ICYMI: Inside Canva Create’s Confetti-Filled Tech Event 🎉
The social marketing tool glows up + grows up
[Canva cofounders, Cliff Obrecht, Melanie Perkins and Cameron Adams, and team]
I hope you had a good week and — if you’re in North America — about to enjoy a long weekend. I just started working with YouTubers Colin and Samir — who are truly the creator’s creators — leading the Brain Trust community sessions that are part of their Creator Startup cohort. I’m a huge fan of the Colin and Samir universe and recommend everyone subscribe to the YouTube channel and their Publish Press newsletter for the creator’s perspective on branded content and business ventures.
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
TikTok partnered with Billie Eilish to launch their new feature: Fan Spotlight
Instagram is testing highlighting your Stories from the last 7 days
YouTube adds timestamps for violations on demonetized videos
LinkedIn will automatically add an icon to AI generated photos and videos
X (Twitter) is hiding Likes on all accounts
Canva hosted a live event (complete with confetti cannons) to announce their latest product updates and a new focus on enterprise solutions
💻 ROADMAP
📲 TikTok Updates
TikTok announced a new feature: Fan Spotlight, with the help of Billie Eilish. Fan Spotlight allows artists to showcase their favorite fan videos on their music tab. An artist can showcase up to five of their favorite fan videos at a time, by pinning them to the top of their music tab.
TikTok launched a floating player feature on desktop. This allows users to continue watching the video even when navigating away to other tabs.
TikTok incorporated its Duets feature into Branded Missions (an ad solution that pairs advertisers with content creators). Duet with Branded Mission helps brands tap into the TikTok community's native behaviors by inviting creators to duet with their sponsored videos to help increase engagement and participation on the platform. It’s part of the new ad solutions announced during its 4th annual TikTok World product summit.
TikTok announced its Change Makers Program, a social impact creator elevation program that provides dedicated tools, resources, and donations to designated non-profit organizations. The first 50 purpose-driven creators have been selected.
📲 YouTube Updates
YouTube announced it would roll out timestamps for yellow icons indicating monetization violations to more creators in the YPP program. The timestamp feature provides more transparency into how creators videos are reviewed and rated, and more specific examples or information about policy violations that could limit the video’s monetization status.
To celebrate Minecraft’s 15th anniversary, YouTube partnered with Mojang to roll out a new Shorts effect that allows creators to appear in within the world of Minecraft. The 360 background effect is called Minecraft Spring.
📲 Meta Updates
Instagram is testing a new feature called Lately, which automatically shares Stories to a tab in your Highlights bar. That collection of Stories disappear after 7 days.
In news that should shock no one, Adam Mosseri shared in his weekly AMA that send rate was a good indicator of success. “We are looking to help people discover content they want to connect with friends over, and so sends is a great proxy for that sort of connection over creativity.” If people are spending more time in DMs and Stories, it stands to reason that the algorithm is going to reward content that gets passed around from inbox to inbox.
Related: 3 tips to make content more shareable
Threads is working on the ability to tag locations.
📲 LinkedIn Updates
LinkedIn announced it would automatically tag AI generated images or video with a C2PA icon in an effort to create a more transparent, secure environment for creators and members. Text won’t be tagged, nor will original video edited using an AI tool.
LinkedIn saved posts will be easier to search and find in a new tab located on the left side panel on mobile.
📲 Pinterest Updates
Gen Z makes up more than 40% of Pinterest’s global monthly users, searching and saving at higher rates than other generations. The platform released a Gen Z trend report with 6 key lessons for marketers.
Pinterest also released its Summer 2024 Trend Report. I, for one, am here for Nancy Meyers core.
📲 X (Twitter) Updates
X (Twitter) confirmed they’re making Likes private so people don’t feel judged or targeted by the content they interact with. Users will still be able to see who liked the content they posted.
📲 Twitch Updates
Twitch rolled out new filter settings to let people opt out of content that features sexual themes, violence or drugs.
Inside Canva’s LA Summit
[Canva CEO Mel Perkins and Disney CEO Bob Iger]
Canva hosted Canva Create 2024 at the YouTube Theater at SoFi Stadium Thursday, bringing together 50+ speakers for product launches, keynotes, workshops and swag stations delivered to over 2M online viewers and 3.5K in-person attendees. This was not a niche event — Canva has 185 million MAUs (monthly active users).
If you weren’t able to make the live event in LA, here’s a mini recap...
What’s going on: This was Canva’s first North American event and marked a major shift from a focus on individual social marketers and creators to workplace products that serve enterprise teams.
“Over our first decade we really focused on empowering every person. But what we're really excited about over this next decade is also empowering every organization,” said co-founder and CEO Mel Perkins.
The day kicked off with product announcements, confetti cannons, and a fireside chat between Perkins and Disney CEO Bob Iger, an early investor and board member.
Who else was there: Adam Grant, Guy Kawasaki, library influencer Mychal Threets, Corporate Natalie and actress, writer and producer Mindy Kaling.
Product Updates Announced: There were a total of 101 updates but the announcements centered around three buckets
Canva’s glow up: You’ll see a redesigned home page and editing experience with a focus on internal communication, collaboration and organization
Core business functions: The platform is providing a full office suite of tools for every team in an organization: Sales, Human Resources, Marketers and Creatives
Enterprise solutions: Canva wants to empower large organizations and their workforces with a focus on security, support and deployment at scale
Announcement Highlight: There were a lot of different upgrades and new features announced but these seemed particularly interesting in helping creators work faster and more efficiently
Personal Tone of Voice: An AI-powered feature that can generate written content for you based on a sample of your writing and adapt content that you've already created.
Enhance Audio Feature: An AI-powered feature that allows you to clean up the audio on any video you’re editing, such as removing background noises if you’re filming outside.
ICYMI Community Questions: I passed your Canva questions along to CMO Zach Kitschke. Here’s what he said…
Q - Are you going to have educational components to help write better AI prompts?
ZK: We do have a ton of educational content on Canvas Design School. So you can go there. We're actually launching, very shortly, certifications as well. So there is definitely some tutorial content around our AI function. But also I’ll take that as a bit of feedback. We'll make sure that we're taking a look at the content.
Q - Is the imagery I put on there totally private once it’s there.
ZK: Yes, it is private.
*Canva launched a creator program in October 2023 to compensate people whose designs are used to train AI but that’s part of a separate, opt-in program for creators who contribute to the Canva library.
Q - I want better organization for projects beyond folders. My client stuff gets mixed with my stuff and I can’t archive or hide it without deleting it for everyone.
ZK: Yeah, one of the big things [that is part of the overhaul of the Canva experience] is organization.
Q - I’ve been trying to use it on my iPad but I don’t find it to be as great of an experience. Are you planning on a better UI for iOS?
ZK: We did launch Draw recently, so they may not be aware of that functionality… It should be a consistent experience across the board. We're on every device: on the web, on your laptop or desktop, iOS, Android, tablet. We've got a desktop app now which is really great. That's how I use Canva.
🎁 Giveaway closed: Congratulations to Broderick who won a free year of Canva Pro, a branded tote, 2 caps, a scarf and a kangaroo mascot!
👀 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
TikTok told employees it plans significant layoffs in its operations and marketing teams this week -The Information
Most US creators don’t think a TikTok ban will happen -Wired
Older people, and their judgments, are flooding TikTok -Business Insider
Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses can now upload photos directly to Instagram Stories -Engadget
Linktree surpasses 50M users, rolls out its social commerce program to more creators -TechCrunch
Bumble bought community building app Geneva to help expand its focus on friendships -TechCrunch
Can Creators Survive Without Google Traffic? -Passionfruit
Why every marketer should be on Reddit -Search Engine Journal
Presenting the 16th Annual Streamy Winners and Honorees -Streamy Awards
Scarlett Johansson’s lawyers got OpenAI to shut down sketchy use of "Her" voice -Axios
This right here: The age of the employee social ambassador is here -Marketing Brew
Thanks for reading! To keep up with more industry events, see what’s happening soon in the ICYMI’s Event Database and let us know if there’s an event you think people should be aware of.