It’s that time of the month again, time to inject your day with a healthy dose of social media news. Giraffe has you covered for the latest social media updates and even though this month has felt like Twitter and Elon Musk have dominated the headlines, we assure you a lot more has been going on across the world of social media. Regardless, let us start right there with Elon Musk and his Twitter takeover!
Elon Musk’s Twitter Reformation Sees Roughly 50% Of Staff Cut
Elon Musk hasn’t wasted any time shaking up Twitter, sources are reporting that Elon has had around 50% of its entire workforce cut, apparently in a bid to rationalise its business.
As can be seen through the link above, staff will be informed via email, which will let them know if they still have a job at Twitter, there are no official numbers yet, although a good few long-serving employees have been bidding farewell via tweets.
Recent reports suggest that Musk would be looking to cut 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, keeping a paltry 2,000 to keep the ship afloat. However, Musk later denied this figure, claiming that it didn’t come from him – however cutting 50% of employees isn’t that far away from that target. In Musk’s original investor presentation, he noted that Twitter would eventually rehire more staff, adding roughly 2,700 staff back by 2025 in line with growth.
Whether or not this happens, the present cuts seem in line with stated plans, which also strikes a massive blow to thousands of people now left jobless thanks to the Musk takeover.
It’s a sad day indeed for the app and those staff that have been fighting to keep jobs they no longer have, clearly, there was not much they could do, and for many this means they are forced to leave roles they have been hugely passionate about for many years, trying to steer Twitter in the right direction for success.
Meta Adds New Tools & Settings To Protect Young Users Online
Meta has announced a new set of updates to help safeguard younger users online from harmful behaviours within the Facebook app.
Meta will now implement stricter privacy controls by default for all users under the age of 16 that decide to sign up for an account. This will limit who can see their friends list and Pages they follow in-app, posts they are tagged in will also be hidden and non-connections will be unable to comment on public posts. Essentially ensuring that only people who have been approved can see their content or contact the user.
This will ensure higher levels of privacy by default and stop unknown entities from having access to information they should not be privy to. Whilst young users can revert the privacy setting, we see this as becoming the default norm, which can only be a good thing for safety online. This coupled with Meta’s parental control toolswill give parents some much-needed assurance that their kids are safe online.
In addition to this, Meta’s also testing a new process which will limit the capacity for kids to make contact with ‘suspicious’ adults in its apps.
As per Meta:
“A ‘suspicious’ account is one that belongs to an adult that may have recently been blocked or reported by a young person, for example.”
In such cases, Meta will now stop these users from being able to message young users, while it will also remove their accounts as suggestions in young users’ ‘People You May Know’ recommendations.
“As an extra layer of protection, we’re also testing removing the message button on teens’ Instagram accounts when they’re viewed by suspicious adults altogether.”
Meta’s also adding new notifications which will encourage young users to utilise its various protective tools and features as they use the app. In the examples from Meta, (see link above), Meta will now prompt users to switch on privacy features, while there’ll also be new alerts to report accounts after you block them in the app. Meta’s also adding new safety notices with information on how to, for example, deal with inappropriate messages from adults.
YouTube Promoting Shorts Via World Cup Activations
YouTube is using the FIFA World Cup as another avenue to push and promote YouTube Shorts, by running several themed challenges for the event.
YouTube has sent a group of popular Shorts creators to Qatar for starters, to create content for the event, as per YouTube
“With a combined reach of more than 90 million subscribers from around the globe, these creators will be sharing their experiences at the first round of matches in person. Fans at home can join in the excitement by following #ShortsFIFAWorldCup.”
This is a great way for YouTube to boot engagement with Shorts around the event offering different angles and elements from different creators, drawing in fans, and extending the audience of Shorts using the World Cup Hype.
It’s a good way to boost engagement with Shorts around the event, by sending top stars to cover different angles and elements, drawing their fans, and extended audiences, into the World Cup hype. This will go a long way to promoting and highlighting Shorts to millions of people around the globe.
YouTube is also hosting classic World Cup matches on the official FIFA YouTube channel, along with other elements tied into this year’s tournament.
The World Cup is set to be a major event across all social platforms, with YouTube, in particular, seeing surging interest in football in recent times.
YouTube says that soccer was the most watched sport on the platform in 2021, while the previous World Cup generated over 10 billion views of YouTube content.
With this in mind, it’s worth noting such trends, and considering how your brand may be able to link into the World Cup hype, and the global celebrations (and commiserations) related to the tournament.
That concludes our updates for this month, it’s been an eventful month for social media news, and we will be back next month with more. Until then, If you are looking for more you can head to our blog section for more news as well as industry-leading tips and advice on how to up your social media marketing game.
