Marketing Trends and Happenings: Social Media Edition

From Meta AI to virtual pets, a lot is happening in social media this month. Let’s take our monthly dive into the latest marketing trends and happenings on social media.

---

Meta

Meta AI continues to be the topic on the Meta platforms, with the most notable discussion being around AI’s training. If your posts are public, Meta is allowed to use those posts to train its AI systems. No opt-out options. And no, posting different “opt-outs” as public posts doesn’t work.

According to the user agreement: “…you hereby grant to us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide licence to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of your content.”

Only the E.U. has opt-out options due to the data usage regulations.

---

Facebook

Facebook isn’t giving up hope on the younger generations.

“Facebook is still for everyone, but in order to build for the next generation of social media consumers, we’ve made significant changes with young adults in mind. And with five quarters of healthy growth in young adult app usage in the US and Canada, over 40 million US/CA young adults are daily active users, and this number is the highest in three years.”

Good luck, Facebook, but right now, we aren’t holding out hope as Facebook continues to lose ground with younger users, according to Pew Research.

Facebook is focusing on improving reels, feed rankings, refreshing the video viewing experience, as well as monetization opportunities for creators.

---

Instagram

Virtual pets are coming to Instagram? It appears so and comes with some Tamagotchi vibes. You’ll be able to add a digital character sticker to your story. As your story that includes the pet gets likes, the virtual pet will grow. The full functionality is still unknown.

Additionally, Instagram is testing out a new element for Carousel posts. Creators will be able to add text overlays on individual images in a carousel and reformat images in the display.

---

Threads

As X continues to change, Threads continues to add platform updates. This time, it’s related to sports.

Threads is now integrating real-time MLB Scores after adding the NBA scores back in March. Changes to the algorithm also allow you to track the latest posts as they come up.

While many sports communities remain on X, we could see that shifting with the added sports features on Threads.

---

TikTok

Adding more shopping features, TikTok appears to be moving further into the online shopping space. TikTok Shop is reported to be the ninth-largest online beauty and wellness retailer in the U.S. Now, TikTok is adding an image search function, allowing users to search for products based on a visual example.

And while TikTok continues to grow, owner ByteDance also continues to fight off the sell-off bill by appointing a new legal counsel.

“We are very happy to welcome John to our leadership team. He joins us with vast experience and expertise from his roles in public service, distinguished law firms, and as a leader in the entertainment industry. John brings strong legal instinct and a proven track record of successfully leading global teams that I know we will benefit from greatly as a company.”

We’ll continue to wait to see what happens.

---

Snapchat

With an uptick in interest, Snap is focusing on movie promotion. The brand’s data suggests that exposure to campaigns on Snapchat delivered a 91% lift in ticket sales.

“61% of movie-going Snapchatters are more likely to see a movie in theaters after engaging with an AR ad for the film.”

And, in another Snapchat study, shows the value of augmented reality. The research shows that customers paid 2x more active attention to video ads on Snap as compared to other platforms. The second phase was focused on AR’s effect in maximizing attention. The report notes that with AR in the mix, Snapchat drives 5x more active attention, maximizes brand outcomes and builds brand loyalty.

As AR continues to evolve, marketers need to understand it and implement it for brand awareness and loyalty growth.

---

X

The URL has officially changed and likes are now private. In more controversial news, X updates its policies to allow sexual content in the app. And with that, we’re moving on…

---

LinkedIn

If you haven’t noticed yet, LinkedIn has now shrunk the link preview images in stream. The goal, according to LinkedIn, is to simplify their feed.

LinkedIn is also launching premium company pages by the end of July. With this paid feature, companies will be able to enhance their presentation with custom CTA buttons, the ability to automate inviting people who engage with your page or content, gain more insights into who visits your page, access AI writing assistant tools, showcase services, as well as being able to display a testimonial.

This new feature is supposed to begin around a price point of $99 a month.

The newsletter creation platform is getting a needed update. One feature includes embedding profiles and pages. It’s also rolling out a Microsoft Designer integration, enabling Microsoft’s AI image generation tools to help with cover images. URL previews will also see improvements.

LinkedIn has seen a big growth in newsletters with more than 184,000 newsletters being published in the app.

---

And one final update, BeReal was purchased by Voodoo, a video game developer. We’ll see what happens to the platform in the next year. Every platform keeps adding or refining features, there is always a lot to keep up with. Become a marketing pro and stay on top of these changing platforms with our fully online Digital Marketing Communications master’s degree!

---

---

Meet the Author

---