regarding people with disabilities.
https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/introducing-auto-captions
Clubhouse payments
Clubhouse has built a loyal community fast, and now it’s going to help creators monetise.
Clubhouse payments will allow users to send payments to their favourite creators. Creators will receive 100% of the payment.
Currently, you can only send money to a select group of creators. It will be interesting to see what it’s used for. Will you pay creators to access rooms? To take the stage in rooms? To promote your business or sponsor rooms?
Clubhouse’s announcement doesn’t give any guidance on this so it will be interesting to see what people do.
https://www.joinclubhouse.com/introducing-payments
New TikTok web based video editor
Advertisers and agencies still do the majority of their work on desktop, and editing videos is just way easier when you have a mouse and keyboard.
TikTok is recognising this. It’s giving advertisers a new web-based video editor that will help them create TikTok style content, complete with effects and music, within the ads interface.
By giving advertisers these tools, they could see more businesses creating more ads that will work for the TikTok audience. And if they work well, more people will want to create them. It certainly makes me want to create a Tiktok ads account.
https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article?aid=10000799
Facebook QR codes to transfer money to friends
How do you get more people to send money via Facebook? You make it super easy.
Facebook is introducing a QR code that when scanned will enable you to send money.
At the moment it’s designed for friend to friend payments but if rolled out to businesses it could be a new way to pay for our coffee as well as our online purchases.
Another way Facebook may take over the universe.
Private twitter spaces and scheduling
One of the problems with Twitter spaces, is that it can be hard to get people to join.
You can promote it ahead of time but you have to rely on people remembering.
One way that this could be solved is by scheduling your space, just like you might a live broadcast, and it looks like this is about to happen.
Discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, in her screenshot, we can see the ‘Schedule’ button alongside the option for private conversations.
Private conversations could be valuable for community groups or customer only chats. It also paves the way for a Superfollow perk.
https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1377968488745078784/photo/1
Portal adds Meeting and webinar tools
Portal is Facebook’s video chat device. A screen that you can place in your home for video calls.
Although this is a Facebook product, they are adding non-Facebook tools to the device, including; Zoom, BlueJeans, GoToMeeting and WebX.
This makes Portal a business tool and handy for people who work from home. The advantage of using a stand-alone device is that your computer will be free for notes and work related to the calls.
iOS 14.5 is coming soon
The Apple iPhone update that will change everything about your Facebook ads is on the way. iOS 14.5 will warn users and give them the option to opt-out of Facebook tracking you offsite.
This will affect ad reporting as well as audience targeting.
If you haven’t already prepared for this there are 3 things you need to enable now.
1. Verify your domain. You’ll find the option to do this in your business manager or business suite settings, under brand safety/domains.
2. Add your prioritised conversion events. Facebook will now only be able to record 8 events and they must be prioritised. For example, a purchase is more important than an add to cart.
Edit these in your Events Manager (found in your ads manage) under Aggregated Event Management
3. Enable the Facebook Conversions API (there are built-in integrations for Shopify and WordPress). This is a server-based conversion measurement tool rather than the browser-based one that we are used to.
This isn’t all straightforward so the sooner you implement it the better.
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/07/apple-privacy-preserving-ad-measurement-tools/