What’s MGHappening in Social Media: Oct. 25, 2019

CNBC – Interbrand, a global brand consultancy, just released its annual list of top brands. The 2019 list once again was made up largely of tech companies, though Facebook, which has previously ranked in the top ten, has fallen to the #14 spot. Facebook started at #69 back in 2012 and peaked at #8 in 2017. According to Interbrand’s New York CEO Daniel Binns, Facebook’s departure from the top ten had to do with privacy and security concerns driving consumer choice. Apple and Microsoft have done a better job finding their way in terms of privacy, while Facebook is still making strides to resolve issues and maintain consumer trust. The 2019 Best Global Brands list is topped by:

CNBC – Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has become a noteworthy critic of the company he helped launch ever since his New York Times op-ed in May of this year, which called for checks on the tech giant’s power and a notion that the different divisions (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp) should be broken up. Now Hughes is taking another step toward his goal by establishing a new $10 million anti-monopoly fund. The fund will back existing and new academic research, policy and organizing work concerning market power. Spanning beyond just Facebook and big tech, the fund aims to combat market dominance across industries with investments until March 2021. (Full Story)

TechCrunch – Instagram is slowly rolling out a new feature that will help better protect personal data from being used by third-party applications that have been previously authorized to access a user’s account. Having the option to review and remove third-party apps is fairly commonplace among platforms (Twitter, Facebook and Google have had the option for years) and is a welcome addition to Instagram. As the new feature is designed to be a gradual rollout on IG, it could be up to six months before all users have access. (Full Story)

TechCrunch – Reddit has announced a new integration with Snapchat that will allow users to share text, link and image-based posts on iOS. This move makes Snapchat the first platform partner with which Reddit is testing a content sharing integration and comes with the hope that it will bring more younger users to the site. The majority of Reddit’s users fall in the 30 to 49 age bracket, so by offering the option to share to the social network that possibly has the youngest user base (Snapchat), Reddit may gain some new users. When shared, Reddit posts will act as a sticker and can be used for both single Snaps and Stories. (Full Story)

TechCrunch – Snapchat has launched a new kind of advertising product for retailers: dynamic ads. With retail, e-commerce and other direct-to-consumer brands thriving on Facebook and Instagram with this ad type, Snap hopes to attract ad dollars from advertisers on those other platforms with this announcement. As is the case on other platforms, advertisers will provide a catalog and ads will be created in real-time, showing products that most likely align with a user’s interests. Ads will adjust automatically based on the catalog, so if a price changes or an item goes out of stock, that will be reflected in the ad. While Instagram has a user count far higher than that of Snapchat, it also has more competition for inventory; some DTC brands have found that ads were eight times cheaper on Snapchat than on Instagram. (Full Story)

TechCrunch – YouTube is partnering with Merchbar on a new integration that will allow artists to sell their merchandise to fans from a shelf just below the video. The Merch shelf, which was launched earlier this year with partners including Teespring, is placed below videos as an additional way for creators to make money beyond ad revenue. The Merch shelf, along with Channel Memberships and Super Chats have helped creators double their revenue. (Full Story)