Happy Tuesday!
I hope all of our U.S.-based subscribers had a great long weekend! Alexa and I spent it enjoying great live music in Nashville 
Now, here’s the DTC news you need to know:
Public comments are coming to Instagram Stories:
One of the most consumed forms of social media will soon support public comments. This is an attempt to boost app engagement outside of private DMs. Read more in Industry News below
Meta rolls out its AI Studio to influencers:
The tool will allow creators to deploy an AI chatbot version of themselves over DM. It’s beta phase of the tool is already quite impressive. Check out an example in Tool of the Week below
Parts of the Texas SCOPE Act, aimed at protecting minors on social media have gone live:
The law will require minors to have parental consent in order to make a social media account. Parts of the law, like requiring social media companies to prevent harmful content from being displayed to minors, have been blocked temporarily by a judge
Meta is experimenting with updating Instagram’s square profile grid feeds:
Anyone who’s managed an Instagram profile feed knows how painful it is to crop a 4×3 photo or 9×16 video into a square format. Will this finally change for good?
NBC planning to engage TikTok influencers to draw younger viewers for the NFL’s opening week:
NBC Sports plans to enlist Allison Kuch, Jack “Chef Cuso” Mancuso, Erika Priscilla, JoJo Sim, Austin Sprinz, Pierson Wodzynski, and Nate Wyatt – after it piloted its creator group for the Paris Olympics
Enjoy the rest of the newsletter!
Cheers,
Al and Alexa
Industry News by Al
Public comments are coming to Instagram Stories
The feature is currently being rolled out to users, with some saying they’ve received a notification: “You can now comment on Stories. Comments are visible to anyone who views the story.”
Story comments are displayed pretty unobtrusively, right above the standard control bar.
Adding comments to Stories is a brilliant move from Instagram in terms of boosting app engagement. It’s common for me to receive replies in the form of a private DM whenever I post an Instagram Story. And 9 times out of 10, that Story reply could have been a public comment, which could’ve led to further engagement from my followers.
Curious to see how the feature rollout will be received by influencers and brands, some of whom see social media comments as a risk or chore.
Personally, I think this unlocks a ton more potential for brands, influencers, and creator-affiliates to build community. Think about it… one of the most commonly consumed forms of media all of a sudden supports public engagement from users.
Example video linked here.
Brand of the Week by Alexa
Little Bipsy, selling modern & unique baby/toddler apparel for any “little stylers” faced a typical challenge for brands working with influencers….they had no formalized structure to scale their partnerships or measure attributable value easily. Until they met LoudCrowd.
Little Bipsy was able to achieve this in just 2 months from 40 creators:
$40K in monthly creator sales
17.8% conversion rate on traffic from social media
58% increase in UGC from program members
20X ROI
You can read more about their success in our case study here.
Content of the Week by Alexa
For this week’s listen, check out LoudCrowd’s CEO Gary Garofalo‘s conversation with Andrea Neira Muñoz-Quirós on Gigapay‘s podcast here.
The TLDR:
1. Embrace marketing risks — create a feedback loop with your creators to see what their real needs are, and if you’re able to meet them.
2. Invest in influencers and affiliates as distribution channels — brands can no longer be dependent on Meta and TikTok as distribution channels.
3. Get creative with partnerships to stay relevant — tap into your professional counterparts in your industry, such as makeup artists, hair stylists, etc. to curate a partnership around their work and your products.
Tool of the Week by Al
The Meta AI Studio
Meta recently announced the rollout of its AI Studio in the United States. The tool allows users to create AI chatbots based on them, designed to sound like them. The bots can even have avatars, personalities, and knowledge sets.
We had the chance to mess around with Harry Jowsey‘s Instagram AI chatbot and it was quite impressive – especially when it came to influencer and affiliate marketing prompts.
The chatbot was able to respond with Harry’s:
- Recommended product from his brand… The Ritual
- Favorite clothing brand… STAX.
- Affiliate discount code for STAX.
It’ll be interesting to see what adoption rate and use cases come out of the rollout.
LoudCrowd Updates by Alexa
Social Commerce 
Philanthropy
For the LoudCrowd update this week, we wanted to shoutout one of our partners unique storefront program.
While many brands jumped on the OOTD trend during sorority recruitment season, Pashion Footwear took a fresh approach by launching a Sorority Ambassador Program. This program gives sorority chapters the chance to create their own Pashion Footwear storefront, where sisters can shop for key events like formals on a page curated by their fellow sisters.
Here’s the exciting part: All commissions from storefront sales go directly to the sororities’ chosen philanthropic partners.
You can learn more about this program here, or reach out to your dedicated LoudCrowd Client Strategist to explore how your brand can create a similar program.
