ICYMI: Meta, YouTube + TikTok Drop New Features 🔥
Seriously, the updates haven’t stopped
I’m in Austin today, courtesy of Meta, for their Facebook IRL pop-up. It’s a creator and local community experience with a cowboy hat bar, succulent pot painting sessions and endless selfie stations. I added new feature announcements from the event below!
👉🏻 Also, I need your help! I want to crowdsource the best work conferences you attended. Where should our conference budgets be spent in 2025? Please take this survey and tell me the best events you went to and what made them special?
OK, let’s get into it!
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
🆕 Facebook’s Content Monetization beta streamlines creator monetization programs
🆕 Facebook announced a new Local tab pulling together the best local content from across Reels, Marketplace, Groups, and Events
🆕 Instagram announced a Creators Best Practices tool in the Professional Dashboard
🆕 YouTube Shorts is expanding to 3 minutes starting October 15!
🆕 TikTok announced Flip Stories which lets creators add a second side to their stories
Google now recognizes content creators as experts in search results
Amazon joins Instagram and Pinterest in testing collages for creators
There’s a growing trend of creators acting as travel agents for social audiences
💻 ROADMAP
📲 Meta Updates
Meta is rolling out Facebook Content Monetization beta, which merges In-stream ads, Ads on Reels and the Performance Bonus into a single monetization program for creators on the platform. Starting this week, eligible creators will be invited to join Facebook Content Monetization. Note: open enrollment won’t be available until 2025.
Meta announced Movie Gen, an AI video model that will create clips based on your selfies or text inputs. No word on when this will be publicly available.
Instagram announced a Creators Best Practices tool in the Professional Dashboard with insights and tips across Creation, Engagement, Reach, Monetization, and Guidelines. It will also offer personalized tips to give you a sense of how your account is doing across each topic
Editing Reels on third party apps won’t hurt your reach, according to Adam Mosseri, as long as you’ve removed any watermarks when you upload to Instagram.
Adam Mosseri announced Threads users will now have 15 minutes to edit their posts after posting
Spotted: Instagram added a filter for comments, switching between ‘For You’ and ‘Most Recent.’
Spotted: A new Instagram screen that encourages you to catch up on unwatched stories.
🌵🤠 FACEBOOK IRL MINI RECAP
Facebook hosted a pop-up in Austin on Friday, Facebook IRL, to introduce new features aimed at Gen Z.
Head of Facebook Tom Alison told the crowd this year’s strategy is driven by generational change — shifting the spotlight to Gen Z and AI innovation.
You might remember Facebook’s announcement that more than 40 million young adults use the platform across the US and Canada every day, which is the highest number it's been in more than three years. And the company is shooting its shot.
Updates revolving around Gen Z’s interest in Marketplace, Groups, Events and Video include:
A New Local Tab: The new Local tab pulls together the best local content from across Reels, Marketplace, Groups, and Events, so people can find nearby activities, groups, and recommendations all in one place. Alison says Local is currently testing in Austin, New York, LA, DC, Chicago, and five other cities.
A New Explore Tab: The new Explore tab allows people to deep dive into their interests. But the recommendation algorithm is less focused on finding entertaining content and more focused on practical content that might be useful to you, like life hacks, time management tips, travel tips, DIY furniture repurposing, vegan cooking tips from Groups and more. The Explore test should be available in the US today.
Events Update: Facebook launched a new feature that allows event creators to invite their Instagram followers to Facebook events. You can also send SMS and email invites to guests, which means everyone can RSVP to a Facebook event whether they are on Facebook or not. Plus, Facebook introduced a weekly events digest feature to make it easier to discover local events.
Takeaways: This sounds very much like a focus on discovery, utility, community and information. Creators and brands focused on education, advice-based content, community pages and IRL events stand to benefit from Facebook’s emphasis on being a combination of Meetup meets Yelp meets Craigslist meets how-to guides meets your contacts list.
— I wrote an extended version of Facebook IRL on LinkedIn —
📲 TikTok Updates
TikTok announced Flip Stories — a new feature that lets creators add a second side to every story that can be unlocked with a "flip.”
TikTok dropped a new holiday playbook with creative tips and resources for small businesses.
Spotted: a new TikTok feed called “Society Entertainment Culture.”
Spotted: TikTok is now showing trending search topics on profile pages, inviting creators to make a video based on specific search terms.
📲 YouTube Updates
Due to popular demand: YouTube Shorts are expanding to 3 minutes! You’ll be able to upload longer Shorts — or cross-post from other platforms with longer vertical video formats — starting October 15.
YouTube announced Shorts Templates to easily recreate videos that inspire you.
YouTube announced a new Shorts trends page on mobile (tapping on your Shorts screen reveals a Trends button to tap through).
📲 Pinterest Updates
Pinterest unveiled a new Gen AI feature for advertisers at Pinterest Presents 2024 which will allow them to turn white, blank, or flat backgrounds in ads into lifestyle imagery.
📲 Snapchat Updates
Snapchat added Footsteps that lets you look back at where you’ve been through geo-based Memories.
(Note to the platforms: looking back at 2016 Snaps on a map was a trip and makes me want to take more photos so I get the nostalgic flashbacks a decade later — this is a strong incentive to create more content and I wouldn’t be mad to see every platform adopt this.)
📲 X (Twitter) Updates
X needs to pay $5M in fines before it’s reinstated in Brazil.
Elon Musk’s X has reportedly lost almost 80% of its value since he bought it two years ago.
📲 LinkedIn Updates
Spotted: LinkedIn is testing Community Chats for job seekers wanting to meet others looking for similar roles, discuss salary ranges and swap tips.
📲 Google Updates
Google soft launched a new AI podcast tool that creates lifelike conversations based on your documents or text. Listen to an example of NotebookLM in action
(IMO, this is the best consumer-facing AI tool we’ve seen yet)
🌐 Google recognizes content creators in search results
Google now recognizes content creators as experts in search results — considering them as credible sources of information on a specific topic
Authoritative experts were always a BFD in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but it tended to be credibility earned through academic certification (doctors, accountants, lawyers, etc)
Now an expert can be a travel content creator or creators in over 60 different niches.
This is huge news whether you’re a creator or a brand who runs creator content on their website.
What This Means:
As a creator, it means your content could surface in more relevant searches since you’re considered an authority within your field and trustworthy in the eyes of Google. And while Gen Z does turn to social for search, around 50% are still using Google for searches.
As a brand, it means you should be incorporating and leveraging creators in your website content — if you weren’t already — whether that means commissioning creators to write blog posts for you or making it part of an omnichannel strategy around creator campaigns.
Related: TikTok Introduces Keyword Targeting Search Ads Campaigns
(via @Services95, Pinterest and @VickiRutwind)
🪣 🧽 Big Tech Embraces Gen Z’s Big (Organized) Mess
Gen Z’s design aesthetic has been described as carefully curated clutter or chaotic good. Within the last couple of weeks, the trend has been embraced by two new major platforms (including one surprise entry into the chat).
Consider the TSA bin trend with airport trays meant to look like creators tossed in their items but these are actually carefully curated belongings meant to convey a mood or vibe. It’s joy through abundance and a departure from the minimalist Marie Kondo era.
This could account for the rise we’re seeing in collage formats on social media. Collages are the digital art version of intentional chaos — multiple images layered together to create a new piece of content.
Pinterest has been on the collage bandwagon since it released its spinoff collage app, Shuffles, in 2022. It has since reincorporated elements of the app back into Pinterest with a new type of pin called Collages.
The format over-indexed with young people — Gen-Z users are 70% of all collage creators — so Pinterest has continued to roll out new features and advertiser case studies around collages.
Recently, Instagram tested a customized collage tool, allowing you to create collages from images in your camera roll to share in DMs. (It has yet to roll out officially.)
And then this week, Amazon tested something similar. Creators reported seeing a tool that would allow them to create collages for their Amazon Storefronts. The beta feature was removed and then officially launched at the Amazon Creator Summit. Either way, it seems to indicate Big Tech is embracing Gen Z’s big mess era.
📊 DATA DROP
TikTok users who are 45 and older actually watch more travel content per day, on average, than their younger counterparts
This is according to Skift’s interview with Danielle Johnson, group vertical director of travel, tech, and telcom at TikTok.
The insight is part of a growing trend of creators acting as travel agents for social audiences.
This week, Expedia announced an affiliate-style program on its site for travel creators called Travel Shops, a digital marketplace where vacation planners can search influencers and tastemakers’ recommendations of specific hotels and vacation activities. Creators earn commissions on travel booked through their suggestions.
Content creators are certainly positioned to meet this growing demand for user-generated travel recommendations.
According to TikTok, 83 percent of their users say the platform “sparks my interest in visiting new destinations that I have not considered,” and 60 percent said they “visit new destinations because I discover them through travel content on TikTok.”
👀 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT HEADLINES
Demi Lovato champions law to protect child influencers from financial abuse -Rolling Stone
Simu Liu announced his return to LinkedIn, IYKYK -Simu Liu
MrBeast has acquired a startup that aims to be the LinkedIn for the creator economy -Business Insider
Ironmouse is now the most subscribed-to channel on Twitch ever -Polygon
'Your Rich BFF' Vivian Tu partnered with Vox Media to launch a second season of her podcast -Business Insider
Gaming streamer Rachell ‘Valkyrae’ Hofstetter launched an anime studio -Variety
Toys Based on the YouTube phenomenon, Skibidi Toilet, hit the toy store -PR Newswire
Half Of creators have adjusted their content strategies for 2024 election -Net Influencer
‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ (aka #MomTok) has been renewed for Season 2 -Variety
I had the honor of being the Shorty Awards 100th guest for the It’s No Fluke podcast: YouTube, Netflix & How To Crack The Creator Code
I had a great conversation with Dulma Ultan for her podcast, InfluenceFM: The Rise of the Influencer in Politics
🪩 🏢 🚕 UPCOMING EVENTS
📌 Culture Con, New York | Oct. 5
📌 CreatorIQ Connect, Los Angeles | Oct. 10
📌 Adobe Max, Miami | Oct. 14