Musk buying Twitter, Brands discovering BeReal, and Facebook changing its feed
A weekly recap of major marketing news you may have missed
Hi there!
Welcome to “5 Minutes of Marketing,” a newsletter delivering the latest marketing, business, and technology news.
This week, I am particularly excited about BeReal. Frankly speaking, I registered on the app a while ago but haven’t posted anything yet. Reading the news that even brands have started seeing its value makes me more curious to explore the platform myself. I’ll try posting this week! 😀
Here are the three stories from Week 40, so grab a cup of coffee ☕️ and let’s go!
💰 Musk wants to buy Twitter AGAIN
Last week, Elon Musk sent a proposal letter to buy Twitter at the original $44 billion price. He is also asking Twitter to drop the lawsuit that’s set to commence later this month.
Musk, one of the most followed personalities on Twitter, expressed the wish to make Twitter more than just a social app. He referenced China’s WeChat - a super app that serves as a hub for not just social interaction but also shopping, ride-hailing, banking, entertainment, and more. 📱
This comes at a time when Musk was heavily criticized for expressing his pro-Russian stance in Russia’s war on Ukraine. 👎🏼 He deemed that Ukraine should give the occupied territories to Russia, as they are predominantly populated by ethnic Russians “who want to join Russia.” A statement that’s widely used by the Kremlin propaganda.
It seems that Musk makes all these controversial statements as a way to seek attention. All these statements about buying Twitter and ignorant remarks about Russia’s war on Ukraine come at a time when Tesla’s reported electric vehicle production and delivery numbers didn’t meet analysts’ expectations. It may be just a strategy to divert everyone’s attention from issues surrounding Tesla. 🚙
I have reservations about this “new deal” and whether it’ll come to fruition. However, even if he does buy and Twitter becomes like WeChat, the users may not be particularly happy about it. 🤔
Since WeChat is used in almost every aspect of people’s lives, it contains a ton of consumer information. If Twitter becomes like WeChat, will its users want someone like Musk to have access to their data?
📱 Brands are coming for BeReal
BeReal, an anti-Instagram app, has gained a lot of popularity over the past months. In August 2022, it was reported that BeReal had 21.6 million monthly active users, mainly Gen Zs. 🤳
BeReal wants to promote authentic and unfiltered posts shared between friends. Every day, at a random time, the app will prompt a notification that a user has two minutes to snap a photo and share it on the app.
Brands have noticed the app and also jumped into it early. While you won’t see many brands using BeReal yet, some have! These brands are enjoying free advertising and exposure to their audiences. BeReal hasn’t come up with a proper monetization strategy yet. 💵
Even though advertising isn’t allowed on BeReal (yet), brands have used the opportunity to promote themselves. Chipotle, for example, was promoting promo codes on BeReal with the message, “First 100 people to use code FORREAL in the Chipotle app will get a free entrée.” 👌🏼
Technically they followed the rules as they snapped two pictures - one with a front cam, one with a back cam - and uploaded them on the app. The best part is that this promo cost them nothing, and they got in front of the eyes of their audience organically.
More brands will definitely follow suit. Especially now, white BeReal still has no clue how to monetize its app. Chipotle hasn’t been banned on BeReal, which will only push more brands to explore the app.
Banning brands is unlikely to happen. Chasing away brands with advertising budgets to spend is a dangerous business move, and it’s hard to imagine BeReal fending them off in the long run.
So if you’re a consumer brand, you may want to give BeReal a shot! You may be surprised by the results. 💯
🚨 Facebook will change its newsfeed
It seems Facebook has finally accepted that the competitors, such as TikTok, are right - the way users consume content on social media has changed. Facebook's internal research says young adults think the main Facebook app was irrelevant, negative, and undifferentiated, having a bad brand. They also said that it was for older people.
It seems that Facebook users are less interested in sharing their own content; instead, they want to see more content beyond what their friends post. As a result, it has been introducing more “suggested” content. 👀
To add more space for personalization and cater to more relevant content, Facebook has been gradually rolling out the “show more” and “show less” features to give an opportunity for the users to adjust what type of content they wish to see on their feed.
However, discovering new content is only one part. The way users share content has also changed. The old-fashioned “share on feed” is no longer relevant, and Facebook knows it. It has all the data from Instagram and WhatsApp to understand it.
Users take content they find and share it privately via messages (DMs or even WhatsApp). Therefore, Facebook is contemplating returning Messenger to the main Facebook app to facilitate more conversations. Indeed, navigating between different apps doesn’t help the user experience.
In a nutshell, your feed will still contain stuff from your friends, but Facebook will also show more content it deems relevant or interesting to you. One thing is clear - Facebook isn’t sure yet what identity it’ll take up. Hopefully, it won’t become a clone of TikTok.
Other interesting stories worth checking out:
Kanye West’s Instagram Account Restricted, Returns to Twitter
Google Really Wants You To Avoid Changing URLs Just For SEO Reasons
TikTok influences a billion users, but who influences TikTok?
Thanks for reading, and happy Monday. If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, invite your friends and colleagues to sign up! ❤️❤️❤️
I loved this read! I am always looking for ways to know what is going on in a world that is ever growing, this was perfect. Thanks for sharing.