Social media’s wild week

By Sam Whitehead — Marketing Coordinator

For many casual social media users, this week will have transpired like any other. However, for those who were paying attention it has been one for the internet's history books. 

Ultimately, this was all down to two people. Their names? Jacob Mclaughlin and MrBeast. There’s no doubt you'll recognise the name MrBeast, he currently sits on 78 million YouTube subscribers and is one of the biggest, and most outlandish, creators on the planet. But who is Jacob Mclaughlin?

At a quick glance that name might mean nothing to you, but he was responsible for one of the internet's most awe-inspiring online events of all time. Yes of course we’re talking about #singyourdialect. 

What started as a bit of fun between friends quickly became a global hit with the likes of Barack Obama tuning in and Lethal Bizzle blasting out “Wonderwall”. Two names you never thought you’d see in the same sentence, the beauty of the internet…

Without a doubt Jacobs' smart idea caused the worldwide karaoke ripple, but it was Twitter's new idea, ‘Twitter Spaces’, that enabled the idea to gain worldwide traction. The new feature, which works easily and integrates simply into Twitter's platform, allows hosts to create their own ‘Space’. They name the space, they go live, and followers and others can join and request to speak. The host has the power.  

So, what’s the potential?

Well with more than 150,000 tuning in on the first night, and thousands more the next day, there’s clearly a reachability that can probably only be matched by TikTok. Just like TikTok, Spaces has proven anyone can become viral on the internet with a unique idea. On the second night a multitude of high profile brands and franchises joined the space, so evidently, sponsorship opportunities are there as well. Jacob went from 100 to 110,000 followers in under a week, virality out of nowhere. 

The beauty of Twitter Spaces is its open nature, anyone can tune in and everyone can see who’s already there. Thousands can pop in and out enabling a constant stream of attention, and potential, for new hilarious moments with the most unexpected of guests. 

Jacob has plans to run the Space every Tuesday and Sunday, we imagine it’ll only grow in popularity with more stars entering the mix. The big question is however: Was this a ‘you had to be there moment’, or is Twitter Spaces the next social media smash?

Views, view, views…

While records were being smashed in the Twitter Spaces world, MrBeast was amassing impressive numbers on his new YouTube video

Boasting to be the only ‘real-life’ Squid Game, MrBeast imitated the hit Netflix show by spending a whopping $3.5 million to recreate the sets and games. The video was based off Netflix’s most popular ever TV show and hosted by one of YouTube’s biggest stars, it was sure to be a success. Sneak previews of the sets had fans hyped and his ‘spend money to earn views’ format delivered astronomically. 

One million views in 10 minutes,  23 million in 10 hours, 56 million views in one day. These kinds of numbers seem impossible for creators to reach in such a short time, but here we are…

So what does this tell us?

It firstly tells us that nobody learned anything from the actual Squid Game. The irony of Squid Game highlighting social-economic problems in South Korea while MrBeast gives out $456,000 for money hungry Americans was not lost, however, the biggest thing to take from this was the next-level production.

If traditional media services weren’t taking YouTube seriously (I don’t know how they couldn’t) they now have another example of how much money there is in online media. A media that now has the potential  to churn high production creator led videos, and of course, get millions of views. 

So it was clearly a big week for social media, but what will it be remembered for most in due course? Is this just the start of a ‘Twitter Space’ explosion, is this just the start of YouTube's slow conversion to big money, high production creator led content? Only time will tell...

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