Happy Friday Reader, it's been a long week, or is it just me?

This week I have been slowing down a touch, recharging. It has been a learning curve in itself, especially as we are officially gearing up towards the next stage of the Alt Marketing School next month (cannot say much YET, but I can say that it is VERY exciting)

In the meantime, we recorded last week's marketing news and trends Clubhouse chat to give you a sneak peak of what you can expect each and every week.

To jin us for today's chat at 1pm GMT, check out the Alt Marketing School Club.

This past week, thanks to a viral Clubhouse chat, we learned about Mark Zuckerberg’s favorite meme of himself, hottest news of the week, if you ask me 👀

What else has the world of marketing been up to in the past 7 days? Let’s find out.

Fab

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE 🎙

In this special episode of the podcast, you get a first-hand experience of Fab and Becca's Clubhouse events, happening every Friday, where they run through the hottest news in the marketing world.

NEWS IN BRIEF

• 🍖 The world did not know it needed this until it was unveiled. In a Clubhouse chat on Thursday (which capped at a stellar 8k attendees), host Josh Constine asked Zuckerberg how he feels about his meme-worthiness. Zuckerberg said a viral 2016 Facebook Live video of him smoking meats is probably his favorite meme to date. Pretty hot.
• 💬 As spotted by Matt Navarra, TikTok has added a new, automated response option for messages to business accounts, which could make it easier to manage common queries and provide relevant information. This is just following another pretty exciting update, which sees the platform testing introducing a group chat feature this year.
• 🐦 Social media manager and friend Becca Holloway spotted this last week, yet it looks like Twitter is pushing for Spaces to have their dedicated space in the feed, in order to maximizes awareness of in-progress conversations. Currently, the process of joining Spaces is still clunky, but as you can see in this example, from Jane Manchun Wong, the app is working on a new tab to encourage discoverability.
• 🧨️ What is one of the most annoying things about Instagram? The fact that you cannot save your stories as drafts, of course. Looks like this is about change.​
• 🕺 Just dance…with Apple.Apple promotes TikTok dance challenge in Brazil using Apple Watch. With the hashtag #DançarTbConta, which means“Dancing also counts (as exercis_]” — Apple takes advantage of the popularity of the app in the country while promoting dance exercise on the Watch. Time to bust a move.
• 🌊 A new wave of changes for TikTok. After a few weeks or near radio-silence, TikTok has been spotted testing a variety of features, which could truly change the way we interact with the app forever. These include auto-captions, video playlists, and (most controversial) the ability to upload longer videos as Instagram toys with the idea of 60-second Reels. Would longer videos defeat the primary aim of the platform? Only time will tell.
• 📺 In this excellent piece from the New York Times, we see how Amazon Live is a prominent example of how interactive video shopping, often associated with 90s telenovela ad breaks, has moved online.

TO BOOKMARK: BEHIND THE TOM CRUISE DEEPFAKE CRAZE

​

Chris Ume, the Belgian visual effects artist and deepfake expert who created the Cruise videos, opens up to Vice about what it took to start a viral sensation on TikTok.

​