The world of social media and content is changing … again. It does that every so often. Unfortunately. more often than we probably care for it do so. Where Instagram, then Instagram Stories were the content du jour for influencers and, thus brands, a year or so ago, now our focus is on snack-able, vertical video.
Thanks TikTok.
Actually, platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are just a continuation of the evolution of what consumers consume. Now, we can get into a chicken-and-egg discussion about what caused this. Did the social networks prioritize vertical video content that forced people to consume it? Or are people really so dumb they can’t turn their phone 90-degrees and watch a video the way it was meant to be viewed … horizontally?
The cause doesn’t matter. The effect is in full force. TikTok is currently the dominant social content channel and mechanism consumers are spending time with. Instagram has responded with algorithm changes and outright guidance that short-form video is its priority.
That presents an interesting challenge for brands and agencies whose creative departments are art school grads and cinematographers. That also created the space influencers and online content creators needed to emerge as highly relevant and useful partners for those brands and agencies.
Where traditional creatives have perhaps been slow to adjust to creating short-form, snack-able and vertical content, TikTok-ers and Instagrammers have jumped in.
Lena Katz and the team at Ampersand recently announced an interesting solution and approach to that agency creative gap for this content demand. Lena is the content and creator strategy lead at Ampersand. It is a production company that works on video and film production from big budget commercial shoots to TikTok-like snack-able videos.
A few weeks ago, Ampersand announced an offering for its clients called creator integrated services. They pull online content creators in at any and all steps of the marketing creative process to deliver better social video content, and underlying marketing campaigns, for the brands and agencies it works with.
Lena also happens to have served a short stint at TikTok, so he had a look-see behind the curtain of the explosion that is that social network. I asked her to come on the show and tell us more about how Ampersand is solving the creative gap issue, how to overcome client objections to creator programs and a lot more.
Pay attention here folks, Lena’s thoughts on the industry and how to tackle certain issues is smart stuff. And it’s coming up on Winfluence.
This episode of Winfluence is presented by Tagger, a complete influence marketing software solution. Check them out for a demo today at jasonfalls.co/tagger.
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Lena Katz on Winfluence Transcript
Coming soon …