Are you feeling influencer fatigue?

Influencers are out, budgeting is in.

Mar 11, 2024

In today’s newsletter:

Influencer fatigue is spreading.
Google’s big update to search results.
TikTok’s potential ban in the U.S.

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A trip to Bora Bora? In this economy?

Tarte Cosmetics invited 30 influencers on Trippin with Tarte, a trip to the Four Seasons Resort in Bora Bora, documented on social media to promote the makeup brand.

For years, Tarte has been running this series, sending influencers to tropical destinations, and for the most part, it’s paid off. Some of their products became very popular among the beauty YouTube community after these trips.1

This year, though, the reception online has been mixed with lots of comments on how tired people are of overt displays of consumption.

Enter influencer fatigue.

People are over influencers showing off glamorous lifestyles and selling them on products they either got for free or in exchange for a paid promotion.2

Instead, people are into loud budgeting.

Loud budgeting is openly sharing why you might not want to spend money, even if you’ve got it. 3

@lukasbattle Replying to @operelly LOUD BUDGETING IS THE NEW 2024 trend

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On TikTok, people are participating in eating-in challenges and sharing tips from what to say in different situations to help you stay on track financially to picking high-yield savings accounts.

People are finding community in openly talking about how to save and reach their financial goals during a time when the cost of living keeps rising.

With this in mind, it makes sense that influencer marketing is alienating people that can’t relate to excessive influencer lifestyles.

Brands will have to adapt their marketing to resonate with an audience that is more budget-focused than ever.

One of the biggest updates in Google’s history is happening this month.

The update is designed to improve the quality of Google’s search results to be helpful, reliable, and made for people.

With the popularity and accessibility of AI text generators, content written by AI is flooding the internet and surfacing in search results.

Google is fighting off search spam in three areas:4

Expired domain abuse - when people purchase expired websites with brand recognition to use their existing credibility, but replace all the original content with AI-generated articles to manipulate search rankings.
Scaled content abuse - when large amounts of unoriginal content are generated to game search rankings.
Reputation abuse - when trustworthy websites allow third-party sources to publish low quality sponsored content that is not helpful to users.

In all these cases, the content that is created is usually made with the intention of ranking a website higher in search results, and is usually AI-generated.

The content isn’t actually helpful and Google doesn’t want its users wasting time on articles that were written for optimizing search, and not for real people.

TikTok, TikTok, TikTok

Lots of TikTok updates this week.

TikTok is going public with its Creator Rewards program.

The platform will pay creators for their videos based on four criteria:

Originality
Play duration
Search value
Audience engagement

Right now, it’s open to creators who are over 18 years old, have at least 10,000 followers, and at least 100,000 views over the past 30 days.

The program will work with creators from the U.S., U.K., Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, and Korea.

The program may not be open in the US for long though.

The White House is backing a bill that would ban TikTok in the US due to concerns on how the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, tracks and stores user data.5

The bill allows the president to determine platforms under the control of “foreign adversaries” as national security threats. Adversaries include China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

When an app is labeled as a threat, it will be banned from app stores unless it completely ends ties with these countries within 180 days.6 Any app stores that have a banned app available to download will receive a penalty of $5,000 per active user per day.

The only way TikTok can avoid the ban is by cutting ties to its owner and finding a buyer who isn’t a foreign adversary.

Finding a buyer could be hard as the app is worth around $50 billion and may be too expensive for other companies to acquire.

If a buyer does take over, it’s unclear what the future of TikTok could look like. Either way, banned or under new ownership, the future of TikTok impacts creators the most.

TikTok is relying on its users and creators to help fight the ban. Last week, users were interrupted in the app with a message to call their reps in Congress to keep TikTok available.

It’s a polarizing issue as creators are running businesses on TikTok and relying on it as a way to connect with their audience.

Platform News

Mike Tyson will fight Jake Paul in a boxing match in July that will be live streamed on Netflix.7
Twitch CEO published an open letter on changes coming to the platform. The changes focus on discoverability, exporting to Instagram, and community building tools.8
X is launching a TV app for Amazon and Samsung smart TVs.9
Chucky is making an appearance on Roblox in an “interactive horror experience” called Griefville: Survive the Nightmare.10
Anonymous social apps, Yik Yik, Fizz, Sidechat, and Whisper are banned by University of North Carolina system.11

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I love learning from readers, and I’m always looking for feedback on what you enjoy reading.

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Let me know in a comment or send me an email at katrina@golivecosmos.com

Happy Monday,

Katrina