Amazon Inspire, SoundCloud Fans, Google’s New “Perspectives” Filter, Twitch’s new Clip Editor

Amazon’s New Shopping Feed Inspired by TikTok

Have you taken a look at your Amazon app recently? If you’re located in the United States, you may have noticed Amazon's new shopping feed, Inspire. Amazon’s Inspire feed was in development last summer and first rolled out to select U.S. users in December 2022 before its official release this month. 

The Inspire feed is heavily inspired by TikTok’s vertical video feed, including the tagged products at the bottom of each video linked to an Amazon listing. Like other social platforms like Instagram and TikTok, posts on Amazon’s Inspire feed curated by paid creators may be labeled “Earns commissions.” Review videos make up the other half of the Inspire feed, which are labeled with “Verified purchase.” You can double-tap a video in your feed to like it or click the 3-dot menu to select “Not interested.”

So how does Amazon determine what videos to recommend for your Inspire feed? When first viewing the Inspire feed, located by clicking the lightbulb icon in the navigation bar, you may have been prompted to select your product interests. Not all users may have had this pop-up, but, for the most part, your feed is curated by your purchase and search history as well as your engagement with certain posts. 

One important factor to note about content on Amazon’s Inspire feed is the production value. A majority of the content posted by Amazon’s influencer partners has been reposted from TikTok, hence their TikTok watermarks and signature text fonts. The viewing quality of each video can be inconsistent at times, but well-produced content made specifically for Amazon’s shopping platform performs the best.

Not very many posts break more than a few hundred likes, the average being around a few dozen likes. With this in mind, the focus of content on this feed is, of course, promoting Amazon’s products, not expanding your following or directing you to another platform or channel.

Have you purchased anything off the Inspire feed and what are your thoughts?

Get Engaged with Your Following on SoundCloud Fans

SoundCloud is known as one of the OG streaming platforms for discovering underground music artists. Many of the world’s top artists from Lil Uzi Vert to Kali Uchis made their big breaks and developed their loyal fanbase on SoundCloud. SoundCloud is furthering its dedication to supporting artist-listener relationships by launching a new communication tool, Fans. Artists can tap into Fans to direct messages and sort their listeners based on special engagement measures. 

SoundCloud will power user engagement metrics to filter listeners on Fans using data from their 2021 fan-powered royalties model. The top metrics available to artists on SoundCloud include commenting history, listening activity, country, and sharing habits. 

If SoundCloud users want to opt out of the Fans feature, they can simply disable the “Recieve messages from anyone” toggle in their settings, but artists they follow will still have messaging access. SoundCloud users also have the power to report abusive and offensive messages as well as block the sender at hand.

Fans was first available to 10,000 artists on SoundCloud but has recently expanded its beta release to include approximately 50,000 artists who must be subscribed to their Next Pro product. As SoundCloud continues to refine their new communication tool, we expect artists to have a deeper connection with their followers and perhaps explore exclusive content creation for fans. 

Google’s New “Perspectives” Filter and What it Entails for Social Media

You may recall that TikTok surpassed Google as the top search engine platform in 2022. Even Google executives shared about the strength of TikTok and the short-form video platform’s impact on Google’s core products, Search and Maps. With more than 40% of Gen-Z users turning to TikTok as their go-to search platform, it is no surprise that Google recently announced their new “Perspectives” search filter, which displays the perspectives of global internet personalities from TikTok and Youtube to Reddit.

Google’s Perspectives feature was used in the past primarily for top stories but is now available for all general search queries. Posts and commentary from discussion boards, Q&As, social platforms, and more will be available for users to scroll through under the “Perspectives” search tab on Google. Users will have access to the name of the artist or the creator, a preview of their media, and a link to “See more” related content. 

When it comes to searching for the best restaurant or next new product, users often-times look to social proof for the best recommendations–here is where TikTok and Youtube reviews come in. By including differing perspectives, Google is strategically tapping into this audience of users and consumers at the top-to-mid-level segments of the traditional marketing funnel. 

It will be interesting to observe what viral content from the world’s top social platforms will land the first few spots on the “Perspectives” tab. Will we see a dominance in a particular content style such as short-form video, or will written reviews take the lead once again?

Twitch Wants You to Go Vertical with Their New Clip Editor

Twitch is following in the footsteps of Fortnite with their release of a new content creation tool for streamers, particularly gamers. It is now easier than ever for streamers to share gameplay clips from engaging livestreams to short-form video platforms with Twitch’s new Clip Editor. With Clip Editor, Twitch streamers can take clips of content saved to their clips manager on their creator dashboard and swiftly edit vertical videos to be reshared directly to Youtube Shorts or saved to share on other platforms like TikTok or Meta Reels.

Twitch shared in a comment about the recent update, “We’re committed to helping streamers grow and this is just one piece of our larger strategy to help streamers find new viewers while making it easier to promote their content on and off Twitch.” Seeing engaging clips of gameplay on a platform such as TikTok may shift a user’s algorithm to share more similar gaming content, which may ultimately influence the user to look into streamers on Twitch whom they’ve seen recommended content from.

When editing content on Twitch’s Clip Editor, streamers may choose to do a side-by-side video with their stream on one side and their front-facing camera footage on the other or they may simply do a single vertical video of their stream. Streamers may also add their channel name on their video as a watermark so viewers know where to find them on Twitch.

Will we see other streaming platforms implement a similar short-form video strategy to promote their platform and creators? Moreover, will Twitch extend their Clip Editor tool to allow posting directly to TikTok, Meta, and other platforms besides Youtube? Tune in to Spreading the Influence for more updates!