ICYMI: Forget Panels — Creator RSVPs Are the New Keynotes

Social and creator insights from Adobe Max

[Creator Mark Rober at Adobe Max]

LA’s really been doing the most this week: Adobe Max welcomed creatives to its 3-day conference; TikTok held its US Creator Summit; and Forbes hosted its Creator Upfronts in partnership with Walmart Creator — with some ambitious creators trying to hit all of these events in the same day. Let’s get into it.

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• The vibe at Adobe Max was BBYOC (Brands, bring your own creator)

• See the should-we-or-shouldn’t-we viral trends decision tree I presented at Adobe Max

• Adobe and YouTube will collab on a Shorts editor in the Premiere mobile app

• YouTube released 5 new tools to allow creators to level up their content on TVs

• Shorts now make more money for YouTube than long-form videos

• It’s circle back season for TikTok as the app’s U.S. future remains unclear

• It’s official: LinkedIn hashtags are decorative

• Instagram announced Watch History, which lets you see every Reel you’ve ever watched

• Threads announced ghost posts that are archived after 24 hours

• Patreon is giving its newsletter product a glow up

• Plus, Amanda Perelli reports on Forbes Creator Upfronts

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 Adobe Updates

Here’s a selection of Adobe Max updates relevant for brand marketers and content creators:

• Adobe and YouTube announced a partnership coming soon to the Premiere mobile app (Adobe’s answer to CapCut and Edits). The short-form video editing app will include a new Shorts content creation space, Create for YouTube Shorts. Creators editing tools will include exclusive effects, transitions, templates and more — plus once the video is edited, it can be uploaded to Shorts with one tap.

• Adobe Express is testing an AI Assistant (log on to Adobe Express to see the AI Assistant Beta toggle, top left). It’s conversational AI that creatives can use to design and edit assets.

• Spotted: you’ll soon be able to use Adobe Express directly in ChatGPT. Adobe said they’re working with OpenAI to integrate Adobe Express into the experience so you can create and edit directly in ChatGPT.

• Adobe released its Creators’ Toolkit Report, a study on how content creators are integrating Gen AI and mobile tools in their workflows.

👀 MY ADOBE MAX TAKEAWAYS

[Mark Rober’s rules for viral content]

Here are some of the key quotes or ideas I heard at Adobe Max, plus I’ll share a look at my social trends presentation (which I’ve unofficially titled as the don’t-do-memes session).

Hashtags on LinkedIn are decorative. That’s straight from LinkedIn’s senior director of product marketing Julia (Cabral) Flavin during a session on LinkedIn B2B video she hosted with Adobe’s principal product manager and Social 3.0 creator Andy Lambert. “It’s not going to juice your distribution,” said Julia. “If you want to give people a signal as to what the content is about, it can be helpful for that, but you don’t need to go crazy adding a million hashtags. In fact, please don’t.”

Quality over quantity was a constant in conversations. Maybe it’s a reaction to content saturation or AI slop, but there was a lot of talk about slowing down and producing high effort, high concept content next year. Even Mark Rober, during his keynote, said he only does 10 videos a year: “I really try to swing for the fences.” The general message from Max: Don’t just fill your content calendar. Give people a reason to watch.

AI won’t change what you do. It’ll amplify what you do. That was Adobe’s message at the conference. And almost every keynote prioritized the human touch — even if AI was powering the backend. “Tools don’t make stories. Storytellers do,” creator Brandon Baum said during his keynote (which included a truly impressive live demo of Adobe’s Firefly Boards). It’s a theme we’ve been seeing across SaaS messaging this year to reassure consumers there’s still a human element involved — alongside Humanize AI tools to make chatbot text sound more natural and human-like — even as some tech execs cite AI as the reason for eliminating human workers.

BBYOC (Brands, bring your own creator). Adobe obviously had its own creator ambassadors and notable personalities roving the conference — Chloe Shih, Brooke Monk, OmgAdrian and many more. But Adobe wasn’t the only one leaning on its famous friends. LinkedIn also brought in its own creators to hang out and create content in their Max lounge. There were also multiple brand dinners for creators happening after-hours that were scheduled around the conference. All this meant you couldn’t walk five feet in the Creative Park without running into Angelica Song, Taylor Loren, Lucas O’Keefe, Andrea Casanova, Taiwo Ade, Allie Mason, Colin Rocker, Sophie Miller, Goldie Chan, Gigi Robinson, Hanna Goefft… you get the idea. If you’re a brand marketer with plans to host or attend an upcoming conference, your plus one better be a creator partner who can bring a creative flair to conversations and capture killer content for you.

❗️ BEWARE THE MEMES

Tapping into memes is one way to join online conversation and show you’re culturally savvy in the ways people express themselves.

But it’s not the only way to participate and get your message across. Especially since audiences want to see brands jump on a trend within ONE TO TWO DAYS — or risk missing the moment.

And let’s be honest — chasing every viral trend out there is starting to feel a little 2023-2024 energy, right?

As part of a larger conversation I led at Adobe Max about social content formats and communication styles, I included a decision tree on chasing short-term trends.

Some of the questions I recommended social teams consider:

• First and foremost, is there a way to meaningfully tie back to the brand? Cut and paste memes don’t build brand equity, they drive conversation around the creator, sound or scenario that’s trending.

• Are you staffed for quick-turn marketing? That means jumping on a moment, creating content, getting approval from leadership and legal to post within 24 to 48 hours?

• While aiming for speed is key, are you overlooking creativity and brand suitability in your rush to get content out the door?

• Does this move the needle? Millions of views that don’t actually lead to subscriber growth, brand loyalty, sales, downloads etc are basically meaningless.

I’m not anti-meme but I do think social brand posts can be culturally relevant without only using on trending songs or slogans. Innovative and creative are the energy we’re bringing into 2026 — not simply reactive.

*Thanks to Brett Dashevsky for helping format this slide. I’m including meme alternatives in this Monday’s paid subscriber newsletter.

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📲 Meta Updates

• Instagram announced Watch History, a new feature under your Activity tab which lets you see every Reel you’ve ever watched. According to Adam Mosseri, you can filter by oldest to newest, specific date or date range and specific person or account that posted the Reel.

• Instagram is starting to publicly test the ability to see and control your algorithm with a small percentage of users in the U.S. this week.

• Threads rolled out “ghost posts,” a new feature for sharing unfiltered, in-the-moment thoughts that are archived after 24 hours.

• Threads announced new tools for comment moderation and feed filters:

  • Reply Approvals, which allow you to review which replies appear on your posts

  • New Activity Feed Filters, which let you filter your feed for new “mentions” and “people you follow”

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok released new AI creator tools:

  • Smart Split, which automatically clips, reframes, captions, & transcribes longer content into multiple short videos ready for TikTok

  • AI Outline, which generates video titles, hashtags, hooks & outlines from a prompt or by selecting a topic in Creator Search Insights

  • Plus, creators can now get up to 90% of rev share from subscriptions on the platform

• What is going on with TikTok? TBD. While the US government said the TikTok ban would be resolved by Thursday, Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping seemed to be adhering to the rules of circle back season — and not making any sort of resolution announcement after meeting this week.

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube continued to double down on livingroom watching — announcing 5 new ways creators can level up their content on TVs this week:

  • Thumbnail file limit will expand from 2MB to 50MB (aka 4K-resolution)

  • AI-powered higher resolutions for videos

  • Immersive channel previews on the homepage

  • Contextual search on TVs (channel results will be prioritized)

  • QR code scans on tagged shopping videos instantly opens product page

• YouTube is updating its Community Guidelines around gambling and video game violence. Starting Nov. 17, it will age-restrict videos that show “violent gaming content featuring realistic human characters that focuses on scenes of certain kinds of extreme violence...”

• Google launched Pomelli, an AI tool to create on-brand marketing assets for SMBs. I was curious to see this in action so I tested it with this newsletter. Pros: it described my tone as “pithy” and my aesthetic as “playful authority.” In general, the written blurbs were great. Cons: the visuals it produced were cheesy and clearly AI generated.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn published a blog post digging into the platform’s audience demographics — like the 98% of Fortune 500 CEOs who say they use LinkedIn as their primary or only social media platform.

📲 BeReal Updates

• BeReal is running transit ad campaigns in New York and Paris — reminding people that the feed doesn’t have to be endless. Messages include, “Shhhh the algorithm can’t hurt you here” and “Your doomscroll detox just dropped.”

📲 Patreon Updates

• Patreon announced their newsletter product is getting an upgrade, including:

  • Support for more media types (images, videos and audio clips)

  • Custom call to action buttons;

  • Added email insights.

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest launched Pinterest Assistant — an AI-powered tool that gives proactive style recommendations based on your content and engagement in the app. I wanted to try it but it’s still in beta mode and I haven’t got access yet. Sign up here.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat shared a research study on Gen Z and Millennial gift-giving rituals, with nearly 8 in 10 survey respondents saying it’s important to find ways to celebrate throughout the year.

📲 Canva Updates

• Canva announced it’s Creative Operating System, including an upgraded video editor, a Canva design chatbot, Email Design templates and making Affinity — professional design suite — free for users.

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⚡️ INSIDE FORBES’ CREATOR UPFRONTS

Since I couldn’t make the Forbes Creator Upfronts, I asked creator industry expert Amanda Perelli to report back. This is just a snippet and paid subscribers will get an extended version on Monday!

Amanda says: The spookiest thing about Forbes’ 2025 Creator Upfronts was the air horn placed on stage to steer speakers away from uttering the cringy buzzword — authenticity.

Several speakers did catch themselves about to credit their success to just being authentic. But, instead, YouTubers like Jesser and Rebecca Zamolo were driven to share that consistency and willingness to pivot have helped them stay on top.

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✔️ POLL

Related: No degree, no discussion? China tightens the grip on influencers and its new law has sparked massive debate online

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👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• Shorts now make more money for YouTube than long-form videos - TubeFilter

• Gen Z is cutting back on doomscrolling — how it’s connecting with brands and creators IRL - AdAge

• Media CEOs are cosplaying as content creators (and we’re not even talking about Adam Mosseri or Evan Spiegel) - Axios

• Employees are popping up all over social media to help build brands - New York Times

• Content creators say Q4 brand deals are being delayed later than ever this year as brands are likely sitting on their remaining budgets - Glossy

• The 2025 Social Media Salary Report - Link In Bio

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