OGB's Weekly Social Snapshot w/c 11.07

Twitter launches test of collaborative tweets

Facebook and Instagram have both added co-creation options in recent months, providing a means for users to collaborate on posts, with Twitter becoming the latest to try out collaborative tweets.

The new co-tweeting process, which is now in limited testing, enables users to invite another account to contribute to a single tweet. This could be helpful in facilitating influencer collaborations and cross promotions and a way to credit original creators, like Duets on TikTok.

Duets have become a key interaction tool in the app, providing streamlined capability to contribute to trending memes with your own takes, as opposed to just consuming such. Participation is a critical aspect in the transformative appeal of TikTok, and it’s that engagement aspect that other apps are now trying to replicate, in an effort to build their own creative options and engagement. 

Find out more here.

TikTok is giving up on its live shopping plans

TikTok is scaling back its live commerce plans in Europe and the US, the Financial Times reported, after early launches haven’t been successful.

TikTok has been testing live shopping in the UK since late last year, starting with a multi-brand event called “On Trend” last December. But the FT reported that those shopping livestreams haven’t drawn big audiences and haven’t sparked many sales, and some of the creators involved in early TikTok Shop projects have dropped out.

Live online shopping, led by creators and influencers, is an enormous business for TikTok’s owner, ByteDance. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok that is also owned by ByteDance, has seen those live sales turn into huge cultural events that bring big business for retailers, creators, and platforms alike. 

Find out more here.