Oh, boy. I've got lots of social media news and updates today that I'm going to get into because it feels like every single platform went 1, 2, 3, let's update things right the hell now. So with that, let's get into episode number 342 of the Mindful Marketing podcast. If you're new here, hi, hello. My name is Andrea Jones, and I'm a mindful marketing strategist where I am determined to help you connect more, scroll less, so that we can grow together. Before I dive in, let's get into a word
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click the link that goes with this video. Or if you're listening to the audio on the podcast, it's in the show notes. Okay? Click that link. Use the 15% off coupon code. It's Drea, d r e a, and try Riverside for yourself. Thank you, Riverside. Alright. Today's episode, a little bit different because there are lots of updates. Now I wanna preface this by saying I don't usually bring social media news and updates to this right here
podcast. Inside of my membership in the mindful marketing lab, I have a social media news and trends channel where I post social media news and trends as they happen, if you will. And then once a month, we have a session called what's the scoop where I go over all of the social media news and trends as well as some of the top performing posts that I see out and about here on the interwebs.
However, a lot has happened. And so I sat down to research it all after coming back of, like, a sickness last week that I just kind of, like, went offline a little bit for. And I was like, holy moly. There's a lot going on, so let me record a video for my members. And then as I was recording a video for my members, I was like, yeah. This needs to go out to the public at large. So here you are. You're welcome. If you're a member, you got this a week early. If not, you're listening
to it on the podcast. For context, I recorded this January 21, 2025. So if anything's outdated, that's why. Now first, big news. And I'm gonna try to go in order of events here because all these news stories kind of go together. Like, they kind of go hand in hand. And the first one is the TikTok ban. Okay? This TikTok ban is not new, y'all. I have been talking about the TikTok ban for 5 years.
I went back and looked, and in my notes I have here, the TikTok The TikTok was going to be banned first the hint the first hint of the ban was July 2020. July 2020 is when, president Trump was saying that they were considering a ban, of TikTok. This was kind of because of, you know, COVID, corona, the pandemic. Right? It was because of that. You know, it started in China, and there was a lot of, contentious comments about that. And so as he does, he kind of
just said it and spoke it into existence, and we were like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But over the years, there have been multiple instances where TikTok, is going to be banned. In fact, by August 2020, president Trump had issued an executive order saying TikTok had to be banned due to the way that it collected our data. By September, it had blocked the downloading of the app for certain government officials, things like that. I know here in Canada, for instance, it
is blocked as well. Again, how TikTok itself gathers data and what the other countries do with that data. This has been appealed and rebanned and represented over the years by July 2021. Joe Biden, president Joe Biden had existed, issued an executive order revoking the ban. But then by December 2022, the senate had proposed a new ban. Fast forward to today, so by January 19th, it was official. TikTok is not supposed to be owned by
China. Okay. And this is where the ban the the order is coming into place. It's not necessarily saying that TikTok can't exist. It's saying that TikTok should not be primarily owned by a Chinese company. So technically, if someone else were to purchase 51% of the company, it wouldn't be mostly owned by a Chinese company and all would be well. That has not happened, and so, technically, TikTok is banned in the US officially.
I didn't think we'd get here, but here we are. The big drama being that on 19th, or leading up to 19th, users, of TikToks are to get little notifications on their phone that says, hey. You can no longer you use this app. It was removed from the App Store for US folks. And while, at the time of the recording this, you can now use it and you can download it, some people are claiming, it technically isn't
allowed. K. Technically isn't allowed. Now president Trump did say that he wants to reinstate TikTok, primarily because he doesn't like Meta. And he's been very clear about this. Meta has also been clear about how they have not supported Trump up until now, which I will talk about because the drama is drama ing. But TikTok, president Trump wants TikTok because he actually helped him with his platform
during his campaign. He likes their algorithm, and I will say compared to Meta, the way that they allow conversations to happen is much different than, Meta's algorithm, whatever they try to claim. And Trump likes that. He likes the the free speech. Let's put that loosely in quotes, k, for TikTok. So despite being unavailable for about 16 to 18 hours on 19th, TikTok is restored in the US, and they're working on,
an appeal right now. Though, Apple and Google still do not have TikTok in their in the app stores. Okay? So they don't wanna be, you know, sued or fined or whatever. Okay. But if you already have it, you already have it. Apparently, there is a 75 day probationary period where someone can still come in and purchase it, but time will tell. Time will tell. So the aftershocks of this are really everything else we're seeing
in social media news. Because I don't think people quite thought it would get this far because this again, this isn't the first time TikTok has been under threat of a ban, but this is the first time that it's gotten this far. Okay? So thing 1 that happened is a smaller thing, YouTube. YouTube has increased the length of YouTube Shorts. So YouTube Shorts are now 3 minutes long instead of 60 seconds,
1 minute. It used to be the max, now it's 3 minutes. This is in a direct response to TikTok, and it's my prediction that if TikTok is to be banned, which now is looking more likely than not, like, if it will in 75 days completely disappear or if it will be purchased or whatever will happen, YouTube is, in my opinion, the natural replacement for TikTok for a number of reasons. One, it is the largest video platform
in the world. It's the 2nd largest search engine. So this idea that TikTok was for search, which people really liked, we can easily take that concept into YouTube. They've got the bones there. YouTube's algorithm, especially for suggested content, has always been great. K. Like, you watch this video about tomato plants, maybe you'll like that video about tomato plants. K. It's been it's been great over the years.
YouTube does not have the drama that other platforms have and the, shall we say, negative associations with the algorithm. So, like, right now, people aren't happy with Instagram or Facebook's algorithm. It's not fun over there for those of us on those apps, on all those platforms. So YouTube feels like the natural, like, king of video here, and I'm here for it. I would actually love to see YouTube Shorts be the
thing. It's a terrible name. TikTok has, like, a nice cutesy little oh, I here's a YouTube video or here's a TikTok that I, watch. YouTube shorts, it it's it's YouTube shorts. The shorts piece is, like, not easy for me to say. And if I'm just, like, texting you, YouTube short, I may just say a YouTube video instead. I also am hesitant because we do have long form video on YouTube. The 3 minute video to me, I don't know how I feel
about it. I like a short being short, and 3 minutes does not feel short to me. If someone sent me a 3 minute video and I didn't like it, I'd be like, man, this feels like a long video. Right? 60 seconds? Perfect. Beautiful. I liked the time limit. So we shall see. We shall see. YouTube to me is like the natural next replacement for TikTok. So that's the second update. 3rd update, Instagram and Meta. Let's talk about
Meta largely at first. Meta has, over the years, specifically sends president Trump's, campaign initially and then his first term of presidency, they've been very clearly not a fan. K? They've banned him from the platforms. They've put in, you know, things in place that are directly a call out to him. Things like, you know, if someone shares fake news, they have automation, or they did, that would say this, you know, this story has not been fact checked. You know, check your sources.
And so Meta has been very specific about labeling things as fake news, labeling things as, you know, make sure to check your sources. This has been a direct response to president Trump. Okay. And Zuck Zuck and Co, the Zuckerberg, has not been a fan. Okay. That changed recently with the one of their updates that they did last week, which was they were removing the automated fact checkers. And upon first glance, I thought this wasn't that bad of a of a thing. X, formerly known as Twitter, has this
in place. It's called community notes. It's based on how the community responds to whatever is being posted. So the the consensus basically is, like, if somebody posts something and it is factually incorrect, as a collective, we could say this is wrong, and then there'll be a little note. Like, it's like a lot of people disagree with this, or a lot of people say that this is factually incorrect.
Upon first glance, I was like, that doesn't seem too terrible because between you and I, to be honest, some of the automations are not great. And what was happening with, I saw this numerous times with some of my clients, some of my members, is that you would post something that wasn't fake, that wasn't, you know, inaccurate, but the automation would think it was. And your account will get trapped in this automated hell, basically,
and you would get flagged. Your account would get banned, and you'd have no idea what happened because it was like a robot gone rogue. Very frustrating. So for me, when I see that, I'm like, oh, okay. So power back to the people. I love it. However, it is a very slippery slow slippery slope, and it can be very dangerous for the collective as well. I think especially for bullying, for any sort of hate against other group, a minor a minority group, it can go
sideways very, very quickly. I think about certain certain things like, anti Semitic comments. Right? If a whole bunch of, let's, say can I say Nazis? Of a whole bunch of people who think poorly of a certain group of people, collectively decide to bully someone, then the community could decide that post needs to be removed, taken down, whatever, when it shouldn't be. Right?
I think about this with, like, LGBTQ folks. Like, there's so many ways this can go wrong if as a collective, someone gangs up, cancels someone based on their existence, their mere existence, this could go sideways very, very quickly. And so it is dangerous for Meta to do this, but they've done it. And they've done it perfectly timed a week before president Trump was inaugurated into office for his second term.
So are they connected? I mean, they're not gonna come out and say that directly, but the fact that Mark Zuckerberg went on, Joe Rogan's podcast to talk about this says a lot, because, yeah, it just says a lot. It says a lot. The timing of it all says a lot. What it says to me is that Meta is going, oh, new man in power. We need to suck up to the new man in power. And it seems like, you know, a lot of people want him to be because, hello. They all voted for him to be. And so we wanna
we wanna, follow that that thread. K? Follow the money, if you will. Again, not a new strategy for a social media platform, but here we are. So that is the news on that. So we've got TikTok being banned. We've got YouTube increasing their YouTube shorts. We've got Meta releasing their algorithmic automation for, moderating fake news and that sort of thing and and putting the power back to the people, which could be very bad. And then we have some other changes
happening, in Meta. And this again is because TikTok is being banned, and Meta is trying to, like, poach those people over to, you know, Facebook and Instagram and maybe threads. Instagram Reels and Instagram, the the grid. So when you're looking at your Instagram feed, you know how you had, like, the aesthetic, like, oh, my profile is everything is, like, color coordinated. The size has changed. It's no longer square. It's a 4 by 5 size.
It's 10 80 by 1350. So, a little bit more vertical, a little bit more, you know, portrait, if you will. More more hot dog, okay, if you will. So it has changed now. And if you have not been using this new size, your feed looks all sorts of messed up. Now I've been using this new size for a while. I've been telling my members to use this new size for a while. However, when I make a new template,
I make it as a square. I don't know if it's just because I've been doing this for 10 years now, but, like, squares reign supreme for me. They always have. And so a lot of even my templates in my template bundles, squares. However, that's not the new size anymore. It's this new 4 by 5 size that, looks like the elongated profile. To be honest, it kinda looks like your TikTok profile where you have, you know, you have the videos. Right? You have the the the
portrait size videos, on your profile. Instagram is now, okay, bet. We we're gonna do that too. That's what Instagram says. So if you go and look at your feed on your profile, it looks all sorts of messed up and things are cropped weird. That is why. Instagram's trying to be like TikTok yet again. This is not new news. They're just, you know, a little mimicker. Again, I've been using this size since 2023. I look back at my Canva files.
I've been using this size since 2023, but I did not think they would change the profile. So while my profile, for the most part, looks fine, my pinned posts are a little messed up. I need to fix those. But my profile, for the most part right now, looks fine on my main. I have, like, my, you know what do what do the kids call it? My Finsta? Like, my secondary account that I use for other things. I didn't bother with that one. It's all messed up, so I have to redo it. Anyways,
such is life. If you're with me, we have work to do. Or if you don't care, just leave it. And going forward from today, use the new size, 10 80 by 1350. Another thing for Meta is that they also increased their reels length to 3 minutes. K. Again, this is copying. YouTube did it first. Now reels, they've been testing longer length. So if you've had this available, it may not be new to you, but it is, something that they, have been testing and they now officially have have
released to the majority of people on the app. Again, they're trying to poach people from TikTok even though people are still over on TikTok and having a grand old time over there. So with that being said, I wanna also talk about some alternatives to TikTok because I've been seeing this float around a lot of questions about, like, oh, if TikTok is banned, where are we going?
That's been the big question. If TikTok is banned, where are we going? And I said earlier in this episode, I believe YouTube and YouTube Shorts is the natural answer to me. If you're creating video content, go to the place where people are already watching video content. K? It's a natural next step. However, if you wanna explore some of the other apps, I wanna give you my thoughts. You didn't ask for them, but here they are. I tried this weekend
fan base. I swear when I first logged in, my feed was just only fan creators, and I was like, nothing against this, but this is not I'm here for work, not pleasure if you catch my drift. So, it was a little bit startling. I did, you know, set my preferences, and I started following people. My algorithm quickly picked it up. But it feels very much geared towards, people giving you
money for the for the things that you post. Like, when I log into the app, there's there's the thumbs up option, which is like, yeah, I like this video, but then there's a heart option where it costs money to, like, give people hearts. I didn't like that. But I was able to import over my, Instagram profile. And so all of my Instagram videos, all of my posts were imported, my profile and everything I imported over. And I was like,
okay. That doesn't seem so bad. But then now I have another app to check, and y'all know how I feel about that. Not a fan. 2 others that I've tried in the past that kind of seemed like they had a little bit of resurgence this week. One is Lemon8. Now I will say this. Lemon8 is a sister company to TikTok. So when TikTok was, like, having its moment this or I guess it'll be a couple weeks weekends ago at the time this comes out, Lemon8 was also having a moment. You weren't. You couldn't you
can't download it. You can't access it because it's a sister company. Same with CapCut. CapCut is a sister company to TikTok. So they all are owned by the same parent company. So if TikTok is not allowed, Lemon8 is not allowed, and CapCut is not allowed as well. The other one is Clapper. Clapper has been around for a hot minute. I downloaded Clapper last time TikTok was threatened to be banned. And, again, very similar to TikTok. It's a terrible name though. It sounds like
a UTI or not a UTI. It sounds like a STI. I'm like, alright. Terrible name for an app. But, let's see. I have 3 videos on there, and they don't they don't have bad views. They're from years ago, though. Let's see. When was this posted? 2023. Again, last time TikTok was threatened to be banned, I was I published on there. I may publish again. I may not. I think that it's just another place for me to check. And honestly, I'm not I'm
not that mad at Meta. I I don't fully believe what the company believes, so my people are there. And while it's not a safe space, I found safe spaces, if that makes sense. So I I go where my people are. Last thing I will say is this. At the time of recording this too, one of my members shared with me this update about, Instagram's new editing app. It is again a direct direct competitor to CapCut. It is called Edits, and it's all about editing, Instagram videos,
specifically reels. And I haven't tried it yet, but I will say this, Instagram is terrible for editing, and I don't believe them creating an entirely different app will solve the issue. I don't know. I'm not an app designer, but something to consider is that Meta is actively trying. They're trying. Now if YouTube came out with a video editing app, I would be here for
it because I feel like YouTube. Again, I do strongly believe YouTube is like the biggest contender here, and that's where I would put my eggs if I were to and I probably will put my focus on YouTube over meta products. So that's the update. Holy bananas. We've got TikTok being banned. We have YouTube starting to dominate. I mean, they already dominate. YouTube likes fully stepping into their short video form video roles. We've got Meta doing all sorts of things with,
quote, unquote, free speech and power to the people. We've got, Instagram profiles changing, new editing apps, people trying alternative places. It's a lot. If you're sitting here going, Andrea, I still don't know what the heck to do. Here's my advice. Keep doing what you're doing because at the end of the day, not a lot has changed. I do see people, like, doing a mass exodus of, you know, meta products, for instance. I do see people, you know, downloading their TikTok
videos and taking them somewhere else. But majority of people are staying exactly where they are. The majority of people are staying exactly where they already are. And I think this is the challenge with going to new apps is that you then become you become a small fish in a big pond again. And you're essentially starting from scratch, not only with, you know, trying to bring your your community members over, but
you're also starting from scratch in learning a new app. And while there are benefits to being power user in a new app, I talk a lot about this a lot with threads and, like, my initial experience with threads, very delightful because, you know, being a power user in a new app is, it puts you in a in a in a really good position. Right? But a lot of us, my people, y'all listening to this, we don't have time for this. Right? We're running our business. Plus we've got the kids.
We've got our parents. We've got our friends. We've got daycare drop off. We've got we've got so many other things to figure out. Right? Life life is life ing, chronic illness. Like, if this is completely overwhelming to you, I wanna let you know you don't have to worry about it. I saw this a lot of conversation around this on Facebook. There's a lot of beautiful Facebook groups that I'm in where a lot of people are having these really
deep and rich conversations about should we leave Facebook or not. And the consensus for a lot of people has been, we don't agree with this app. We're gonna be very vocal about some of the changes, but ultimately, my people are here. And we've decided to make the decision to vocally disagree with some of the policies and still remain here. Okay. So if you're feeling like you're feeling like, this
is a lot and I don't wanna change anything, don't change anything. But if you do, YouTube, I think, is a really good place to focus. And I do think meta like, there's Meta just has the most users, most people on it. So if you are on Meta, I'm kinda gonna stay on Meta. For me personally, I will
still continue to use TikTok. It will still continue to repurpose content there and use it as, like, my fun place to hang out sometimes, but I may start switching that over to YouTube more and more, and I will continue to explore new apps and bring you my findings as I find them. Thank you so much for listening and tuning in and watching this episode of the Mindful Marketing podcast. I'll be back at you next week with a new episode. Until then, bye for now.