ICYMI: What Gen Z Really Wants

Insights straight from ZCON

Make sure your voice is heard. Please take the 2026 ICYMI Predictions Survey of the platforms and content formats you think will be most relevant next year!

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Instagram’s new navigation bar prioritizes Reels and DMs

• YouTube is giving all Partner Program creators access to Likeness Detection to safeguard their identity

• Twitch is introducing live shopping, starting with brand partner: e.l.f Cosmetics

• Microsoft Copilot rolled out AI-assisted group chats

• Airbnb announced new social features including Connections, DMs and discovery Carousels

• Takeaways from ZCON, a conference dedicated to Gen Z culture

• See which MLB teams are crushing it on social, driving millions of views and engagements this season*

---

💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

• Instagram’s new navigation rolled out more widely. The new design prioritizes what people use the most, which according to Adam Mosseri, “has increasingly been reels and DMs.” The icons at the bottom of your screen will soon be as follows: Home; Reels; DMs; Search; Profile.

• Instagram now lets you doodle and drop stickers all over your DMs.

• Instagram rolled out updates to its Restyle tool in Stories. Using the paintbrush icon within Stories mode, you can add, remove and change images or edit videos with Meta AI preset effects.

• Instagram launched a customizable Instagram app icon strictly for teen accounts. Teens will be able to choose from one of six aesthetics, including Fire, Floral, Cosmic and Slime.

• The recipients of Instagram’s Rings Award have started customizing their profiles — the background colors are exclusive to the 25 winning creators.

• Edits debuted new Halloween tools, including spooky fonts, scary sound effects and Restyle options to give your videos a Halloween overlay.

• Facebook announced a new feature that dips into your camera roll, pulls the best photos and videos and creates collages and edits to share. Conceptually, I love this. But we’re long past the “Full Access” to my camera roll stage so this seems like it might be a tough sell?

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube announced it’s expanding its Likeness Detection tool to all creators in the Partner Program. The tool helps safeguard your identity by letting you detect, manage, and request the removal of videos that use your facial likeness without permission — including AI-generated or altered content. It’s a solid first step, but reactions to the announcement are mixed, especially around the requirement to upload a photo ID. It also feels like this is a safety feature that will eventually need to be available to all users, not just those in the Partner Program.

• YouTube is adding a new timer feature to help you set limits to stop scrolling Shorts.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn released a New Rules for B2B Marketing Measurement report that’s a basic primer on setting up a measurement system.

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest shared a 3-step Black Friday and Cyber Monday playbook for advertisers, noting 70% of their monthly audience shopped Black Friday or Cyber Monday in 2024. Plus new educational content to watch as part of their Pinterest Academy program.

Related: Your Pinterest Holiday Content Playbook from ICYMI

📲 X Updates

• Spotted: X told users it would start renting out “the most desirable handles.”

• X is testing a new in-app browser to display links clicked within the app.

📲 Twitch Updates

• Twitch announced live shopping is coming to the platform starting with its first brand partner: e.l.f Cosmetics. It’s part of a new ad format supported by Amazon Ads, which owns the livestreaming service.

• Twitch partnered with Meta to let users stream directly from their Ray‑Ban Meta AI Glasses.

📲 Microsoft Copilot Updates

• Microsoft Copilot hosted a creator event in LA this week to launch its latest updates as it looks to evolve Edge into an AI browser. The standout feature announced was Copilot Groups, which allows you to bring up to 35 people into an AI-assisted chat in a browser or in the app. Use cases mentioned were planning a group trip or where to eat for dinner — with AI as the know-it-all friend who can help research and plan.

---

How MLB Teams Are Winning on Social Media

You don’t have to be a Dodgers fan (or an Angeleno, like me) to have heard about pitcher Shohei Ohtani and his three home runs — now being described as one of the greatest postseason performances of all time.

But the top performers aren’t just on the ball field. MLB teams are taking big swings on social, too. And audiences are tuning in. Shohei content around the big game drove a whopping 14M views and 2.5M engagements.

I got an exclusive look Measure Studio’s social performance report on the baseball teams hitting it out of the park.

Here are a few key highlights:

REELS DRIVE GROWTH

MLB teams published a total of 2,826 Reels during the offseason — about 94 per team.

Eight of the top 10 most viewed Reels focused on non-game content, as teams gave fans a look at things they don’t see on a typical broadcast.

Time and again: BTS content outperforms the official content. Followers want a window into the dugout and the clubhouse, as much as they want to watch the action on the field.

THE CONTENT MIX

And as popular as they were, Reels weren’t the content MVP. Carousels topped the league’s favorite content format (5,629), followed by Reels (2,826) and photo posts (1,599) in third place.

Among the reasons listed for Carousels’ success: They let you tell your story, in multiple formats, with less lift: 10 of the top 12 ranked Carousels took advantage of sharing multiple content formats (photos and videos) in the same post.

MORE POSTS = HIGHER ENGAGEMENT RATE

While I’d never advocate for quantity over quality, the two top publishing teams — Philadelphia and Baltimore — are both in the top five for engagement rate. MLB teams are taking advantage of the window of opportunity to tell their stories when interest is at its highest. That is paying off as higher post volume translates to increased engagement rate.

THERE’S MORE

Also in the report:

• MLB’s top performers for followers, publishing and engagement rate

• Key insights on what works with Reels, Carousels and photo posts

• Paid partnership benchmarks, and more!

*sponsored content

---

GEN Z REPORT FROM ZCON

Gen Z activists, actors and entrepreneurs came out for ZCON — a cultural conference focused on Gen Z hosted by UTA Next Gen.

A lot of smart people said a lot of smart things about Gen Z’s mindset and how brands can actually reach and support them.

And in between the insights were music, bubbles, a surprise Facetime from activist Malala Yousafzai (on her book tour) and a fireside chat with Love Island’s budding entrepreneur Olandria.

Here are the key takeaways I scribbled on my Notes app, the stuff I wanted to remember to share with you.

How Gen Z Is Feeling

• If you haven’t heard of Brick yet, you will soon. It’s a device that locks your phone, keeps you off the apps and limits distractions. “Consume less, create more,” actress Chandler Kinney said from the stage during a panel on The New Hollywood. To do that, she’s been bricking her phone. “I have all my socials locked.”

• Comparison is the thief of joy. The phrase got mentioned on two separate panels. First, by actress Auliʻi Cravalho, who encouraged people to touch grass, and go outside. And then by nurse-turned-creator Claire Almond as part of a Gen Z wellness panel. “Social media is not real life… I tell myself all the time, when I’m scrolling and I’m seeing all these perfect [morning] routines.”

• Gen Z wants healthier, more positive spaces online. For the panelists of What Does a Happier Internet Look Like, that means Pinterest. It’s the best way to decompress, said dancer and actress Nia Sioux. “You just see pretty pictures and you get to put them all together. It’s relaxing.”

Brands, This Part Is For You

• Show up in the entertainment, not just around it. That was advice from Amazon’s Head of Entertainment & Content Marketing Hannah Broadhurst on a panel with Gymnasium’s Adam Faze about rewriting the rules of branded entertainment. Faze partnered with Amazon Prime on Boy Room — a series where messy rooms get transformed with Amazon products. Up next: Girl Room, premiering 11/11.

• “If you’re a brand saying, “I want to make content for Gen Z boys,” said creator Anthpo “and you’re not watching 10 billion hours of Gen Z boy content, you’re out of the loop.” His advice: Watch intentionally. “Understand why they watched until the end, why they followed this account. If you don’t do that, people can tell if you’re faking it.”

• Brands, stop the performative virtue signaling, said Cheyenne Hunt, Executive Director of Gen-Z for Change. And don’t shy away from creators that take a stand. “If you want our loyalty, we want to see your authenticity. I need to know what you stand for.”

The Last Word

There’s no one formula for connecting with Gen Z — but there is a pattern. As Yahoo’s Head of Inclusive & Cultural Partnerships, Umar Issa, put it at the end of the day: “The through line I’m seeing is that a happier internet isn’t about disconnecting, necessarily. It’s more about designing intentional, positive spaces for us and carving those out.”

---

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• The download numbers for Meta AI’s app and its Vibes feed have shot upward since the late-September launch - TubeFilter

• Brands turn to Reddit as AI makes it impossible to ignore - Axios

• Podcast: ChatGPT enters the browser wars - The Verge

• How brands are maximizing Instagram’s broadcast channels - Marketing Brew

• People still want meaningful, shared experiences online, they just want them to happen within smaller circles. I talked to Goodreads, Letterboxd, Adidas and more about what’s working within community apps - ICYMI

• Airbnb announced new social features to connect with other guests throughout your trip, including Connections, DMs and discovery Carousels - Airbnb

• Weeks ago, female streamers said they were worried about TwitchCon’s lax security. They were right to be - TubeFilter

• Salute to everyone in Group 7 — and a nod to the brands who managed to activate early: We see you Delta, Applebees and Pizza Hut!

If you’ve ever wondered how I built the ICYMI newsletter, writer Emma Cortes Ellendt interviewed me for this flattering profile in Forbes.