Welcome to digital creator. My name is Ilk Schmidt, and I'm glad you're here. Today, we're gonna be covering some interesting topics that are happening right now in the content creation world, in the, social media world, in the podcasting world. Before I gathered This week's topics, I was like, it doesn't feel like anything's happening. And then I looked, and there's actually 3 big things happening that I would love to share and discuss with you. First off, in this episode, we're gonna be talking about UMG, which is Universal Music Group, their decision to pull their songs from TikTok and what that means. And then continuing on the TikTok theme. They are testing out some new features. Are they going full YouTube? We'll talk about it. And then we'll also be talking about Apple's new podcast transcript feature that is coming up in March, which is pretty exciting. So let's dive right in. First up, you've probably already been seeing the buzz about this. UMG has made the decision to pull songs from TikTok. To give you the simplest version of this, Universal Music Group, which has huge artists like Taylor Swift, Drake, Bad Bunny, they negotiate with TikTok to license the music that TikTok can play on there. If you Have you ever uploaded to YouTube shorts, for example? They don't have the same licensing deals in place. They don't have all of the songs available, And TikTok had a wide range of songs available, and they couldn't come to some agreement. UMG had concerns about AI generated music diluting royalty pools, and that was, as they were claiming, raising a significant question about the future of music creation. And Some people are seeing UMG's move as a stand against the potential devaluation of human created music. UMG is in the business of selling music. They take the stand that they're going to, take that protects their product, which is the music. And they're doing their best to make sure that artists are getting fair compensation, and this move from set some type of precedent for other music companies to take a similar stance. Now the impact of the music being pulled from TikTok is pretty massive. TikTok relies heavily on trends, and part of the trends is songs. Right? People dancing to songs. Even if you're not just watching that type of content, I had to guess my audience is probably not watching the dancing TikTokers, type of content out there. But regardless, people will put music in the background of their videos or or just, you know, use it as, you know, instrumental music as they're talking over, like I've done in my videos. Well, those videos get muted if The song is no longer available on the platform, which means the video just is done. If you go on the video that had the music removed, it just says audio not available. They don't just remove the music. They remove you speaking as well, so the whole video is just muted, and you can't do anything about it, except delete the video and reupload it without the music. All your views are lost. All the engagement is lost, and you're out of luck. TikTok has over a 1000000000 monthly active users. This could potentially alter TikTok's popularity, and it's important to note that music plays a critical role in social media platforms. Music's not just an add on, but a fundamental part of the user experience and content creation. Whether or not you use it in your content is Besides the point, there's a lot of people out there that heavily rely on the music, not so much what they're saying in the video. If we look at the extremes for just a moment, Let's say, UMG continues to leave their music off of TikTok. TikTok suffers as a result of that because less people are going to want to engage with the platform because the hot songs aren't there. TikTok, on the other hand, I'm putting words kind of in their mouth here, but, and fighting on the side of TikTok for a second. They're saying we helped create the music that is getting so popular. The trends start on TikTok, and they wouldn't be as popular without an app like TikTok. So long story short, this could mark a new chapter in music licensing negotiations. This might be something we're gonna be seeing more of in the future in terms of companies like UMG and the social media platform not coming to terms, music's being pulled off, maybe it's being added back, pulled off, added back, and so on. As creators, it's something to be aware of when you're adding music to your content that you're publishing. That's why I like using Epidemic Sound, Artlist, Envato Elements. They offer music that is, protected, and you can use it. But the downside of using unknown artists, if you will, on something like Epidemic Sounds or Envato is you're not capitalizing on the trends for the popular music. You're not using Taylor Swift in your songs. You're using instrumental music that sounds maybe sort of like Taylor Swift, but it's not Taylor Swift. And that is gonna have, obviously, not as strong of an effect as if you actually use Taylor Swift, and that's about all I can say about Taylor Swift. Alright. Next up, continuing on the theme of TikTok, sticking with 1 platform for a second. TikTok is testing out 2 new features, which I talked recently on my social media about. Number 1 is Some users are seeing a notification pop up that is encouraging them to post horizontal videos. TikTok is previously only a vertical video platform. They really made a big push for vertical videos that Instagram Reels than dove in on and YouTube shorts. We're even seeing, you know, LinkedIn, Facebook Reels. TikTok is saying, if you post horizontal videos, We will give you increased views. Now I've kind of scoured the interwebs seeing people's results from doing this because I do not have the notification from TikTok that is encouraging horizontal videos. I've seen a couple things happen. 1, for users who have not got that notification that they would get increased views, if they post horizontal videos, have still posted horizontal videos just to test out and see if they would still get the views. I have seeing that they have not got increased views. And then I have seen on the flip side, people that have got that notification post horizontal videos, and they have said that While they have seen an increase in the number of views they've gotten, they haven't seen an increase in engagement or saves or follows. And it seems like to them, TikTok is pushing out these videos, these horizontal videos, and the quality of views is maybe not as high as they would get with other videos. So while they're incentivizing this push for horizontal, it's not benefiting them enough to deviate from what they would normally create. Now another thing that TikTok is also testing out is upload limits. So now TikTok has expanded, and I believe this is still in a testing phase, but upload limits of up to 30 minutes, which is obviously a strategic move by TikTok to, you know, incentivize creators to go for depth rather than speed in that hyper fast paced content that Usually keeps people engaged for around 7 to 12 seconds. What we're seeing across the board is content recycling. Creators are already posting between so many platforms. I know for myself, I use Metricool to schedule my post, and I'm just going anywhere the content fits. So if I'm uploading a short form video, if it fits across the board on Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on. I'll just upload. Like, why would I not? And as creators are doing that, they're spreading their content across the board. TikTok needs to stay fresh. They need to stay on the cutting edge, and they were leading the trends for quite a while. YouTube has been a threat to TikTok since the start of TikTok because they're both video first platforms. Advertisers wanna go where the conversions happen, and people still spend a lot of time on Facebook. That's why Advertising on Meta is still so popular. Some people have had great success with advertising on YouTube. It's Google. So, you know, 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars every year in ad revenue. And TikTok's still really big for ad revenue, but always looking for ways to make it stronger. And there's only so much attention we have as consumers to give to these social media apps. If I'm gonna open up an app, is it gonna be Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, wherever, or is it gonna be TikTok? Instagram has leaned into messaging and the DMs part of that platform and stories. YouTube has leaned into, you know, longer form content, which they already have going there, and they've got the short form content with shorts. So it's obvious that TikTok is just trying any way they can to keep people on the app, keep them more engaged, and offer depth in the way that YouTube does. Now I love asking people if they watch anything longer form on TikTok. I haven't met anyone who watches long form things on TikTok. If you do, I would love to know because all I can tell, nobody watches, you know, 15 minute TikToks. At the end of the day, I think we're just seeing TikTok slowly shift into more of a broader market and become something bigger than just a Vine duplicate. And last for today, Apple has a new podcast transcript feature happening in the next Ios 17.4 update, which is supposed to come out in March. Now why this is a game changer is Accessibility, for 1, reaching a wider audience, people who are hard of hearing. I just recently posted a clip from an interview I did a few months back with Ariel from Descript and SquadCast who had said that she would love to see more of in podcast's transcripts. She lives in New York, and she would love to be able to read the podcast. And it makes perfect sense. Just last night, I was listening to a podcast, and I missed something. And I was like, Instead of trying to hear what they said, it would just so nice to be able to click a button and it pop right up when I'm using the Apple Podcasts app. Apple Podcasts, the app, is still the largest podcast listening app, so it's a big deal. Now transcripts aren't anything new to podcasts, but the way at which people consume the information is gonna be new in this sense because Apple Podcasts is so popular with the the app itself, not just Apple Podcasts. Right? It's the app. It's the way people are consuming the content and it being readily available for them. People don't wanna go to the website. Like, for me, for example, if I'm doing the dishes, you know, I can't Go to the show notes. Click the website. Everyone has their show notes formatted differently. Go to the website. Navigate that whole thing. There's a pop up. I'm not doing all that. If it was simply one press of a button and I could just see what's being said, total game changer. What's also cool about this update is, In addition to, like, just the transcript, they're auto transcribing podcasts, so you don't have to upload a transcript with your podcast. Apple will do it for you. You can edit what they transcribe, but it works like this. If you're a podcaster, you download the transcript, you would edit it, and then you would upload it. You'd have to wait for Apple's version first, which depending on the length of your episode could take a couple hours, then you would have to download it and then upload it, which Apple Podcasts is never the fastest on the back end for podcasters, so you have to be a little patient there. But I think this is gonna be a fantastic way for podcasters to connect with their audience. And I hope that it improves SEO optimization for podcasts, which I'm sure we'll learn more about as it rolls out. And circling back on what I said about Apple auto transcribing your podcast. You'll also be able to upload your own transcription if you would like, which there will be some settings in the back end of Apple Podcasts Connect that you will need to toggle there. And as always with new features like this, I think podcasters who jump on it quickly and come up with creative use cases on how to use it to boost audience engagement will win. I'm still wrapping my head around, you know, how will I wanna use it with this podcast, and I think of some podcast where I just would love to breeze through. I maybe don't wanna listen to the episode because reading is faster than listening. I don't exactly know yet all of the, wins and use cases that there will be for it, but I'll be thinking about it and paying attention to what I wish I had as I'm listening to podcast. And that wraps up this week's episode. If you are a creator and would like to join us inside the creator club where we have weekly live calls, a whole positive, uplifting community of creators that just support each other. It's an awesome place to be and hang. Come join us at the creator club.com. There's a link in the episode description straight to it. I'll catch you next week.