Behold, 20 of the funniest YouTube videos ever

Reddit remains the internet's best dumping ground for some of the funniest content out there. While Reddit has produced some great original material, users on the site equally love to pay tribute to amazing content on other sites.

This happened when Redditor u/sporite went onto to the Ask Reddit subreddit to get a general idea of what videos — viral or not — always manage to make Reddit users laugh hysterically. The result was a thread that contained a buffet of the best YouTube videos that are absolutely hilarious.

SEE ALSO: YouTuber attacked by flying cheese fondue in spectacular viral video

Animals, Vines (RIP), and plenty of fails are just a few of the highlights of the entire 1000+ comment thread. While there were a ton of suggestions, we've selected the crème de la crème of the bunch.

So please, enjoy 20 of the funniest YouTube videos Reddit has deemed to be worthy of internet gold.

1. Nice, Ron

Ron really just finds a way to screw something up somehow, and the person filming the video makes sure he knows this.

Posted by u/coverack.

2. White Bear on Ice

During the filming for a White Bear Mitsubishi ad, a polar bear just can't seem to get his balance. The last fall is definitely the best one though.

Posted by u/Emmaleigh3341.

3. Guy Falls Asleep Playing EVE Online

Words cannot describe the noises that are coming from Tim when he fell asleep playing EVE Online with his friends. Give the video a watch and please explain how this can be considered "snoring."

Posted by u/Scunner132.

4. Dog Imitating a Siren

This video is both hilarious and precious. You need to absolutely check out how impeccable this doggo's impression of an emergency siren is.

Posted by u/asd090316.

5. Cat Jump Fail

This viral video tells such a compelling narrative whose complexity is further conveyed through the solid music choice that accompanies it. Give this video a watch to see this cat jump where no cat has jumped before.

Posted by u/PacSan300.

SEE ALSO: 10 viral videos that turned out to be fake

6. How is prangent formed

Yahoo! Answers was a beautiful dumping ground for the strangest questions, and the most ridiculous spelling mistakes. This amazing video tackles the topic of pregnancy, and the internet's inability to even spell the word.

Posted by u/HippoFalcon_.

7. Chris Pratt's Blooper Reel from Parks & Rec

What a gem. Chris Pratt on Parks & Rec is a gift that keeps on giving. And if you aren't convinced, then just take a look the series' blooper reels.

Unfortunately the original blooper video that Reddit users held in high regard has since been taken down. Fortunately, there's no shortage of Parks & Rec blooper compilations on YouTube.

Posted by u/PenguinWITTaSunburn.

8. Liam Neeson Doing Improv

Liam Neeson's stern and cold delivery of every line in this sketch is absolutely hilarious. He takes his role of a hypochondriac to a whole other level that will remain forever untouched by actors for years to come.

Posted by u/furrrsurre.

9. My Waffle Wedded Wife

This YouTube video is really sweet. When a bride and a groom are at the altar exchanging vows, the bride's husband-to-be accidentally says, "My waffl-y wedded wife," instead of "lawfully wedded wife." They crack up, the minister makes more jokes, and the entire audience also joins in on the laugh. Definitely a solid sign of a long and happy marriage.

Posted by u/IveGotAnElasticHeart.

10. You Wanna Play a Little Game?

I'm not going to spoil what happens in this video, but there's a reason why Reddit loves it. Jigsaw would be proud, maybe.

Posted by u/Stevepac9.

SEE ALSO: 20 best comedies streaming on Netflix right now

11. She's a Wolf in Mouse Clothing

Animals screaming seems to be a recurring theme in the videos that Reddit users seem to enjoy. These dubbed over mice screaming into the void is both hilarious and relatable.

Posted by u/Skyeborne.

12. Funniest Game Show Answers of All Time

Sometimes coming up with answers on the spot can be a little daunting, but this compilation video proves otherwise. Some of these just really GO for it you know? My favorite one is the person who is asked about a vegetable you marinate and he replies with "grapes." Iconic.

Posted by u/powerspyin1.

13. "A Child" Vine

RIP Vine, we hardly knew ye. This iconic five-second clip of someone clearly not getting the point is a staple among those on Reddit. It's dark humor at its finest.

Posted by u/_Bereavement.

14. Hilarious Jack Russell Goes Crazy with Excitement

This doggo was so excited to compete in the Agility Test at Crufts 2017. He was speedy, but he didn't necessarily keep his eyes on the prize, or his owner for that matter.

Posted by u/doubleohnicole.

15. Hi, I'm Ed Asner

This video starts innocently enough with Ed Asner introducing himself, but then he takes a freaking knife out of nowhere? I need an explanation, but I'm also OK knowing Asner isn't here to mess around, I guess.

Posted by u/Starman926.

SEE ALSO: Woman's harp playing attracts a deer fan in this viral video

16. Sulfur Hexafluoride Blooper

Helium needs to move aside because sulfur hexafluoride is here to snatch the crown for the best gas-induced funny voice. This old blooper shows a man inhaling this gas which makes his voice incredibly deep. This rule apparently applies to burps as well considering this man lets out an inhuman belch that will shake you to your core.

Posted by u/greenagemutantninja.

17. Rammstein vs Cookie Monster

Cookie Monster apparently has an affinity for German industrial metal music. Watch this amazing collab between Rammstein and Cookie Monster that Reddit apparently hails as the world's most iconic duo.

Posted by u/DammitPantera.

18. Head Smashes Board

A motivational speech about believing in yourself takes an odd turn when this man tries to break a "bored" using just his head. This does not turn out the way he expected it to. Perhaps if he believed in himself a little harder, this viral video would have a different ending.

Posted by u/TagProNoah.

19. Look at this Graph

You'd be doing yourself a major disservice if you didn't listen to this amazing, uncut edition of "Photograph" by Nickelback.

Posted by u/PacSan300.

20. The Brakes

Who would've thought that Tina driving a car in Bob's Burgers would translate so well in real life? While in this particular case there's a massive ship, its pretty likely the captain was experiencing the same feelings of anxiety as Tina did in this amazing dubbed-over video.

Posted by u/silverhydra.

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What to know before signing up for Bluesky

If you're on Twitter, you've probably seen people flocking to Bluesky, a social platform hailed as a promising alternative to the now-ailing bird app. It looks nearly identical to Twitter, was initially funded by Twitter, and calls itself a "social network for microblogging" which, huh, is funny because that's exactly what Twitter is. Anyway! Before you go running for Bluesky's greener pastures, it’s important to know what you’re agreeing to when you sign up for the platform.

Bluesky currently owns everything you post

On Thursday Apr. 27, Twitter user Ashley Gjøvik tweeted about Bluesky's disconcertingly broad terms of service. She tweeted several screenshots of the terns, including a snippet that reads "If you post any content to the Bluesky Web Services, you hereby grant Bluesky and its licensees a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, sublicense, and distribute the content, on or in connection with the Bluesky Web Services."

In plain English that means: we own everything you post.

Rose Wang, who works in Strategy and Operations at Bluesky according to her LinkedIn profile, replied to Gjøvik's screenshots with an explanation of how Bluesky's team intends to interpret the terms: "In order for us to operate, we need to be able to promote the app," wrote Wang.

"That means, we will take screenshots of Bluesky, which will include your users’ content. That said, we have explicitly told our community that if we are using your content in a way you disapprove of, please email us... and we’ll do our best to honor your wishes. Bluesky was created so that users own their data, devs will never be locked out of the ecosystem, and creators can always own the relationship with their users... Thus, we are doing our best as [a] team to honor our ethos... Soon, our ToS will spell out use cases to mitigate confusion."

That all sounds nice. But Terms of Service agreements amount to a binding contract, and tweets claiming a company is "doing [its] best" to use your content a certain way do not.

SEE ALSO: Is Bluesky the one? A Twitter alternative takes off.

These terms are harsh, even compared to Facebook

Let's take a look at Facebook's terms of service, which are much more nuanced in their explanation of user rights. "You retain ownership of the intellectual property rights," the terms page reads. "Nothing in these Terms takes away the rights you have to your own content... However, to provide our services we need you to give us some legal permissions (known as a 'license') to use this content."

The Facebook terms document then outlines what is covered by the license, and notes that it only applies "specifically when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products." The document also provides a helpful example: if you post a photo, you grant Facebook certain necessary permissions, allowing Facebook's parent company Meta to duplicate it, store it, and share it with others in ways "consistent with your settings." Reassuringly, it notes that the license you grant "will end when your content is deleted from our systems."

Bluesky may just be protecting itself because it's new

In comparison to Facebook's terms, Bluesky's read like a first draft put in place to satisfy a legal team, probably so the platform could start onboarding users and, for her part, the CEO has claimed this is essentially what happened. You know what they say in tech: move fast, break things, and claim ownership of your users' content!

Wang's replies point to another sticky subject: copyright. "We must protect ourselves," she wrote. Journalists, according to Wang, have been "taking screenshots of the app and putting it into their publications," and the terms need to make it possible to "transfer rights to license content to them." In the case of moderation, Wang said, copyright once again comes into play. Bluesky must be able to legally transfer content to moderators "so that they can scan through content" and sift out objectionable material.

These terms might have downsides for Bluesky itself

But owning user content, and being able to transfer rights to that content, may mean BlueSky is not protected by the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Under the DMCA, safe harbor protection goes away if a company has the "right and ability to control" copyright-infringing content and can potentially profit off of it. That means these terms leave Bluesky vulnerable to costly copyright infringement litigation, which would sap the fledgling app's potential.

For all its promise, Bluesky is still very much a work in progress. And while it's never fun to read the fine print, it's worth taking a quick look before handing over your content to Bluesky.

Mashable has reached out to Bluesky's CEO for comment, and will update if we hear back.

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Is Bluesky the one? A Twitter alternative takes off.

A centrist political pundit being ratioed the moment he arrives. Discourse that would have people who overuse the word "woke" frothing at the mouth. A CEO begging users to please not call posts on the platform "skeets." Users continue to call said posts "skeets." Oh, and @dril and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are there now too.

As one Bluesky user put it, it appears Bluesky has the "juice."

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

If you're unfamiliar with Bluesky don't worry. Most everyone was unaware of the platform before yesterday too. So, what is Bluesky? 

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky is a "decentralized" social media platform backed by former Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey. It's led by CEO Jay Graber, who was chosen by pre-Musk Twitter at least in part thanks to her background as a crypto developer, according to CoinDesk. It was meant to function a bit like Mastodon, another Twitter alternative, with its federated universe of individual servers that users can traverse. But Bluesky is very new, and those separations between communities that ended up working against Mastodon — since many users found them confusing — have basically not been built yet.

SEE ALSO: Bluesky, Jack Dorsey's decentralized Twitter killer, is now on Android

What we are left with is a barebones "microblogging" app extremely reminiscent of the early days of Twitter. It looks like old Twitter from the UI, and as of yesterday, down to the low-stakes fun postings. Short, funny posts reign supreme on the app right now.

On Bluesky, you can't DM anyone. There's no video functionality. Users can't even upload a GIF. 

Users have 300 characters per post (I'm sorry, I mean per "skeet") and can post non-moving images. That's it. How do you find content? There's a following feed filled with chronological posts from the users you follow. And there's a "What's Hot" feed, which appears to chronologically show posts on the platform that receive a lot of "reposts" and "likes" regardless of whether you are following the user or not.

There's no NFT profile pics. There's no blue checkmark verification badges, even if you have $8 to spare. Hell, I can't even figure out where I can change my password, if that's even possible to begin with.

Can I get on Bluesky?

Bluesky right now is invite-only. Two weeks ago, I was given an invite and set up my account. At the time, the platform was pretty boring. The user base was almost entirely techies: Annoying Web3 guys proselytizing about blockchain and good developers talking earnestly about their profession. That's okay I guess, but that's not Twitter. I thought Bluesky would go the way of these other Twitter alternatives: Fine as a niche community, but nope, not going to take the place of Twitter.

Will Bluesky be the Twitter killer?

But then from Wednesday evening into Thursday, something happened. It appears a number of Bluesky invite codes just happened to land into the right hands: Funny Twitter shitposters.

Since Elon Musk first took over Twitter, many users have longed for a place to go that's free of Musk and his way of running a social media site. Every decision from Musk had weighed into the degradation of the platform, but probably the most jarring change was the prioritization of people who pay $8 for Twitter Blue. Their posts are everywhere now, filling the For You feed and being pushed to the very top of the replies on a tweet's reply thread.

Bluesky just was the right app, in the right place, at the right time.

Now, it's still very early. One good day does not make a platform. Just because Bluesky spent all day trending on Twitter, doesn't mean Twitter should be worried, even though Zoe Schiffer of Platformer reported that Bluesky was a hot topic in private Twitter chats.

What are Bluesky's weaknesses?

Bluesky could still screw it all up. For example, the platform's currently invite-only status could be a boon or kill it off. Bring in new people too fast, you may bring in too many of the undesirables that ruined Twitter too quickly. Bring in new people too slow, good users will lose interest because it just took too long to get that invite. And let's not forget, they still want to do that whole "decentralized" thing that most normal people find confusing.

If Bluesky does actually end up taking a bite out of Twitter's market share, though, it would be very funny, because Twitter actually did give Bluesky a good chunk of its initial funding. Before Musk took over, Twitter and Bluesky had a partnership, and when Musk came on the scene after spending $44 billion to acquire Twitter, that partnership ended.

But not before Bluesky received $13 million from its now-rival to create what it has so far. That's a fun fact that will make for some good skeetable content.

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Social media demographics to inform your brand’s strategy in 2023

Looking for the latest social media demographics for 2023?

You’ve hit the jackpot.

The importance of a data-driven social strategy can’t be overstated — up-to-date demographics are crucial to marketers.

Because the social space is constantly evolving. With more networks available than ever before, you need to spend your time and budget wisely. Specifically, you should focus on where your customers are.

And while you may think you know which networks matter most to your target audience, 2023’s numbers might surprise you.

Social media demographics: the numbers you need to know

From choosing your priority platforms to conducting market research, demographic data is key to understanding which networks and campaigns deserve your attention.

Want to know which apps are up-and-coming? Curious about new opportunities to cross-post your content? Worried that a network might be “dying?”

We’ve got you covered.

Below is our list of must-know social media demographics for 2023 (and beyond). These numbers are based on the latest research and social media statistics available at the time of writing.

And as an added bonus, we’ve also highlighted strategic takeaways for each network to guide your social marketing strategy.

• Facebook demographics and usage
• Instagram demographics and usage
• TikTok demographics and usage
• Twitter demographics and usage
• LinkedIn demographics and usage
• Pinterest demographics and usage
• Snapchat demographics and usage
• YouTube demographics and usage

Facebook demographics and usage

• Number of monthly active users: 2.963 billion
• Largest age group: 25-34 (29.9%)
• Gender: 44% female, 56% male (no data on other genders)
• Time spent per day: 30 minutes

Takeaways from Facebook demographics for 2023

• Facebook still remains the largest social platform among consumers and marketers.
• Case in point: Facebook accounts for the bulk of Meta’s ad revenue versus Instagram (58% to 41.5% of $121.9 billion).
• Still, time spent on Facebook continues to fall as overall social media usage grows.
• Following 2022’s social media demographic data, younger users continue to flock to TikTok and Snapchat.

Instagram demographics and usage

• Number of monthly active users: 2 billion (self-reported), other reports cite 1.35 billion
• Largest age group: 18-24 (30.8%)
• Gender: 48.2% female, 51.8% male (no data on other genders)
• Time spent per day: 30.1 minutes

Takeaways from Instagram demographics for 2023

• The platform’s growth remains steady after experiencing a boom period in recent years.
• Instagram saw a small (but notable) flip in its age demographics. The platform boasts a slightly larger percentage of Gen Z users versus Millennials.
• As far as social media age demographics go, Instagram maintains a firm hold on both generations — these groups make up roughly two-thirds of their base.
• Losing its status as the “hip” social network to TikTok, the platform doubled down on Reels. Emphasis on short-form video seems to be paying off. In fact, Reels reportedly drive the most engagement on the platform.
• Recent Instagram stats signal the platform’s shift to becoming an ecommerce hub. However, the app is still figuring things out as it revamps its social shopping features.

TikTok demographic data and usage

• Number of monthly active users: 834.3 million, other reports cite 1+ billion
• Largest age group: 18-24 (21%)
• Gender: 54% female, 46% male (no data on other genders)
• Time spent per day: 45.8 minutes

Takeaways from TikTok demographics for 2023

• TikTok’s popularity and growth remain unprecedented. There are over 150 million active users on TikTok in the United States alone.
• Not only is TikTok’s user base booming but also its daily activity. TikTok boasts the highest average time spent per day of any network.
• The fact that the platform’s gender demographics are leveling out is also notable. Last year, the split was 61% female and 39% male.  This signals TikTok’s status as a staple social app among the population at large.
• As more and more brands get on board, we’re seeing influencers do the same.
• TikTok is ramping up and “maturing” to meet the needs of its business-minded users. New features including more advanced ads and CRM integrations.

Twitter demographics and usage

• Number of daily active users: 237.8 million
• Largest age group: 18-29 (42%)
• Gender: 34.1% female, 61.29% male (no data on other genders)
• Time spent per day: 34.8 minutes

Takeaways from Twitter demographics for 2023

• Twitter’s usage and growth have remained fairly consistent year-to-year.
• It remains to be seen how the recent shake-up in Twitter’s leadership will impact the app long-term. The same goes for features like Twitter Blue and the platform’s ads.
• Some reports note a spike in activity while others note a migration away from the app.
• One-third of Twitter users are college-educated and make more than $75K annually, highlighting the platform’s highly-educated and high-earning base.
• Twitter’s status as a place to discuss events and gather breaking news make it a prime place to share content and drive discussions.

LinkedIn demographics and usage

• Number of monthly active users: 900 million
• Largest age group: 30-39 (31%)
• Gender: 43% female, 57% male (no data on other genders)
• 63% of LinkedIn users access the network weekly, 22% daily (in 2020)

Takeaways from LinkedIn demographics for 2023

• Conventional wisdom might say that LinkedIn exclusively caters to an older audience. That said, Millennials dominate the platform.
• LinkedIn continues to net record revenue and user growth. This growth was driven initially by the pandemic and continued during the shifting job market.
• The platform’s demographic of high-earning B2B professionals makes LinkedIn a potential goldmine for ads.
• According to LinkedIn themselves, it’s the top-rated social network for lead generation. This makes LinkedIn a prime source for B2B marketers looking for motivated audiences and communities.
• Beyond the 200 million LinkedIn users in the US, the platform has a massive international reach.

Pinterest demographics and usage

• Number of monthly active users: 450 million
• Largest age group: 25-34 (28.5%)
• Gender: 76.2% female, 17% male, 6.6% unspecified
• Time spent per day: 14.2 minutes

Takeaways from Pinterest demographics for 2023

• The platform saw a surprising spike in male users during 2021 but Pinterest’s core demographic remains female.
• The platform’s dedicated base of 450+ million monthly active Pinners continues to grow. This number is up from 400 million in 2022.
• Pinterest is perhaps the most produced-focused of any social network, signaling big opportunities for ads (hint: 45% of Pinterest users have a household income of $100,000+).
• Shopping-centric organic content is fair game, too  — almost 70% of users say they trust Pinterest and it’s their favorite place to research products.
• Pinterest is unique when it comes to demographics on social media due to its 1) gender split and 2) wide age range of its users.

Snapchat demographic data and usage

• Number of monthly active users: 750 million
• Largest age group: 18-24 (34%)
• Gender: 51% female, 48% male (no data on other genders)
• Time spent per day: 30.4 minutes

Takeaways from Snapchat demographics for 2023

• Although Snapchat may not be the most talked-about or “trendy” network anecdotally, the platform saw growth in 2022.
• Snapchat is still huge with the younger crowd, although it recently lost its top spot as teenagers’ go-to network. The platform continuously emphasizes its popularity with Gen Z.
• Even if you aren’t active on Snapchat, it’s a prime place for trendspotting and learning what younger consumers want.
• With Snapchat’s steady growth in revenue, the platform isn’t going anywhere.

YouTube demographics and usage

• Number of monthly active users: 2.1 billion worldwide
• Largest age group: 15-35 (highest reach)
• Gender: 51.4% female, 48.6% male (no data on other genders)
• Time spent per day: 45.6 minutes

Takeaways from YouTube demographics for 2023

• YouTube’s popularity among younger users highlights the ongoing, long-term shift toward video content.
• The growth of YouTube Shorts is notable as the platform looks to tap into the power of short-form video.
• Marketers note that YouTube is still a sort of land of opportunity advertising-wise. The platform’s ad revenue held steady from where it was last year as it approaches $30 billion annually.
• This revenue growth signals not only the platform’s influence as a social network but also as a go-to streaming service.
• Still, the majority of users claim to use YouTube for entertainment rather than to find brands and products. Brands still have a lot of work to do on the platform, finding a balance between entertainment and advertising.

Are social media demographics part of your strategy?

Keep in mind that this data is generalized across billions of users and serves as a starting point for brands looking to prioritize their social platforms.

If you’re looking to expand your reach, we recommend looking into the demographic data from your own social presence to see how it compares to the averages above.

These social media platform demographics

Whether these numbers confirm what you already suspected or serve as eye-openers, make sure to bookmark them as you iron out your social strategy for 2023.

And speaking of which, make sure to check out our free social media templates to keep you organized every step of the way.

The post Social media demographics to inform your brand’s strategy in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

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Sprout Tested: The answer to why you put links in the comments on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become a different kind of social space. What used to be a place to post job openings has become a go-to hub of thought leadership and engaging content for job-seekers, employees, investors and customers alike.

This content explosion isn’t imagined. According to LinkedIn, platform members viewed 22% more Feed updates in 2022, year over year. But ramping up your content and LinkedIn marketing strategy on the platform will inevitably lead to questions in the effort to get it right. And one of the biggest questions we’ve seen about LinkedIn content is whether or not you should put links in your posts, or in the first comment.

We were curious too: why put the link in comments on LinkedIn? So we designed an experiment to find out. Keep reading to see what we did, our results and learnings to bolster your strategy.

Why put the link in comments in LinkedIn posts? (And does it matter?)

Comments vs. post? Does it make a difference for engagement? Impressions?

As marketers rethink their LinkedIn content strategy, these questions are surfacing more and more. With bandwidth already thin for social teams, it pays to be sure the posts you push out on the platform are optimized for maximum social media engagement.

Our social team designed an experiment to answer this question. “I have seen an increasing volume of text-only posts on LinkedIn, which is why we wanted to do this experiment,” Sprout’s Social Media Strategist—and designer of this experiment—Greg Rokisky tells us. “I’ve seen a lot of carousel and document posts, and I’ve seen a lot of creativity being executed there. So it’s exciting to see how LinkedIn continues to adapt for various post types.”

How we tested adding links to content on LinkedIn

Social media is part art, part science. Conducting social media experiments is one of the best ways to evaluate what content your team should be spending more time on.

Here’s how we designed our experiment—and the variables we controlled for—to get the most accurate results possible.

The post content

Over the course of a month, we created 8 posts designed specifically for this experiment on LinkedIn. First, we picked four articles from our blog that:

• We wanted to post about in the upcoming weeks
• Had actionable, social-first lists and takeaways we could include in a post
• Shared similar takeaways

Then, we created two posts for each article: A post that would contain the link in the comments, like this one:

And another that would contain the link within the post itself, like this one:

That left us with four link-in-comments posts, four link-included posts.

The post design

The key here was ensuring that our 8 posts weren’t repetitive, and fit in with our normal flow of content.

To do this, we changed up the text and how information was presented in each post. The link-in-comments posts had a “social-first” design. That is, the post itself had enough value to be sharable and were designed to be:

• Engaging
• Long enough to show the “see more text” prompt
• Value-driven (i.e. included a list of takeaways that provided readers with insights, while also teasing the full article)

The link-included posts had shorter text overall. Where the link-in-comments post copy was designed to be social-first, this copy was geared towards getting readers to click through to the article.

The post frequency

We confined this experiment to a month to spread out and analyze the posts within our regular reporting period. We also published no more than two experiment posts within one week, alternating link-in-comments posts with the link-included ones to avoid redundant content.

Finally, as Greg explains, “We also scheduled using one of the top two of our Optimal Send Time recommendations in Sprout Social to ensure we were scheduling at peak recommended times as an added control.”

Result: Does putting the link in the comments improve performance?

Now comes the fun part. Without further ado, here are the two most impactful results. Drum roll please:

The link-in-comments posts performed better

As Greg explains, “In terms of overall performance and how these posts performed on LinkedIn, the link-in-comments posts performed better and had higher numbers from both an awareness and engagement perspective.”

Not only did these posts perform better than the link-included posts—they also performed well in the context of our larger strategy. In our testing month, two of the link-in-comments posts were among our top 10 performers across all platforms for awareness and engagement.

Here’s a better look at those numbers:

• Awareness results: Link-in-comments posts had a higher average of impressions per post—around 8,136. While the link-included posts had around 3,309 impressions on average—roughly a 3x difference.
• Engagement results: The link-in-comments posts had an average of 261 engagements per post, while the link-included posts fell to 141 average engagements.

To track our results, we tagged our experiment posts in Sprout. Tags helped us pull reports solely featuring our experiment results, which is an effective way to track specific post results, or campaigns. See the tags we used for this experiment below (in Sprout’s dark mode.)

Sprout’s Tag Performance Report gave us an overview of the experiment’s post performance. And we used the Profile and Post Performance reports to analyze how the experiment performed within our overall LinkedIn strategy, including if any were top performers within the month.

If you’re interested in trying these reports for yourself, start a free 30-day Sprout trial.

Posts that were “social-first” performed better

The link-in-comments posts had rich captions that contained takeaways from the link included in the comments. These posts were text-only and “social-first”—that is, designed to fit the platform and acted as a “foot-in-the-door” to lead interested readers in taking the next step to click the link in the comments.

And as mentioned earlier—several of the text-only, social-first posts were in our top 10 posts across all of our channels during our testing month.

These strong test results revealed the right formula for our LinkedIn link posts: a combination of the social-first approach, and putting links in the comments. Testing this post format has the potential to supercharge your post performance as well.

5 Takeaways to use in your LinkedIn strategy

Data is nothing if you don’t put it into action. And there are plenty of ways you can use this experiment to feed how you structure your LinkedIn content, and your LinkedIn best practices.

According to our 2023 Content Benchmarks Report, over half of marketers cite “changing content formats” as a challenge when planning and scheduling content. Use these five takeaways to alleviate some of that stress by knowing where to take your strategy next.

1. Design platform-first posts

Creating posts designed to look native to the platform you’re posting on is like “speaking the language” of the social channel. Not to mention, it works. As Greg puts it, “The posts that felt like they were designed for the channel, or ‘social-first,’ and native to it seemed to perform better overall.”

This also meets your audience with the content type they look for on the platform you’re publishing on. And this goes for any platform—not just LinkedIn. For example, you probably wouldn’t include the same framing or voice effects in a YouTube video that you would in a TikTok or YouTube Short video.

As Greg says, “I think this reinforced our strategy to create content catered to each individual platform.”

Our LinkedIn for Business Template will help you explore ways to make a bigger impact on this channel.

2. Lead with your goals

In this experiment, our goals were social-first—generating more organic engagement and awareness.

But your goal might be focused on other objectives and key results, like driving website visits or purchases. In this case, your social posts may have cross-team implications. Align with other teams on KPIs and the parameters of your experiment to get the data each contributor needs to make informed decisions, and ensure you have access to the necessary tools—Google Analytics data, for example.

For example, if your content team uses Google Analytics to track blog links, work with them to ensure you’re properly tracking your links with UTMs, and can access those results. We go deeper into link tracking in the next section.

3. Plan to track your links separately

One limitation we identified in this experiment was the ability to measure link clicks when the link was in the comments vs. in the post.

Sprout reports measure post link clicks for published posts. However, when the link is in the comments, there’s no way for social platforms to capture that information for the post in LinkedIn analytics.

The solution: To track how many people clicked on your comment link, use UTMs to track your URLs. A UTM is a basic code snippet added to the end of your URL. It tracks the performance of your links and helps you get deeper insights into how people interact with them.

To employ UTMs, use Google’s UTM builder. Or, when you use Sprout, our platform makes it easy for you to implement URL tracking within your publishing workflow, and to shorten your links before you publish.

4. Add the link to your comments to test it for yourself

LinkedIn is already the organic platform that B2B content marketers find the most effective. As you ramp up your posting strategy, try putting links in the comments to potentially kickstart your awareness and engagement.

And if you’re not ready to take the leap, strike a balance. Include your link in the post. But make your text social-first and designed to be engaging for LinkedIn readers. Think: teasing your content with a list of tips, key takeaways and more.

If you use a social media management platform to schedule and publish posts, just remember to comment with the link manually due to API limitations. You’re already engaging with your audience in the comments—which Sprout can also help streamline with our Smart Inbox. Add this step to your current comment and engagement strategy to keep it top of mind, or set reminders.

5. Try crafting platform-specific content experiments

The best way to truly know what makes an impact in you content strategy and what leads to the strongest ROI is to experiment.

Use this article as a guide and design a social media experiment to test different content types, designs and formats in your strategy.

The key is having controls—like how we controlled our posting time, frequency and themes to limit the number of variables we were testing at once. And, to know how you’re going to measure your posts ahead of time.

Having the right tools is crucial to running effective tests. As Greg put it, “When I used to be a social team of one, I ran social media experiments like this and had to lean on spreadsheets that lend to human error. So doing an experiment in a product like Sprout makes it much easier to look back on results, understand trends, dive deeper into posts and keep a controlled experiment.” The easier it is for you to compile your findings and analyze your results, the more motivated you’ll be to test.

Just ensure your test posts feel natural to your strategy. “Doing a social media experiment needs to feel authentic and natural for your audience and platform,” Greg explains.

For example, this is a regular, non-experimental post on our LinkedIn channel. Compare this to the experiment posts we shared above:

Test out what works for your strategy and audience

Social media is constantly in flux. The more content formats and audience preferences change, the more important it is to run experiments that assess what types of content your team should focus on.

The key to running an experiment that leads to actionable insights is organizing your process. Check out our social media testing worksheet to design and run personalized experiments that will fine-tune your strategy and leads to better business results.

The post Sprout Tested: The answer to why you put links in the comments on LinkedIn appeared first on Sprout Social.

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Microsoft removes Xbox gameplay video sharing to Twitter after API fee hike

Yet another Microsoft product is removing its Twitter integration shortly before the social media platform's new high-priced API plans go into effect.

This time it's Xbox.

Last week, Xbox gamers began to notice that they could no longer share video game clips to Twitter. The feature was previously built right into the console and allowed users to record gameplay and share their favorite moments right to the social media platform.

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"We have had to disable the ability to share game uploads to Twitter directly from the console and Game Bar on Windows," the official Xbox Twitter account replied to a few users who noticed the removal of Twitter sharing. "You can still share your favorite moments to Twitter via the Xbox app for Android and iOS."

Xbox's statement adds news of an additional removal from the Game Bar available on Windows computers, which allows similar screen recording and social media sharing functionality.

The official Xbox Twitter account also provided a step-by-step guide for what users could do as an alternative.

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That alternative basically instructs Xbox users to record gameplay that they want to share as usual, then go to the Xbox app on their mobile device, find the clip, and then manually share it to Twitter.

While Microsoft did not specify that Twitter's new API pricing is the reason for this change, it seems very likely. Unlike the quicker and now-defunct method of sharing Xbox clips to Twitter, Xbox's sharing alternative does not use Twitter's API.

Earlier this year, Twitter unveiled plans to sunset its longstanding free API system. Under its new owner Elon Musk, the company announced its new paid-tiers just last month with a starting price for enterprise API access priced at $42,000 per month. As a result, many indie developers were forced to close their Twitter-based applications or function without Twitter integration altogether. 

But, it wasn't just small companies that passed on paying Twitter. Big companies like the online customer service platform Intercom and Microsoft have decided not to subscribe to these high-priced plans too.

Xbox isn't the only Microsoft product to drop Twitter either. Just one day before the Xbox change, Microsoft also announced it would be removing Twitter integration from the social media management feature in its Microsoft Advertising platforms. Again, this is likely due to Twitter's new exorbitant priced API plans.

Microsoft likely won't be the last company to drop Twitter either due to its API pricing. The question is: Who's next?

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'Shadowbanned' tweets are now officially labeled on Twitter

Are some of your tweets not quite getting the engagement you thought they would? Feel like you're being shadowbanned on Twitter?

Well, wonder no more. Twitter has officially rolled out its new label system which notifies users when a specific tweet's reach is being limited. The company announced that tweets have begun being labeled on Monday evening.

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

How do you know what posts are being "shadowbanned?" Users will see a label affixed directly to the specific tweet that says "Visibility limited: this Tweet may violate Twitter's rules against "Hateful Conduct."

Twitter defines "Hateful Conduct" as racist or sexist slurs, tropes, and intimidation. This also includes hateful references, imagery, and incitement. However, the company's policies about what "hateful conduct" is have become looser since Musk took over. Just last week, Twitter removed policies meant to protect trans users from harassment like misgendering and deadnaming.

Here's one way in which the label will appear on tweets, according to Twitter. Credit: Twitter

While tweets that are labeled may see diminished engagement, Twitter says it will not shadowban the author of the tweet at the account level.

Since acquiring Twitter last year, Elon Musk has claimed that the platform will run under the mantra of "freedom of speech, not freedom of reach." According to Musk, this means that his Twitter will allow users to tweet "hateful" content that doesn't break the law. But, Twitter's will make it harder to find in users' feeds. For example, tweets with this label won't be recommended to other users via Twitter's recommendation algorithm.

Transparency is certainly a good thing. And, according to Twitter, being that users will now be aware when a certain tweet is being limited, they will be able to "submit feedback" and appeal the label. The real question though is will this actually be enforced, evenhandedly, and in a truly transparent way. That's something that Elon Musk's Twitter isn't known for quite yet.

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How to use Facebook audience insights for more effective targeting

Just because emerging platforms are coming onto the scene doesn’t mean you should count Facebook out of your social media strategy. With 2.96 billion active users, Facebook is still the third most visited website in the world and boasts a long-time reign as the most used social media platform.

By digging into Facebook audience insights and analytics tools, you are empowered to effectively reach your ideal audience and filter through the billions of active users on the app. With these powerful insights, you can validate assumptions about your audience, start creating more targeted a/b testing, refine your current audience profiles and aggregate audience data across profiles.

Keep reading for an overview of how to use Facebook’s audience insights tool and actionable steps you can take to maximize your paid and organic strategy.

• Why understanding your Facebook audience is important
• Where to find Facebook audience insights
• The different Facebook audience types
• How to use Facebook audience insights
• How Sprout Social helps you define your Facebook audience

Why is understanding your Facebook audience important?

Defining your target audience and learning how they use Facebook will enable you to:

• Spend your ad budget more effectively.
• Determine if the platform should be a high priority for your brand.
• Develop messaging that truly resonates with your audience.
• Optimize your posting strategy.

To understand your audience’s relationship with Facebook, start by researching the latest platform demographic data. Learn who uses Facebook, how often they use it, what they use it for and if users fit within your target audience.

For example, according to Statista, 23.7% of Facebook users are between the ages of 25 and 34, and the majority of them are younger than 44. The app skews male, with 57% of users identifying as such. Statista also discovered that 97.4% of Facebook users access the platform from a mobile device.

Tapping into the Facebook audience insights tool takes it a step further by showing your current audience and zeroing in on your target consumers. With this data on-hand, your decisions will be more informed and customer-centric, translating to more impactful campaigns, advertising efforts and creator partnerships.

To get a head start engaging your audience, complete this free worksheet that will set you up to build authentic connections with your community.

Where to find Facebook audience insights

On Facebook, there are two ways to discover audience insights from your business profile. First, you can see organic audience data including:

• People who like your page broken down by gender and location
• Number of total followers
• Reach and engagement metrics

You can access this data from the Professional dashboard of your Meta Business Suite.

Second, when you run an ad campaign, you can access all the data from your organic view and additional in-depth audience info like:

• Age
• Content preferences (top-performing posts and videos)
• Device usage

Find these metrics in your Meta Ads Manager Ads Reporting and Audience tabs.

You can also explore how your Facebook ad campaign performed with your different audience types, which we will explain in the next section.

What are the different types of Facebook audience types?

When you run a Facebook ad campaign, you have four audience targeting options to ensure you reach your ideal audience.

1. New audiences

New audiences is the default setting option, and refers to new customers who haven’t previously interacted with your brand. You can refine this audience by selecting categories like location, demographics, interests and behaviors.

2. Custom audiences

Custom audiences enable you to connect with people who already show an interest in your business. They might have engaged with your content, visited your site, used your app, completed a recent purchase, or they might be on your customer list.

3. Lookalike audiences

Lookalike audiences are made up of people who share interests with your custom audiences, but haven’t interacted with your business yet. Typically, lookalike audiences are generated using your custom audiences as a source.

These audiences save you time because, rather than starting from scratch to create a new audience, you can rinse and repeat the success of your most successful content and campaigns.

4. Saved audiences

Whenever you create a new custom audience, you can save that audience for future use. Note: you must reselect your ideal location every time you use the audience.

How to use Facebook audience insights

To get started with the Facebook audience insights tool, follow these steps.

1. Upload a custom audience source

Get started by selecting Create a Custom Audience from the Audiences tab of your Ads Manager. From there, choose a custom audience source, including your owned sources like data from your website, app activity, a CRM customer list and more.

You can also use Meta sources, like video engagement, your Instagram account followers, lead forms, event participants and Shopping users.

2. Customize your audience with filters

After selecting your source, indicate additional rule inclusions or exclusions to better refine your audience. The Facebook audience meter will let you know whether your audience is too specific or too broad. Continue iterating until your reach is just right (the ideal audience size is between 2–10 million people). Further customize your audience by age, location, language and gender.

3. Zone-in on interest-based audiences

If you have a relatively large audience (at least larger than 2 million), use additional interest-based targeting to pinpoint a specific audience. Examples of shared audience interests include:

• Business and industry
• Entertainment
• Family and relationships
• Fitness and wellness
• Food and drink
• Hobbies and activities

Then, add the name and description of your audience list and how long you will retain it. Now you’re ready to tap Create New List.

4. Review your audience metrics

After launching your ad campaign, review how your audience list is performing. Are you reaching your campaign goals? If not, make the necessary adjustments to your list. Experiment with narrowing or broadening your audience and redefining your inclusions and exclusions.

5. Save and replicate your best-performing audiences

If your audience performs well, save it for future use. To reach and engage new consumers with similar demographics and behavior patterns, create a lookalike audience.

By tapping the Create a Lookalike Audience button from the Audiences tab, you will be prompted to select an existing audience or data source, select the audience location and size and determine how similar your audience should be to the original (1% lookalike means the audience is as similar to the original as possible). Once you create this audience, you can rerun your ad campaign or continue tailoring the list.

How Sprout Social helps define your Facebook audience

With a platform like Sprout Social, you will master your Facebook strategy by clearly defining your target audience and amplifying the impact of your audience insights.

Our tools will better equip you to leverage Facebook’s native tools, enhance your data-driven decisions and create content that resonates with ideal customers. By doing so, you will increase your audience size and engagements, which are key to increasing demand for your products. Here are a few platform highlights that give you deeper understanding of your target audience.

Social listening

With Sprout’s Social Listening solution, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technology do the heavy lifting for you at scale—sifting through millions of data points to deliver the trends, insights and key audience learnings you need in seconds.

As the Profile Overview demonstrates, the tools enables you to compare followers, volume, potential impressions, likes and engagements from various Facebook profiles to help you level-set your strategy and prove your impact.

Using the Performance Summary tool, you can investigate topics that are most relevant to your audience. Uncover which keywords are driving conversations and use them to refine your interest-based filters when creating Facebook custom audiences.

Network-specific and aggregate metrics

Sprout’s Analytics tools speed up data collection and distribution so your brand can focus on the KPIs that matter, inform strategy and prove ROI. The tools enable you to maintain complete oversight of all connected social profiles from one location.

Use reports like the Facebook Pages report to dig into audience growth trends, impressions, engagements and post link clicks. Compare these findings with other network results to determine overall audience trends.

Paid reporting

To test the efficacy of your Facebook ad audiences, use Sprout’s Paid Performance reports. The Facebook and Instagram report highlights campaign-level data for ad campaigns across Meta platforms. Trends appear against your key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you identify top-performing channels and campaigns.

Maximize Facebook audience insights to up-level your strategy

Making the most of your Facebook strategy starts with having the intel you need to target your ideal audience. By using the native Facebook audience insights tools and a powerful social media management platform like Sprout Social, you will be enabled to refine and grow your audience, which will grow your bottom line.

Ready to gain deeper insights into your Facebook target audience? Start your free 30-day Sprout Social trial today.

The post How to use Facebook audience insights for more effective targeting appeared first on Sprout Social.

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Nearly 25,000 Twitter users pay to subscribe to Elon Musk's exclusive tweets

After this weekend's Twitter Blue drama, debacle, guerilla marketing campaign – whatever you want to call it – Elon Musk shifted gears on Monday to promote Twitter's other paid subscriptions feature called, well, Subscriptions.

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"Content creators may wish to enable subscriptions on this platform," tweeted Musk. "Just tap on Monetization in settings."

Subscriptions allows users to subscribe directly to a specific Twitter creator that has opted into the program. In turn, the creator can provide subscribers with exclusive tweets, subscriber-only Twitter Spaces, and other paywalled content.

Included in Musk's tweet, is a screenshot showing the sidebar navigation menu on Twitter's mobile app. Ostensibly, Musk included this to show interested users where they could sign up. But, there's another bit of information included in that screenshot: It shows just how many users are directly paying Elon Musk for his Subscriptions-only content.

Next to Musk's followers and following counts is another number: Subscriptions, which is actually a private metric only shown to the specific creator so they can see how many users have Subscribed to their paywalled content.

Musk's subscriber count shows at 24.7k, or somewhere between 24,700 and 24,799 paying subscribers. Twitter's owner charges $4 for subscriptions to his account, which puts the amount of money he's making from the Subscriptions feature at nearly $100,000 per month.

That's just under $1.2 million a year, which would be quite a successful outcome for the average content creator. Musk enabled Subscriptions on his account on April 15, so these subscribers all joined within the past 10 days.

But, Musk is quite obviously an anomaly as Twitter's owner and its most-followed user. It's unlikely that any other creator comes close to making anywhere near Musk does from Twitter's Subscriptions feature.

And, taking Musk's other metric into question, it's actually kind of low. Just around 0.018 percent of Musk's more than 136.4 million followers pay to subscribe to Musk's paywalled content.

The Subscriptions feature existed before Musk's acquisition of Twitter, under the name Super Follows. However, Musk wasn't such a fan of the branding and changed it to simply "Subscriptions" in the weeks after he took over last year. The feature has been available since then but it appears Twitter is now re-focusing its efforts on marketing Subscriptions. 

As Super Follows under the old Twitter, the feature failed to take off. But, Musk seems intent to move Twitter away from an advertiser-supported platform, so he continues to center his efforts on subscription models. 

We've yet to really see how Subscriptions under Musk could play out, but if it's anything like how Twitter Blue has gone, it's not looking good. But, maybe it'll end up being just as entertaining to watch play out.

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