SOCIAL
Twitter Adds New Links to Official HIV/AIDS Info in Related Search Queries

Marking World AIDS Day this week (12/1), Twitter has announced an expansion of its search help prompts to now also include HIV-related information, which will see users who search for HIV and AIDS-related keywords shown new alerts that re-direct them to official health resources and information in the app.

As explained by Twitter:
“Today we launched another global expansion of our #ThereIsHelp notification service with a dedicated search prompt for HIV-related information across Asia Pacific and the Americas: Brazil, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, SP-Latam, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. This notification prompt will provide valuable and authoritative resources around HIV and encourage people to reach out and get help when they need it.”
Twitter already provides several similar push prompts linking to official health info related to mental health and suicide prevention, vaccination, child sexual exploitation, and more.
The new addition comes as health authorities around the world look to raise awareness of AIDS and HIV, with infection rates rising during the pandemic.
According to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, over the last decade, the number of people living with HIV around the world has increased from 30.7 million in 2010 to 38 million in 2019, while the restrictions put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 have made increasingly difficult for patients to receive adequate treatment in many regions, exacerbating the impacts.
World Aids Day marks another opportunity to ensure that HIV awareness remains front of mind, and reiterate that the battle against the virus is not over, despite significant advances in treatment in recent times.
In addition to this, Twitter’s also launching a special red ribbon hashflag to further boost awareness.

The hashflag, using the symbol for World AIDS day, will be automatically attached to tweets which use the relevant hashtag, and will be available from November 24th to December 5th.
This is an important push from Twitter, and health authorities around the world, because much like climate change, while other, more immediate concerns have dominated global consciousness in recent times, other, significant societal issues still exist, and are still causing major impacts, in many ways, outside the scope of the current pandemic.
Again, it can seem like we’re moving beyond the worst impacts of such, but we won’t be fully rid of them till we can all commit to doing our part to raise awareness, and mitigate risks that can amplify the spread.
World Aids Day is another reminder of this, and of the ongoing battle against this devastating disease.
SOCIAL
TikTok Launches New ‘Order Center’ eCommerce Tracking Hub with Selected Users

Get ready for TikTok to make a bigger push on in-app shopping, with some users now seeing a new ‘Order Center’ panel in the app, which tracks any products that you’ve purchased, looked at, or even, potentially, may be interested in, in the app.
As you can see in this example, posted by social media expert Matt Navarra, the new ‘Order Center’ is now appearing for some users alongside their ‘Edit Profile’ option in the app.
Tap on it and you’ll be taken through to a dedicated eCommerce display, where you can track all aspects of your TikTok shopping experience, including payment details, items you’ve tagged, recommendations, order status, etc.

It’s the latest in TikTok’s shift towards eCommerce, which has already been a winner in the Chinese version of the app. Indeed, the majority of the revenue generated by Douyin, the Chinese variation of TikTok, now comes from in-stream eCommerce integrations, which has also facilitated new pathways for creator monetization, via brand partnership integrations that enable more organic type promotions in the app.

As such, TikTok is very keen to push the same in TikTok as well – though recent signs have suggested that western audiences are not taking to social commerce with the same enthusiasm as those in the Chinese market.
Just last week, Facebook announced that it’s shutting down its experiments with live shopping in the app, as of October this year. Meta, of course, has other financial pressures to contend with, and it’s been working to streamline its operations, with a focus on its larger metaverse push instead.
But even so, the fact that Meta’s willing to stop experimenting with live commerce entirely would suggest that it hasn’t been seeing good response to its initial experiments, which may not bode well for TikTok’s plans (note: Meta will continue to push ahead with its live shopping experiments on Instagram).
But TikTok needs eCommerce to work, especially from a revenue share perspective.
Many TikTok creators have already expressed their frustration at the inconsistent and low payment amounts available via TikTok’s Creator Fund, and without in-stream ads to directly monetize content, it needs alternative angles to provide revenue-generation tools – or it risks losing its top stars to YouTube instead.
And while TikTok is the app of the moment, it could still see a fall from grace if that does happen, and the app’s big stars shift exclusively to YouTube, which has also been seeing strong growth in the adoption of Shorts, its TikTok clone functionality.
Which is why TikTok continues to plow ahead with eCommerce additions like this – despite general lack of enthusiasm for such in most western markets, which has even seen TikTok itself scale back its live shopping ambitions in Europe due to low adoption and internal conflicts.
But for TikTok, this has to happen, and for parent company ByteDance, which is also dealing with the impacts of the current economic downturn, it has to happen now.
As such, you can expect to see a lot more eCommerce options bleeding into your TikTok feed as we head into the holiday push. Whether you want them or not.