Welcome to Social Media Buzz Weekly, your weekly bulletin of the latest social media updates. With the social media landscape evolving with each passing day, it can be challenging to keep a tab on the rapid developments. Well, not anymore, as we have taken it upon ourselves to keep you abreast of every happening in the social media space.
So, without any further ado, let’s look at some of the most significant developments from the last week in the world of social media.
1. Meta Plans To Cut Staff at Its Oversight Board Group
Meta’s long-running Oversight Board project is facing new challenges, with a range of funding cuts on the way that will result in a reduction of staff for the group, reducing its capacity to hear future cases.
The body dubbed Meta's "supreme court" told some employees their jobs were at risk. The cuts are expected to affect staff who support the 22 experts, including academics and lawyers, who make decisions about content moderation on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. News of the planned cuts comes just as Meta is reportedly facing a new probe from the European Union, which alleges the company isn’t doing enough to combat disinformation.
2. Meta Implements New AI Disclosure Requirements
Meta is taking more steps to ensure that its users are aware of AI-generated content in its apps, with a new AI-generated label option now showing up within the post composer flow, as part of its expanded AI disclosure requirements.
Meta is now rolling out a new tag that it will require users to activate it when they upload AI-generated content. This is in addition to Meta’s own AI detection tools, which will append its own “Made with AI” labels to content where Meta detects AI image indicators. The manual post tags will also result in the same “Made with AI” disclosure being displayed on your post, which will ideally ensure that Facebook and IG users are aware that the image is not real, and help to alleviate confusion about what people are seeing.
3. Meta Unveils AI-Powered Ad Tools at Newfronts
Meta has announced a range of new ad tools at NewFronts 2024, including improved creator search for affiliate campaigns, multi-destination product ads for Reels, and more.
Firstly, Meta is adding new, machine learning-powered creator recommendations for brands in Instagram’s Creator Marketplace, which will help brands find the right creators to work with on their campaigns. Now, Meta’s system will recommend the best creators to work with for your business, based on a range of signals relating to audience similarity, topic relativity, and more.
Meta is also testing a new, AI-based tool that it hopes will be able to predict which organic brand content will perform best when used in paid campaigns as a partnership ad. Moreover, Meta is extending its AI “Image Expansion” option for Advantage+ creative, with marketers now able to use Image Expansion for Reels campaigns as well.
4. Meta Faces EU Probe Over Russian Disinformation on Facebook
EU authorities have announced a new probe into Meta, this time over the distribution of Russian-originated disinformation in its apps.
Among the Commission's concerns is Meta's oversight of its advertising tools, and whether they had been exploited by "malicious actors." The probe will also examine whether Meta is being transparent enough over its moderation of political content and accounts.
A European Commission official said it believed Meta's current approach to moderating advertisements did not meet DSA requirements. It cited findings by the non-profit research organization, AI Forensics, that a Russian influence campaign had been running adverts across the firm's platforms. AI Forensics said it uncovered a network of 3,826 pages spreading "pro-Russian propaganda" and the campaign had reached 38 million users between August 2023 and March 2024.
5. Instagram Adds Four Interactive Sticker Options
Instagram’s added four new interactive stickers, which it’s hoping will encourage more engagement and interaction in-stream. With more and more sharing activity switching to private DMs, Instagram is looking to provide more options and lean into content trends, to maintain in-stream interactivity.
The first new sticker is Add Yours Music, which will enable users to respond to a Story with a track. With Add Yours Music, users will be able to reply to a story with a song, providing another engagement option. Instagram is also adding a new, Polaroid-like Frames option, which will turn your photos into an old-school style photo.
Next up is its Reveal sticker, which will only be made visible when the viewer sends the creator a DM. Finally, Instagram is also re-upping its Cutouts sticker, which has been available for some users since January.
6. Instagram Updates Feed Algorithm to Prioritize Original and Emerging Creators
Instagram has announced a major algorithm update which is designed to help ensure that original content posters get more traction, as opposed to those who repost their work, while also giving smaller accounts more opportunity.
This aligns with Meta’s broader push to enhance its connection with creators, and it could also have an impact on some posting strategies, depending on exactly how it’s implemented. Instagram’s new approach will see that all new content will get more initial reach, with the posts that see the most engagement in that initial test audience than getting more distribution.
7. Snapchat Announces Generative AI Features, DM Editing
Snapchat has announced a slew of new features, with a focus on generative AI, as it seeks to keep users engaged and connected in the app.
Firstly, Snap is adding a new option that will enable users to create custom clothing for their Bitmoji characters, by using AI prompts. With Snap’s AI prompts, you’ll be able to ask the Bitmoji creation system to come up with unique items, that’ll then be placed onto your character.
Snap is also adding reminders within its “My AI” chatbot, so you can use it as a kind of digital assistant. It’s another option for My AI usage, which could provide more utility. Snapchat’s also adding a new AI-powered Lens which enables users to get a glimpse of what they’d look like in the 90s, by placing them into a simulated scene from back in the day.
8. Snapchat Showcases New AR Ad Tools at NewFronts
Snapchat has announced a raft of new ad products as part of its New Fronts 2024 presentation, including a new way to integrate AR elements into campaigns, improved AR creation options, expanded content partnerships, and more.
Snap is launching AR Extensions, which will enable advertisers to integrate AR Lenses and Filters directly into all Snap ad formats. Snap’s also looking to simplify AR creation, to get more brands involved, with new automation tools that’ll guide you through the Lens building process. Snap is also bringing generative AI to its AR creation process, which could be another big step.
9. Pinterest Sees Solid User Growth in Q1
Pinterest has shared its latest performance update, showing a big increase in active users in Q1 2024, and a steady rise in revenue year-over-year.
Firstly, Pinterest is now up to 518 million monthly actives, up from 498m in Q4. While Pinterest added 13 million more active users in the Rest of World category, its growth in the U.S. was minimal, while EU users increased by 5 million in the period.
Pinterest brought in $740 million for the quarter, but only a tiny fraction of that came from outside the U.S. and Europe, and that share has actually declined quarter-over-quarter. The bright spot is Europe, which saw a good relative increase in revenue intake, and year-over-year, the numbers are positive. But that slowdown in revenue growth is important to note.
10. X Launches Grok AI Chatbot in the UK
X has announced that X Premium subscribers in the U.K. can now access its Grok AI chatbot, making it the first country in the European region to gain access to X’s AI interface.
X’s Grok bot, which is now available in all countries where X Premium can be accessed, except for EU and E.E.A. member nations, enables users to pose conversational queries to the system, and get answers direct in-stream. Grok is essentially X’s answer to ChatGPT, and follows the trend of social apps adding chatbots into their UI, as a means to hook into the broader AI wave. X owner Elon Musk was an early investor in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, but cut any association with the project after he pushed to become CEO of the organization, and was rebuffed.
11. X Adds AI-Generated News Summaries for Premium Subscribers
X has launched new news summaries, powered by its Grok AI engine, which will use X posts to come up with real-time summaries of the latest trending conversations in the app.
X Stories will provide an overview of whatever issues are gaining traction at any given time, giving you a quick way you to catch up on the main topics of discussion of the day. It’ll save you having to go through all the posts in a topic stream, for example, in order to determine key points, while it’ll also probably save you having to click through to a website to read more about the issue in-depth.
12. Musk Plans to Reinstate Controversial White Supremacist Account
With ad revenue still down by 50% on pre-Elon levels at the platform formerly known as Twitter, Musk has pledged to reinstate the account of twice-banned white supremacist Nick Fuentes, whom X itself banned for the second time early last year.
A well-known political activist, Fuentes has repeatedly pushed to “make America a Christian nation again”, which would include diluting the power of what he sees as “influential Jewish people.” Fuentes was originally suspended from Twitter back in 2021 for non-specific violations of the platform’s rules.
Fuentes had often skirted Twitter’s regulations, which included suggesting, via tweet, that state legislators who voted to certify the 2020 election results should face the death penalty for their actions. Fuentes also played a role in the Capitol Riots, and has long sought to provoke tensions related to religion and race. Fuentes has also been banned from YouTube, PayPal and TikTok for violating their terms.
13. LinkedIn Launches In-Stream Games With Competitive User Rankings
LinkedIn has officially launched its new in-stream games, which are designed to give LinkedIn users a break from the grind of their workday.
LinkedIn’s new puzzle games are intended to provide a moment of relief for professionals, while also, of course, helping LinkedIn increase in-app engagement. LinkedIn is launching three in-stream games to begin with, namely Pinpoint, Queens, and Crosslimb. There will be one edition of each game, updated daily, so they won’t take up a heap of your time, with scores and performance stats displayed on a scoreboard that’ll show comparative performance between connections, companies, schools, etc.
Wrapping Up
And that was a wrap of this week’s Social Media Buzz. We’ll be back next week with more news and updates for you from the social media world. Till then, stay tuned!
If you want to read more on the latest developments taking place in the social media space, take a look at ClickInsights’ Social Media Buzz, wherein we bring to you monthly reports on everything going on in social media, ranging from platform updates to policy changes that influence the way we market.
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