ICYMI: We're all hanging out on LinkedIn, right?

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Instagram confirmed that video quality can change based on how a post performs

• Instagram is adding filters to make DMs easier to search

• TikTok revamped its TikTok Academy for advertisers

• Deep Dive: CEOs, Gen Z, creators, journalists… is anyone not on LinkedIn?

• Case Study: How Maybelline is leveraging Pinterest to reach Gen Z makeup fans

• Report: YouTube is the #1 social platform to read/watch/listen to creator content

• Forbes released its 2024 Top Creators list — timed to its inaugural Creator Upfronts event

• 3 key Creator Economy insights from the Future of TV conference

• Business Insider scored a look at MrBeast’s pitch deck for sponsors

• Amazon invests in Spotter, which could lead to more content deals for its creator client roster

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

• Adam Mosseri announced Instagram DMs will be easier to search, giving creators ways to search their inbox through filters like messages from other creators, businesses, or followers and the ability to just see Story replies.

• Meta is working on a search engine that would enable its AI chatbot to provide conversational answers about current events. A new deal with Reuters, a news agency, will also help Meta AI answer questions about current events and news.

• Adam Mosseri confirmed that Instagram video quality can change based on how a post performs. “We bias to higher quality… for creators who drive more views.”

• Spotted: Instagram is limiting the number of comments you can pin to one. It was previously three.

• Mark Zuckerberg announced Threads now has almost 275M monthly active users and more than 1M daily sign-ups.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• Spotted: LinkedIn is testing a new navigation bar, which would place all of the app’s navigation buttons at the top of the screen. 

• LinkedIn launched a new AI tool called Hiring Assistant that’s “designed to take on a recruiter’s most repetitive task.”

• LinkedIn announced weekly immersive video views increased 6x quarter-over-quarter and total video viewership is up 36% year-over-year.

• LinkedIn announced it’s removing a range of its templated posts for celebratory milestones.

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube is testing Super Chat goals, which lets creators set “goals” to reach a certain number of Super Chats, of a given value, in a set amount of time.

• Spotted: YouTube seemed to be testing a homepage without video view counts and dates but that’s since been attributed to people’s browser extensions.

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok announced updates to its TikTok Academy for advertisers. A message that went out said the learning destination was updated with enhanced content and a new interface.

📲 Uber Eats Updates

• Uber Eats launched Lists, curated collections created by foodie influencers and Uber Eats users to help people discover local gems.

  Just last month, Expedia launched something similar called Travel Shops, which allows creators to share and organize curated travel recommendations.

  There’s no compensation for creating Uber Eats Lists, but Expedia creators can earn commissions when followers book their recommended hotels.

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💡💼 DEEP DIVE: LINKEDIN BROADENS ITS REACH

What do CEOs, Gen Z, creators, and journalists have in common? A growing wave of support for LinkedIn. Recent initiatives from the traditionally business-focused platform are making LinkedIn a more friendly social space for a much broader audience.

In testing a news banner on its mobile app, LinkedIn is filling a gap left by Meta and X as they move away from supporting journalism. With stories vetted by LinkedIn’s editorial team, this feature aims to keep professional users engaged on the site.

And according to The Information, publishers are also increasing their focus on LinkedIn, thanks to a new program allowing them to sell ads before the videos they post on the platform.

In the C-Suite, LinkedIn usage has increased by 35%, according to The Financial Times. For business leaders, the trust that can be established through individuals over brands makes LinkedIn an effective platform for building connections with consumers.

LinkedIn’s strategy goes beyond executives. In a new UK campaign, the platform is targeting Gen Z with a series of videos aimed at job seekers and early-career professionals. Using quick cuts and animated characters, the witty ads drive viewers to LinkedIn’s video feed.

And as the platform has repeatedly shared: Gen Z is their fastest growing global audience demographic.

In fact, LinkedIn launched its first podcast this fall with the Gen Z focused Let’s Talk Offline — about “what it takes to thrive in the early years of your career” — in partnership with iHeartRadio.

Finally, influencers and creators are also capitalizing on LinkedIn’s resurgence. We’ve seen new agencies, such as Creator Authority and Verbatim, pop up to satisfy the demand for B2B influencer marketing campaigns.

And on the platform itself, creators are working through the Content Creator Acceleration Program with positive feedback — and, as influencer Tash Haynes reports, even five-figure brand deals.

-Mo Brady, co-creator of @Daddy_Papa_and_Me_Make3 and Influencer & Activations Director for Super Awesome Friends 

Related: Why LinkedIn video is your next big opportunity

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💄HOW MAYBELLINE IS LEVERAGING PINTEREST TO REACH GEN-Z MAKEUP FANS

Pinterest is emerging as a hotspot for brands targeting Gen Z — the demo accounts for 40% of Pinterest’s global monthly users — and collage campaigns seem to be the creative force driving engagement with young audiences.

Maybelline teamed up with Pinterest in August to roll out the platform’s Collages Remixes, reported Glossy, which allowed creators to build on and use existing collages. Maybelline’s campaign saw an engagement rate of over 5 times both the brand’s average and the platform’s average across beauty brands.

And, earlier this year, Nike was part of a limited collages for advertisers experiment. The company saw 40% of shopping engagement on the campaign driven by Gen Z. 

Pinterest’s success with collages hasn’t gone unnoticed. I’ve shared previously how Instagram and Amazon are experimenting with similar formats on their platforms, emphasizing creation through visual curation. 

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🏆 FORBES TOP CREATORS 2024 

Forbes released its third annual Top Creators list, timed to its inaugural Creator Upfronts event in LA this week in partnership with Walmart. 

MrBeast came in at number one… again. But it wasn’t just about follower count or dollar earned. There were four criteria for making the list:

1. Gross earnings

2. Follower count

3. Engagement rate

4. Entrepreneurial activity 

The Forbes team did their best to introduce some new faces this year, such as Ms Rachel, Nara Smith, My Healthy Dish and Jake Shane. 

But there were also some notable absences — people who could surely hold their own against the other creators on the list. Missing were successful creators such as fitness entrepreneur Cassey Ho, reality star and Amazon Live superstar Porsha Williams, Olympian Ilona Maher and actor-creators Adam Rose and Brian Jordan Alvarez. 

I don’t say this to diminish the accomplishments of people on the list, it’s just not a full picture of the creator ecosystem.  

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📊 DATA DROP

YouTube is the #1 used social platform for both Gen Z and Millennial consumers to read/watch/listen to creator content — for the second year in a row

-Traackr’s 2025 US IMPACT Report of 1,000 millennial and Gen Z consumers in the US

More key insights from the Traackr report:

• YouTube ranks as the top platform for product reviews and information

• Long videos and live stream videos moved significantly further up in the content format rankings from last year

• Female identifying consumers said that they are more likely to purchase products on TikTok and Pinterest

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📺 🌐 FUTURE OF TV CONFERENCE

This week I participated in the Future of TV conference creator track, moderating a panel titled “Creators Get No Respect: Is Hollywood Missing Out” with some brilliant panelists: Kevin Kurtz (Bigger Bolder Baking), Taryn Crouthers (ATTN) and Andrew Wallenstein (Variety Intelligence Platform).

There were so many gems dropped at the event, organized by Creator Vision’s Jamie Gutfreund, I’ll roll them out across multiple newsletters. But for now, here are some of my favorite quotes:

“I think talent is king, and talent really matters. A bunch of years ago, people would have some virality and some fame because they were jumping on a trampoline and they happened to be attractive. That's not the thing that's going to get it over the line for you to have a show, a book, a product... Talent really matters.”

-Arleta Fowler, Head of Digital Lifestyle, CAA

“We're incredibly inspired by television. When we think about what our cultural references are for what we're trying to create, it is the 20 minute unscripted shows from the late 90s and early 2000s: the Nitro Circuses, the Jackasses, the American Idols, the X factors... That being said, there are cheaper ways to do it. There are faster ways to do it. And the beauty of short form is that you can actually test product market fit for every single show you create on an episode over episode basis.”

-Saheer Mathrani, Co-Founder & COO, Gymnasium

“All the ways that you would see this story world come to life on screen, you can actually participate in. I think that's the trend that we're all seeing across these ecosystems, right? This is a generation that isn't content to just lean back and consume passively. I think there's an expectation that they're going to participate in the storytelling.”

-Todd Lichten, Head of Entertainment Partnerships, Roblox

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👀 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT HEADLINES

• Netflix “Moments” tab allows you to save, relive, and share your favorite Netflix scenes -Netflix 

• Small businesses are getting creative on social media—and driving foot traffic -Marketing Brew

• The group chat that secretly runs Congress -Elle

• Trump vs Kamala: Who's winning online? -UserMag

• 2024 Social Media Compensation Survey -Link In Bio

• People are paying thousands to learn how to be creators -TubeFilter (don’t do it!)

• Inside ZCON 2024: Gen Z, Entertainment, Social Impact and More -Variety

• Amazon invests in Creator Economy firm Spotter, which backs major creators -The Hollywood Reporter

• MrBeast’s pitch deck: 'Win Over Next Gen Eyeballs By Partnering With The Best' -Business Insider

Thanks for reading!

PS. There are only 61 days left in 2024. (How?!) So, I created this schedule for myself — mostly to keep myself accountable, but also to ask for your help in taking the 2025 predictions survey

November 2024

• Nov 1 — We’re all hanging out on LinkedIn, right?

• Nov 4 — 10 New Ways To Work With Creators In 2025
  *for paid subscribers

• Nov 8 — Meta Ray-Ban Review

• Nov 15 — Big Ideas for 2025

• Nov 18 — B2B Marketing Doesn’t Have to Be Boring
  *for paid subscribers

• Nov 22 — TBD?

• Nov 29 — No newsletter due to Thanksgiving
  (unless a wild update is announced — I’m looking at you, Instagram)

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December 2024

• Dec 2 — November’s Biggest Headlines
  *for paid subscribers

• Dec 3 — How to Embrace a Social-First Approach in 2025
  (I want to test a video version of the newsletter for Giving Tuesday as a fundraiser)

• Dec 6 — Your 2025 Predictions

• Dec 13 — TBD?

• Dec 20 — No newsletter for the holidays

• Dec 27 — No newsletter for the holidays