[Creator Robert Mayhew leading an official tour at Cannes Lions 2025]

I’m headed to Europe next week for my first visit to the Cannes Lions ad festival where I’m an official creator track ambassador.

I don’t do gatekeeping — or sharing for no reason — so I’ll be reporting on everything I see and hear that could have an impact on you as a social pro.

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Instagram launched its much requested “Reorder grid“ feature

• A desktop version of Instagram’s Edits app is coming soon

• Instagram will give you more control over the content in your feed through a new feature called Your Algorithm

• LinkedIn launched its Creator Marketplace, pairing brands with relevant creators in the program

• Snapchat is partnering with top creators to cover the World Cup, including on-the-ground reporting from Alix Earle

• Special Report: Creators and marketing pros explain it seems like the entire marketing industry is headed to the Cannes Lions festival this year

• Spotify’s 20th anniversary disco ball (you know the one) will spin again at Cannes Lions — an exclusive sneak peek at Spotify Beach

💻 ROADMAP

📲 Instagram Updates

• Finally: Instagram‘s much requested “Reorder grid“ feature is here. When you long hold on a thumbnail, the menu options now include “Reorder grid.”

• Edits rolled out several updates, including a Beta Tab setting that lets you test new things before they’re fully launched; Project Versions that let you create multiple edits of a single piece of content; and Eddy an AI-powered assistant that helps analyze insights and brainstorm ideas. And coming soon: Edits for desktop!

• Adam Mosseri wrote 890 words letting you know that you’re going to have more control over the content in your Instagram feed through a new feature called Your Algorithm. It started as a test last year, controlling your Reels and Explore recommendations. He also used the essay to throw every other platform under the bus for their recommendation algorithms. “TikTok built its main feed on this model from day one. YouTube made the switch in 2016. X and Threads followed in 2023. Instagram moved more gradually...” (That sound you hear is every social media manager and creator cry-laughing.)

• Meta‘s partnering with Best Buy to bring The Meta Lab experience in-store. Shoppers get to explore Meta’s AI glasses and VR headsets through interactive demos, smart mirrors and personalized fittings. Thoughts and prayers for the frontline Meta Sales Specialists at Best Buy who are going to get grilled on every Instagram update.

• Meta is bringing new football features and experiences to Threads, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

Related Meta News:

• Meta Launches ‘Workforce Academy’ to Train Workers to Build Data Centers

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn launched its Creator Marketplace program, connecting brands with vetted creators and letting them amplify their content with Thought Leader Ads.

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok announced its 2026 Community Fest event — a summer-long series of educational workshops, challenges, and community-building celebrations of LIVE creators.

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube is expanding DM capabilities so more users 18+ can share videos and react in real-time.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat is partnering with top Snap Stars and creators to cover the World Cup experience, including on-the-ground reporting from Alix Earle.

• Snapchat announced Snapchatters ages 13–15 will be able to create, save, and showcase Stories and Spotlight videos on a dedicated profile that is visible only to their mutually accepted friends.

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest announced Amazon Storefront linking, a new tool that lets creators connect their Amazon Storefront directly to their Pinterest account — it automatically applies affiliate links whenever they tag an eligible Amazon product.

📲 Bonus Updates

• Spotify is launching new audience engagement analytics for creators, including the breakdown between first-time audiences and returning fans.

• Linktree launched sticker packs, starting with a custom Olivia Rodrigo pack inspired by her new album

• Amazon is launching AI-generated custom merch.

🔑 ONE BIG THING

🧳 ✈️ Why Everyone You Know Is Headed to Cannes Lions This Summer

Is the entire marketing industry headed to Cannes Lions this summer? It sure feels like it.

Everywhere you look, creators, marketers, operators and platform staffers are posting their Côte d’Azur travel plans, sharing tips for getting the most out of the festival, and trading elaborate spreadsheets full of party invites.

It’s as if a memo went out declaring this is the conference to attend this year. How else do you explain so many people being on the exact same page?

And while one marketer referred to it as the new Coachella — “It has the same elements: outfits, good vibes, creators and brands” — it’s not just about the rosé and yacht parties.

“Cannes Lions is not a brand trip or influencer party,” said creator and social strategist Joel Marlinarson. “If you treat it as a holiday, you risk coming home with nothing but a branded tote bag, blisters, and a questionable bank balance.”

The buzz has been building for years — steadily growing each summer since the pandemic — but this year feels different.

“Last year, I hardly met any content creators unless they were already working brand-side or were macro creators flown in to speak on behalf of brands,” One Girl One World’s Francesca Murray told me. “This year I’ve already heard there are hundreds of content creators planning to attend.”

The Backstory

This is actually the third year of a dedicated Cannes Lions Creators track — a clear signal of the festival’s growing commitment to the space. In fact, Lions Creators had to move to a larger beachfront space in 2026. “It’s a reflection of Creators’ expanding role in the marketing ecosystem,” Lions CEO Simon Cook has said.

“Five years ago, it was very much an ad industry conference,” said Spotify’s Global Head of Business Marketing, Bridget Evans. “I had separate influencer and creative strategies. Over the years, it has all become one. The best advertiser strategies borrow the trust of creators, and the best creator strategies have the scale and amplification of ads.“

As high-profile creators — like Kai Cenat, Keith Lee, and Alix Earle —started showing up, the shift has been on display up and down the Croisette.

C-suite leaders have finally bought into creator marketing as a serious growth strategy. They’re bringing creators as plus-ones and scheduling face time with the creators on the ground.

“Creators aren’t simply talent for your next social campaign,” said Donna Brown, Director, Consumer & Brand Communications at Yahoo. “They’re creative partners, brand builders, and a direct line into culture. For Yahoo, they’re core to how the brand will be showing up on LinkedIn during the festival, so stay tuned.”

Why Make the Trip?

I reached out across the ICYMI network to ask what was driving the industry to collectively pack up and head to the South of France. And the responses generally corresponded to the prestige of the festival; platforms, brands and creators all wanting to be in proximity of each other; and big ticket business opportunities.

The Creator POV

There’s a reason creators (and marketers) talk about the lore of Cannes.

“It’s the place to meet people you’d never meet in ordinary life,” said Marlinarson. That proximity to decision makers is the draw — and the opportunity.

Yes, it’s expensive. But creators are treating it like an investment. Joel paid his own way and said “the opportunities… paid for the entire thing, and then some.”

The key? Come in with a plan. “Try to have a good schedule with space for letting things flow,” said tech and finance creator Uptin. It’s his first time to Cannes Lions, inspired by the other creators, CEOs and founders who told him, “It’s the place to be.”

Last year’s roster of micro-creators also helped pave the way, said Murray. “More creators are starting to see Cannes as a place where they can belong too.”

The Business Angle

For strategy and BD leads, Cannes is about scale.

“The atmosphere is built for impactful networking and big budgets,” said Christine Moran, head of business development and strategic partnerships at Jomboy Media. “For us, it’s the double dedicated tracks for sports and creators, plus every major brand and platform has activations.”

Moran listed off what she’s looking for from the ad festival: first to market opportunities, strategic partnerships, new revenue opportunities via emerging tech, and a chance to collaborate with the major social platforms.

And because it’s Cannes, the right people are already there.

“Given the high costs… you’re guaranteed to have those decision makers there,” she said. Which means bigger conversations — and bigger deals.

The Platform Approach

For brands and platforms, Cannes reflects a bigger shift.

“Creators aren’t simply talent… they’re creative partners and a direct line into culture,” said Yahoo’s Brown.

That mindset is finally sticking. Marketers are finally shifting away from viewing creators as just a distribution channel, and now recognize them as the savvy entrepreneurs, community builders and credible voices they are, said Patreon’s Head of Top Creator Management, Lina Renzina.

“It lines up with what we’ve always believed at Patreon: creators are central to the future of creativity, culture, and connection.”

When I asked Lina what she was most looking forward to as a first-time Cannes Lion attendee, she shared that she was looking forward to hearing the conversations that creators will have with each other and with the media community — and sipping her favorite French fizzy drink, Orangina.

Ultimately, Cannes has become more than a moment — or even a cold cocktail by the beach — it’s a signal.

“Cannes influences the conversation happening at other conferences,” said branding expert Marissa G. How brands and creators show up here shapes what comes next.

🎟️ Get more information about the Creators Pass* that gets you all-access to the 5-day festival

*affiliate link

🪩 Spotify Beach 2026 Reveal

It’s back... The Spotify 20th anniversary disco ball that had the internet freaking out will spin again at Cannes Lions.

The platform gave me an exclusive first look at its Spotify Beach build-out, and the disco ball meeting room was the first thing to catch my eye.

It’s all part of this year’s effort to translate the energy of Spotify into IRL experiences — even for those not there in person.

I asked Spotify’s Global Head of Business Marketing, Bridget Evans, how she’s thinking about extending the festival feeling beyond the South of France. Turns out, it’s something we’ve both been thinking about.

“It’s not based on a FOMO strategy,” she told me. Instead, Evans says the team is focused on turning what they’re doing and saying at Cannes into something actionable that advertisers of all sizes can actually do something about — not just the enterprise brands on the ground.

As for Spotify’s legendary parties — IYKYK — “Our product is what we’re bringing to life,” Evans told me when I asked for their secret sauce. “It’s this moment where the users of our product get to actually experience the energy and that feeling of our platform itself.”

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👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• Why Accenture buying Whalar is a ‘coming-of-age moment’ for creator marketing - Business Insider

• The Cannes Lions creator playbook—how creators can turn a week on the Croisette into lasting partnerships - AdAge

• Companies are using Reddit to manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search - 404 Media

• Kit, the creator-focused email marketing platform, has opened a 5,000-square-foot creator content studio in New York - Axios

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Thread lets you attach 30-second song clips to posts

• Meta is testing a “Series” feature that lets you create video playlists

• Hackers accessed Instagram accounts by simply asking Meta AI

• TikTok is testing a new fan app in the US: TikTok Pro Events

• TikTok and Sundance launched a new micro-drama writing program

• Google launched new creator Search profiles

• Reddit now allows for video replies in comment threads

• The brands winning on YouTube Shorts aren’t acting like advertisers — they’re following the creator playbook

• Plus: 10 brands actively leaning into YouTube Shorts

• Panel Recap: where does Agentic AI actually become useful for social teams? My conversation with Libby Gluck, Sakura Irie, Rachel Smith, and Brandon Smithwrick

💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

• Meta is testing a new “Series” feature for Reels that lets you bundle multiple videos into a single playlist. Reminder: Instagram’s VP of Product, Tessa Lyons, has said supporting micro dramas — along with podcasts and lives — is on the company’s roadmap.

• Instagram (and Adam Mosseri) have confirmed Instagram Plus, a new subscription tier that offers perks like checking to see if a specific person viewed your story.

• Thread now lets you attach 30-second clips from any song to a post or reply

• Instagram Edits app released a trio of audio updates: import your own audio, loudness match, and more sound effects.

• Facebook announced a new AI-powered creator assistant. The tool helps creators brainstorm content ideas, better understand their performance, and get personalized tips.

• Meta introduced Meta Business Agent – an AI that responds to customers 24/7 on WhatsApp and Messenger. The timing seems… awkward? Just last week, hackers asked Meta AI to give them access to high-profile Instagram accounts and it worked, according to this 404 Media report. A Meta spokesperson says the issue has since been fixed. But it’s a good reminder that fully outsourcing customer support to AI comes with potential consequences.

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok is beta testing a new fandom app in the US: TikTok Pro Events. Starting with FIFA World Cup 2026™, you’ll get to engage with global fans, explore trending videos, and access curated creator feeds.

• TikTok partnered with the Sundance Institute to launch a new micro-series writing program. Aspiring micro-drama auteurs can apply on the Sundance Collab website through July 1.

• TikTok released a 2026 Summer Reading List compiled by the #BookTok community

Related TikTok News:

• 2026 Study: What actually works on TikTok

📲 YouTube + Google Updates

• Google launched new creator Search profiles that bring together your social accounts, videos, links, and latest posts into one shareable page.

• YouTube Music announced the 24 artists who will benefit from the platform’s support as part of its Foundry Class of 2026.

📲 Reddit Updates

• Reddit announced video replies directly in comment threads.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn published a blog post defining the five audience personas that can have a major influence on any purchase decision.

Related LinkedIn News:

• Is LinkedIn getting more interesting: Celebrities and paid influencers have transformed the career-focused platform

📲 ▶️ How Businesses Are Being Built on YouTube Shorts

Creators have historically led the way on YouTube — but brands may finally be catching up investing in their own channels instead of just running ads.

Still, when it comes to the 10 million channels publishing Shorts every day, who better to learn from than creators who are actively building their own brands on the platform?

I rolled up to a YouTube Creator Marketplace event this week — hosted in partnership with Melrose Trading Post — featuring creators who are winning on Shorts and in business.

On hand were The Fitness Marshall (Caleb Marshall), Ms. Beanie, LauraDIY, Magdaline Janet and creator-turned-YouTube-staffer Rene Ritchie.

“We hear from a lot of brands that like it when creators give them a channel audit,” global partnerships lead Tiffany Matloob told me. “Creators will say, ‘Have you thought about doing more Shorts? Posting one long-form video a week? Going live?’ It’s their business — they’ve been doing this for so long, so they know what works.”

The brands getting it right on YouTube are doing three things right now:

1. They work with creators as collaborators.

Creators aren’t just the talent or production studio, they provide valuable insights into audiences, formats and algorithms.

“I’ve been in rooms where brands say, ‘If you have a course, I’ll pay you $1,000,’” Ms. Beanie told me — highlighting how much brands value creator expertise, even if they often underestimate it.

Her (free) advice: “Get into the consumer’s mind. Create content for them. Scroll — you’ve got to be scrolling. See what people are talking about. What youth culture looks like. What the slang is.”

2. The content is story-led, not product-led.

What separates successful brands is storytelling, said Tiffany. “Especially with AI, more and more people want to connect with people and stories.”

Caleb Marshall, who’s been on YouTube for 12 years, says his trick is to avoid anything that feels like an ad or includes text saying, “Hey, see more here…” Instead it’s, “Here’s this wonderful funny Short that will make you want to go to our channel and see how you can engage more.”

3. They understand the YouTube ecosystem beyond ads.

That means creating content that’s fun to watch and works natively in the feed, said Caleb.

“The mistake a lot of brands make is they create these really pretty... almost commercials, and expect them to do well,” he told me. “If you want it to be organic, it can’t be a sales pitch. It has to be a video that you’re gonna wanna send to a family member or a friend and make them laugh or make them learn something.”

In other words, the brands winning on Shorts aren’t acting like advertisers — they’re following the creator playbook.

Shorts List

Here are some of the brands – including creator-owned brands – that are actively leaning into Shorts content to engage their communities and audiences:

• Rare Beauty

• Scrub Daddy

• Patagonia

• Sephora

• Warby Parker

• Duolingo

• Shopify

• Canva

• Nami Matcha (creator-led)

• Chamberlain Coffee (creator-led)

✨💡 Where Agentic AI Actually Fits in Social

Where does Agentic AI fit into the social landscape?

I hosted an ICYMI webinar, Breaking Down Agentic AI for Social Teams, with brand strategist and fractional marketing leader Libby Gluck leading the conversation this week — joined by some inspiring panelists:

• Sakura Irie, Global Head of Social Marketing Scale and Optimization at Google

• Rachel Smith, the co-founder of Monark & Co, a full-service marketing agency

• Brandon Smithwrick, a B2B creator and content strategist

What is Agentic AI

Let’s be honest: even defining Agentic AI is a moving target. But a common thread was the idea of letting AI handle tasks more independently, with minimal manual input.

Brandon broke it down into three levels. Most people are on level one — using a chatbot in a purely transactional manner. The next level up is an AI agent built to do one thing really well. And then Agentic AI is meant to automate the busy work you do day in and day out.

Rachel emphasized the importance of keeping humans involved through approvals. It’s Agentic AI with a side of checks and balances.

Sakura framed it as a more autonomous workflow that still keeps humans in the loop — especially important in social, where cultural nuance and emotion matter.

A Key Challenge

All three panelists stressed the importance of knowing when AI efficiency actually makes sense.

For example, Brandon’s built 50 AI agents. That’s no typo. “I’m entrenched in this right now.” Even so, he pointed out that there are occasions that don’t make sense to build tools internally.

“I still use ManyChat in my business and recommend it to brands and creators because it’s plug-and-play. If something breaks, their team can help. When you build internally, you’re also taking on the responsibility to it fix when something breaks.”

Beyond duplication, there are also concerns around brand safety and creative standards.

“For a lot of my prestige clients, it’s not at the place where it needs to be,” said Rachel.

That was echoed by those of you who answered the earlier survey: “Graphics continue to be a struggle.” wrote one person, while another complained, “AI is still not funny. I check a lot.”

Inspiration for Social Teams

So, where does Agentic AI actually become useful for social teams? A few ideas from the panel:

Brandon Smithwrick:

“A lot of Gen Z brands want to be in the feed and commenting on other posts. Maybe there’s an agent that scans TikTok every 30 minutes for the highest performing posts, and then gives you a Google sheet: “All right, these are the posts you need to be commenting on right now.”

Sakura Irie:

“Google is a big brand, we have a social presence everywhere… India, France, Argentina. What I would like to see is the AI tool telling me: “This post is doing well in India, would you like to feature that globally? That gives me an opportunity to feature the content that otherwise I would have to comb through.”

Rachel Smith:

“A lot of us wake up and review analytics. But what then? Hopefully 18 months from now, you wake up and it says: ‘I reviewed the top and bottom performers. Here’s what I propose next.’ I still want the ability to decide which one of these ideas is going to land best, and then let’s go launch that.”

The common thread — to me — is that humans still need to create the content for AI to analyze and optimize. Otherwise it’s just agents boosting other agents.

Membership subscribers, watch the video below 👇🏻

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• The real reason most employee advocacy programs on social fail (with me and Robyn Nissim!) - Word of Mouth Podcast

• 16 Creator Economy experts explain why TikTok’s China-designed live commerce playbook loses effectiveness in Western markets - Net Influencer

• Meet 13 B2B creators brands are betting on in 2026 - AdAge

• The Mashable 101: The creators defining the internet in 2026 - Mashable

• How brands are adapting as social media becomes entertainment - Digiday

• The 2026 World Cup creator gap: Why brands are planning big while creators still aren’t - Later

Read more

Welcome to May’s ICYMI: You Need to Know It Edition, recapping the major platform updates and patterns you might have missed last month. If you only read one edition of ICYMI, it should be this monthly recap.

📋 THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• 11 key platform updates shaping the social and creator landscape this month

• Instagram’s slow shift toward hyper-personalized feeds: What happens when every user has a different app?

• Why comments are quietly becoming the most valuable real estate on social — and other stories I bookmarked this month

• Cultural trend worth stealing: Self-aware brand humor from Chili’s, Liquid IV and IcelandAir

• Bonus insights on the role of organic social in 2026

• RSVP to tomorrow’s webinar, Breaking Down Agentic AI for Social Teams — plus survey results

💻 MINI ROADMAP

• Instagram launched Instants, a BeReal/Snapchat clone for ephemeral content.

• Instagram’s VP of Product said she’s thinking about how the platform can best support long-form creators through podcasts, live streams and micro-dramas — and to expect those changes over the next 1-2 years.

• Instagram brought the teleprompter feature from Edits into the main Instagram camera.

• Meta released a new app called Forum — a dedicated space for Facebook Groups. Some say this is Meta’s attempt to create a Reddit dupe, since that platform is one of the web’s most-cited sources by AI chatbots. I think it’s the thing that will get me back to Facebook Groups.

• TikTok announced TikTok GO, a new way for people in the US to discover and book local services, including hotels, attractions, and tours, directly on TikTok.

• People are freaking out about Google Search being dominated by AI overview — where links become an afterthought.

• YouTube announced that creators can now add music from the YouTube audio library or Dream Track to image posts and carousels within the Shorts feed.

• YouTube announced it will now automatically apply a label to identify AI-generated content and that labels will be simplified and more visible.

• Expanding on the Verified by Spotify badges for artists announced in April, Spotify is now offering verification to podcast shows.

• Spotify rolled out a new Podcast clip feature that lets you clip and share your favorite podcast moments.

• LinkedIn users in the US are set to gain access to Advice Sessions, which will allow consultants, coaches and creators to offer paid one-to-one sessions through their profiles.

• LinkedIn is cracking down on “AI slop” — described as low-effort, AI-generated content.

Read more

[📸 Jesse Leon | Colin and Samir with Johnny Harris]

Greetings from the Publish Press: LA creator summit. It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m writing the newsletter from a folding chair at the event. With all the creators here, I decided to ask what a great partnership looks like from their perspective. The responses weren’t just a plea for more creative freedom (we’ve all moved past the prescriptive brief, right? Right?!) The partnership requests were personally relevant, creatively collaborative, and built for the long term.

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Meta announced new subscription plans for Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus

• Spotted: Instagram is testing a new UX that opens directly into Reels

• YouTube creators can now add music to image posts and carousels in the Shorts feed

• YouTube will now automatically apply a label to identify AI-generated content

• Spotify Articles will turn long-form magazine journalism into audio recordings on the platform

• Pinterest launched a Summer 2026 Trend Report with an emphasis on sports and street style

• Inside Colin and Samir’s Publish Press: LA creator summit

• Report: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is launching a chat show on Twitch

• Reminder: Paid subscribers can sign up for next week’s webinar on Agentic AI for social teams

💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

• Meta announced new subscription plans called Instagram Plus, Facebook Plus, and WhatsApp Plus that offer premium features for brands and creators. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook Plus and Instagram Plus will be priced at $3.99 per month, while WhatsApp Plus will cost $2.99 a month.

• Meta’s leaning hard into subscriptions. Beyond the new Plus plans — there are 4 subscription tiers within Meta Verified: from Meta Standard ($15/month) and Meta Plus ($50/month) to Meta Premium ($150/month) and Meta Max that gets you personalized content strategy advice for $500 a month.

• Spotted: Some Instagram users are seeing a new experience that opens directly into Reels.

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok and Universal Music Group announced a new licensing deal that will allow you access to UMG’s recorded music and publishing catalogs (eg. Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Drake and more).

• TikTok announced season two of its live podcast interview series, TikTok In The Mix, with Bebe Rexha, Lykke Li, Malcolm Todd and Josh Groban.

Related TikTok News:

• TikTok’s AI ‘text to song’ trend may be a sign of music to come

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube announced that creators can now add music from the YouTube audio library or Dream Track to image posts and carousels within the Shorts feed.

• YouTube announced it will now automatically apply a label to identify AI-generated content and that labels will be simplified and more visible.

• Spotted: Some YouTube users seeing exclusive Top Fan videos that can only be watched by 1% of a creator’s most loyal fans.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn shared that in the B2B category, it’s the No. 2 most-cited source for LLMs, second only to YouTube.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat published an article describing itself as a premier destination for real-time sports engagement with 215M Snapchatters watching sports content each month on average.

📲 Spotify Updates

• Spotify announced Articles, a curated selection of long-form magazine journalism, available as audio recordings on the platform. The narrated articles plan to use a mix of human and digital voice narration.

• Spotify rolled out a new Podcast clip feature that lets you clip and share your favorite podcast moments.

📲 Canva Updates

• Canva announced new tools and workflows, including third-party integrations to share work anywhere, such as designs pushed directly to Facebook, Pinterest, OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox.

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest launched a Summer 2026 Trend Report: From sports to street style. Key takeaway: People are borrowing the iconography of sport — team colors, uniforms, bold graphics, and national pride — and incorporating them into everyday choices.

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🔑 ONE THING

Inside the Press Publish Summit: What Creators Actually Want from Brands

There’s a new creator conference in town: Press Publish LA. While it’s actually the second conference from YouTubers Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry, it’s the first to take place in Los Angeles.

Speaking to the 500+ creators gathered, Samir shared that the people in the room collectively represented a staggering 1.3B subscribers and followers across all platforms. “But there is an asterisk,” joked Colin. “That does include MrBeast because the team from MrBeast is here.”

[📸 Jesse Leon | Colin and Samir with Markiplier]

What: Colin and Samir hosted The Hollywood Creator Summit, a one-day event exploring how creators — and legacy Hollywood — are building the future of entertainment.

Where: The summit took place at the historic Fox Studio Lot in a faux New York neighborhood, complete with bodega and Publish Press newspaper box. The location seemed especially relevant for a summit centered on the intersection of creators and Hollywood. There was also a YouTube-themed diner where creators could get questions answered at the counter, a Google Gemini photobooth, and a Red Bull garage and fueling station. The attention to detail — and commitment to the theme — was incredible.

Who: Speakers included top YouTubers such as Markiplier, Michelle Khare, and freshly minted Emmy winner Johnny Harris; Smosh CEO Alessandra Catanese; and YouTube executive Kim Larson.

While Press Publish is still a relative newb in the event space, this seems like the future of conferences:

• Small enough to actually connect with people, but big enough to feel full of possibility

• Programming curated for a specific creator niche (could be a platform, could be a category) — and the operators who support them

• A single-track format, so you don’t have to choose between sessions (A personal plea to other conference organizers: please consider a single-track summit that doesn’t stack multiple amazing speakers against each other.)

Key Theme

True to its name — the Hollywood Creator Summit — the conversations on stage focused on the confluence of creators and traditonal entertainment.

“It feels like to me that there’s a few factors that have turned what used to be us making videos into us as creators making shows,” said Samir during a conversation with YouTube VP Tim Katz.

According to Samir, as more viewers watch YouTube on TV screens, expectations are changing toward longer, more premium programming.

“We’ve also seen new brands enter the space,” Samir, added. “There’s a lot more money in the space for creators to finance productions.”

According to Katz, brands are increasingly interested in buying into full seasons of creator-led shows, mirroring traditional TV models. In response, more creators are structuring their content into episodic formats.

“We’re literally in a golden age right now” said comedian Tom Segura during a separate panel — What Hollywood Actually Wants from Creators — with the head of Fox Creator Studios, Billy Parks.

“If you have ambitions to be doing movies or television, it’s never been more accessible and possible than right now. This is the best time in history for somebody that didn’t follow a traditional entertainment path to end up with something like that.”

Creator Wishlist

During Katz’s session, Samir asked how creators can be good partners.

“The two things that we hear from advertisers all the time is they is they want return on their ad spend and they want brand relevancy,” replied Katz.

But what do creators want in return?

I asked several attendees what would make them say an immediate “yes” to a brand partnership. Beyond compensation. Beyond creative freedom.

Here’s what they said:

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is launching a chat show on Twitch - NBC News

• Substack is working on tools to serve bigger publishers with customized designs and sponsorships - Business Insider

• VidCon Names Markiplier, Philip DeFranco, Michelle Phan, and Cassey Ho as 2026 Hall of Fame Inductees - Net Influencer

• What we mean when we talk about fandom - Dr. Georgie Carroll

• The top 5 states producing America’s biggest influencers (they also happen to be the most populous states) - BetMGM

• Netflix and Spotify just paid $100 million to take Jay Shetty’s podcast off YouTube - TubeFilter

🗓️ COMING UP

Paid subscribers, there’s a bonus newsletter coming for you on Monday recapping May’s biggest trends and platform updates. Plus, a final chance to RSVP to the ICYMI round-table conversation about Agentic AI for Social Teams — hosted by me and Libby Gluck, featuring Google’s Sakura Irie, content strategist Brandon Smithwrick and Monark & Co.’s Rachel Smith.

[From TikTok: Amika, POV Beauty and Mizani]

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• LinkedIn announced it’s is cracking down on AI slop

• Google announced Universal Cart, a tool that lets people shop in Search, Gemini, YouTube and Gmail without ever leaving the Google ecosystem

• Google’s Remix will let you insert yourself into other people’s YouTube Shorts videos

• Google Glass is back — sort of. Only this time it’s much more stylish

• Facebook launched a new app called Forum to manage your Facebook Groups activity

• Spotted: Some users are seeing Story Highlights on TikTok

• Spotify is now offering verified badges to podcast shows

• Report: Marketing teams are still being asked to justify organic social. There’s some new data to settle the debate

• Expert POV: Beauty social leaders Saba Bokhari, Katie King, Stacey Levine and Emily-Jean McDonagh share how they approach organic social

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 LinkedIn Updates

LinkedIn is cracking down on “AI slop” — described as low-effort, AI-generated content.

The company says a combination of technology systems and human oversight will be used to identify content that adds perspective, context, or expertise versus content that feels generic or repetitive.

Another red flag: comments posted via automation tools and replies that parrot the original post without adding anything new.

To make room for more thoughtful contributions LinkedIn editorial VP Laura Lorenzetti says content identified as generic is less likely to be widely distributed beyond a person’s immediate network.

So far, LinkedIn says it’s correctly identified generic content 94% of the time.

It’s a well-timed move. College grads are booing commencement speakers’ mentions of AI. Brands are bragging about not using AI in their social posts.

Clearly, LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) isn’t turning its back on AI — if anything, it’s likely using AI to clean up AI slop. But going after “slop” is an easy win and the comments on Lorenzetti’s post reflect that. “Preach!” “This is amazing.” Even fellow LinkedIn employees are posting “Humans FTW!”

For this week, at least, it’s: Humans 1, AI 0.

Related LinkedIn News:

• LinkedIn wants to host thousands of events a year as part of its bet on creators

• LinkedIn published a guide to creating better video

📲 YouTube + Google Updates

• Google made several YouTube announcements from Google I/O this week: Ask YouTube is AI-powered conversational search that’s currently available to Premium members but will soon be rolling out to everyone else. Remix with Gemini Omni that lets you insert yourself into other creators’ Shorts videos.

• Google partnered with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster to develop smart glasses — or as they’re calling it Intelligent Eyewear — that pair with Android and iOS phones.

• Google Gemini users will soon be able to describe what they want to create — with Adobe pro-grade tools handling the back end (imaging, design, and video), all directly in Gemini.

• Search — and shopping — as you know it has changed. Google announced Universal Cart, a tool that lets people add things to their cart whether they’re shopping on Search, Gemini, YouTube or Gmail. Universal Cart finds deals and price drops, gives shoppers insights on price history and alerts them when an item is back in stock. All without leaving the Google ecosystem.

  The implications of this are enormous for everyone but especially DTC brands. I recommend reading this Vogue piece: Google Just Changed How We’re Going to Shop to get a grasp on the upcoming changes.

  What seems especially relevant for marketing teams to keep in mind is this Ben Hussey quote: “Community lives in the spaces around the purchase: the email series, the Discord, the try-on video, the founder’s Substack. Those touchpoints don’t route through Google’s checkout.”

• Google published The Rise of the Super-Empowered Consumer, a marketers’ guide to reaching consumers at the speed of AI with 4 different case studies from Hilton to Rare Beauty.

Related YouTube News:

• The sports and news Emmys will stream on YouTube

📲 Instagram + Faceook Updates

• Facebook launched a new app called Forum, a single destination to manage and engage with all the Facebook Groups you’re part of.

• Facebook announced two new publishing tools — content planner and Reels bulk upload — to help creators schedule and publish new content.

• Meta published a series on social search, pointing out that social search is where net-new customers are found.

Related Meta News:

• The Meta layoffs are being captured through Reels. These are just a few of the ones spotted among the 8,000 employees who lost their jobs this week: Dan Carino, Asha, Aden Wang, and Britt Pierson.

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok hosted a Built on TikTok: Small Business Showcase in NYC, declaring “boutique small business” was an emerging search on the platform, with a 758% search spike in the second half of 2025.

• Spotted: Some users are seeing Story Highlights on TikTok.

Related TikTok News:

• Gen Z isn’t abandoning TikTok – but they are becoming more selective (and skeptical) about what they consume

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest wants you thinking about Q4 already, pointing out advertisers who run shopping campaigns for six months or more see around 33% higher ROAS than those who run them for fewer than three months.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat published a report on the power of creators, noting creator ads are watched longer and drive more active attention than standard ads because they feel native to the experience.

📲 X Updates

• X introduced Creator Connect, an ad marketplace that connects brands and campaigns with specific creators.

📲 Twitch Updates

• Twitch is releasing new monetization tools to help its streamers drive higher earnings, including Creator Badge Drops, Custom Power-Ups, and more types of Hype Trains (already more than a third of all viewer spending on Twitch revolves around Hype Trains).

📲 LTK Updates

• LTK is expanding its creator recommendations through new features, including Interest-Based discovery and Tagged Locations, plus new Lists that let consumers save posts and products into public or private collections.

📲 Spotify Updates

• Expanding on the Verified by Spotify badges for artists announced in April, Spotify is now offering verification to podcast shows.

• Spotify Creator Sponsorships are now live, giving creators more control over how they schedule, replace, and analyze brand sponsorships.

• Spotify announced it will launch Memberships, a new subscription model that allows eligible creators to offer exclusive content and experiences to their most engaged fans on the app.

📲 Substack Updates

• Substack is beta testing tools so publishers can group, filter, and reach specific subscribers through Tags (custom subscriber labels) and Segments (reusable subscriber filters).

🔑 ONE BIG THING

Organic Social Is the Engagement MVP

Paid social offers predictable performance — at a cost. But for anyone who actually works in this space, organic is the thing that builds brand identity, community, and long-term loyalty.

And yet marketing teams are still being asked to justify why brands should bother with organic. In 2026.

Now there’s some data to settle the debate. (Go ahead and screenshot this to share in Slack or Teams)

Organic content significantly outperforms boosted posts on TikTok when it comes to engagement, according to new research from Emplifi — which analyzed more than 17K TikTok videos across 200 beauty brand accounts.

• Boosted videos drove 19x more views

• Organic content delivered 21x higher engagement rates

• Organic performance held steady as views scaled

• Boosted content saw engagement decline as views increased

There’s also a discovery gap. As organic videos gain traction, they increasingly reach first-time viewers. Boosted content, by contrast, tends to be served to people who already know the brand.

“Organic creates the connection. Paid helps scale it,” Emplifi CMO Susan Ganeshan told me. “Brands saw the strongest results when organic and paid worked together — not when they treated them as separate strategies. Paid media can accelerate action, but organic content and UGC are often what build the confidence to convert in the first place.”

This dynamic is showing up everywhere right now.

Scroll through today’s ICYMI — the backlash against the sea-of-sameness AI slop, Google‘s shopping push — and one thing is clear: the concept of brand is one of the few remaining moats.

And a steady flow of organic content is how that moat gets built.

“Simply put: paid social drives sales, organic social builds legacy,” said Stacey Levine, a brand marketing consultant for clients like Ulta Beauty and L’Oréal Paris. “Organic gives brands a chance to tell their story in the exact way they want the consumer to receive it, and go deeper on education, emotion, and world-building.”

Because people don’t trust ads the same way they trust unvarnished storytelling. Or creator-led content; or the comments section; or always-on, lo-fi content versus big, one-and-done moments.

Sometimes, it’s as simple — and as strategic — as sharing real-time, behind-the-scenes moments, according to Saba Bokhari, who leads brand and consumer engagement for Pureology, Mizani, and L’Oréal Technique.

“Whether it’s capturing what our brand world looks like at a major retail activation or creator dinner, or educating on the sensorial story behind a new hair fragrance launch (and sourcing fresh bergamots for that), organic is a key storytelling lever.”

And the bar has only gotten higher.

“What leadership teams sometimes miss is that social platforms are no longer just competing against other brands,” said Katie King, Director of Social Media and Influencer Marketing, POV Beauty.

“They’re competing against entertainment platforms. TikTok is competing with Netflix for attention. That changes the expectation of what brand content needs to be.”

At POV Beauty — a founder-led company built by creator-turned-entrepreneur Mikayla Nogueira — the emphasis is on content that connects. “There’s a deep understanding internally at POV of what audiences respond to, what feels authentic, and what creates real connection versus content that simply feels promotional.”

And while the Emplifi data focuses on TikTok beauty brands, Ganeshan sees the performance patterns as much broader:

“I do think these patterns extend beyond beauty, especially in categories where trust, identity, and peer influence matter,” she told me.

“We’re seeing similar behaviors in categories like fashion, wellness, travel, and food, industries where consumers want inspiration and authenticity alongside advertising.”

The cross-platform implications track too. Consumers move across channels throughout the buying journey, which is why it’s just as important to tell strong stories through organic social content on Instagram and YouTube as it is on TikTok.

💡💄 BONUS ROUND

To go deeper, I asked a few beauty social leaders how they approach organic today:

*interviews lightly edited for length

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• The comments section has become a new touchpoint in the shopping journey - Vogue Business

• Boosting creator content is not just an afterthought, it’s actually integrated in the campaign itself - Digiday

• Roku doubles down on creators with dedicated destination and new FAST channels - THR

• Gen Z wants to be anything but influencers according to new research - Yahoo

• 33% of social media professionals said their organizations missed cultural shifts due to not acting on social data correctly - Marketing Dive

• “Whimsy” is having a moment, thanks to Gen Z and millennials - NYT

Random notes from me: New column idea: Dumb stuff tech leaders say? Eg. Elon Musk: “Instagram is for girls,” and Mark Zuckerberg (allegedly, before terminating smart people): AI “learns from watching really smart people do things.”

Also I happened to like Spotify’s anniversary glitter ball avatar 🤷🏼‍♀️🪩 looks like other brands did too.

Finally, here’s wishing everyone in the U.S. a peaceful Memorial Day weekend.

Thanks for reading!

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Instagram launched Instants, a BeReal/Snapchat clone for ephemeral content

• Meta is doubling down on AI (launching Incognito Chat, and a Meta AI Threads integration) — people are… skeptical

• YouTube is positioning creator shows like TV, with new ways for brands to buy into them

• TikTok is expanding into travel booking with TikTok GO

• Spotify dropped a 20-year personalized listening recap for users

• LinkedIn is testing paid 1:1 advice sessions for creators and consultants

• Clippers got it right: treat long-form content like raw footage — not just promotional content

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

Instagram dropped Instants (or “Instance” if you’re Adam Mosseri’s caption service). It’s a spontaneous photo-sharing camera that feels like a mashup of Stories, BeReal, and Snapchat — accessible within Instagram or via a standalone app in select countries, including the US.

Instants photos are shared immediately with mutuals or Close Friends, with no editing or filtering. They can only be viewed once; and they can’t be captured via screenshot (I tried).

According to Mosseri, early global testing showed people using Instants to share more casual, authentic moments from their day.

“Sharing personal moments with friends is a core part of Instagram,” he said in a video. He added that since people don’t post a lot to the feed, Instants is designed to help you connect with the people who matter to you the most. (Um, surfacing their content in the feed might also be a solid step but I digress.)

Given the obvious comparisons to BeReal and Snapchat, Instants has strong potential with teens. But what does a smart brand play even look like here — especially when some are already calling it a space for thirst traps? Maybe a creator takeover (a throwback to early Instagram) or behind the scenes at exclusive events?

What do you think — take the poll or leave a comment below!

• Meta is giving parents new supervision tools to view the general topics their teens engage with.

• Meta announced Incognito Chat as a private way to interact with Meta AI. Go ahead and ask those embarrassing questions that are processed in a secure environment and will surely never ever be hacked.

• Meta is testing a way for you to ask Meta AI questions on Threads — the community is less than appreciative.

Related Meta News

• How to turn off Instagram’s new Instants feature and retract photos you accidentally shared

• Instagram’s new Instants App is a Snapchat clone for thirst traps

• If Instants sounds familiar, it’s because Instagram tested something similar in 2022

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube announced itself as the future of media at its annual Upfront presentation and said it would now let marketers buy sponsorships and ad inventory for individual creator shows — just like TV. Among the slate of new and returning Creator Shows announced as coming exclusively to YouTube: Kareem Rahma’s “Keep the Meter Running,” Alex Cooper’s “Unwell Games” and Hopescope’s “I Acted in a Microdrama.”

• YouTube published a Creator Marketing Playbook for advertisers.

• YouTube teamed up with the BBC and the National Film and Television School in the UK to offer a new creator training program.

• Spotted: Google is now pulling social media posts directly into Google Business Profiles. They’re calling it the “Social Media Updates” carousel.

Related YouTube News

• The return to long-form: Why YouTube is winning back brands

• YouTube viewers watch 2 billion hours of Shorts on TVs each month

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok announced its FIFA World Cup 2026™ Creator Correspondents who will provide behind-the-scenes access, POVs, and storytelling from the World Cup.

• TikTok announced TikTok GO, a new way for people in the US to discover and book local services, including hotels, attractions, and tours, directly on TikTok. Meanwhile, creators can earn commissions from related travel content that drives bookings.

• TikTok is launching an ad-free subscription plan in the UK that costs about $5.44 per month.

• TikTok announced a new ad solution, TopReach, that combines two existing placements — TopView and TopFeed — into a single buy to give advertisers the opportunity to reach all available users on TikTok in a single day for key brand moments.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat published a new report on how teens navigate relationships, content and technolog — revealing the next generation moves fluidly between short-form and long-form, engaging with what they find to be the most intriguing.

📲 Spotify Updates

• To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Spotify is giving fans a personalized look at their entire music history — from the first song streamed to the total number of unique songs listened to. You’ll also get your All-Time Top Songs Playlist—a collection of your top 120 tracks.

• Spotify announced it will adopt Apple Podcast’s new video podcast tech, meaning creators on Spotify will be able to distribute and monetize their shows on Apple Podcasts.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• Spotted: LinkedIn users in the US are set to gain access to Advice Sessions, which will allow consultants, coaches and creators to offer paid one-to-one sessions through their profiles.

🎙️ QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I’ve been writing a monthly blog post for the Adobe Express team and the latest was one of my favorites: What it takes to build a podcast audience on social.

Think of your podcast as raw footage, not a finished product, Peter Sleiman, creative director of What’s Uptin, told me. You’re not cutting down a podcast to post a promotional clip to social; you’re building something net new. The branding may look or sound familiar, but the product is different.

You’ve probably seen a lot of coverage of clippers lately — creators who chop long-form content (usually someone else’s) down into bite-sized videos. The lesson here is to think like a clipper. You’re creating original social content, not just promotional content for a podcast or show.

“I see a lot of companies that take this long podcast and just make it vertical and shorter. But you really have to think of it as a new product. Instead of chopping it down into a short video, I think of the podcast as raw footage,” said Sleiman.

📊 DATA DROP

YouTube is the top platform for long-term creator partnerships

• YouTube partnerships are dramatically longer than TikTok and Instagram, with the longest average length being 20.2 months, according to The Influencer Marketing Factory’s Brand Deals Report 2026.

🪩 🏢 🚕 UPCOMING EVENTS

🎟️ The Press Publish LA: The Hollywood Creator Summit — taking place May 28 — shared its first speaker drop, including Smosh’s Alessandra Catanese, creator Michelle Khare and creator Kinigra Deon, among others.

🎟️ VidCon revealed its full 2026 schedule. Creator economy leaders speaking at the June 25-27 event include Twitch’s Dan Clancy, Pinterest’s Malik Ducard, Snapchat’s Brooke Berry, Tubi’s Rich Bloom, and more.

🎟️ Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta Connect 2026 is officially scheduled for September 23-24 in Menlo Park and is expected to showcase AI, VR and wearables.

See: 2026 ICYMI Events Calendar

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• The clipping economy: How short-form video ‘clippers’ are overrunning the internet - NPR

• Disney plans more short-form content and investment in original IP - THR

• Prime Video follows Netflix and Disney by adding a TikTok-like ‘Clips’ feed in its app - TechCrunch

• I talked to Creator Upload’s Lauren Schnipper about memes, Meta's new AI teen surveillance and conferences - Creator Upload

💌 THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT

If you liked this post, please repost, give it a ❤️‪‪︎ ‬ or leave a comment. It helps and it costs $0.00. Or you can shop from my Bookshop.org storefront for recommendations of the social and creator marketing books I’ve read recently.

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[On the Scalable Summit stage: host Kaya Yurieff and Instagram’s VP of Product Tessa Lyons]

Hot take: Maybe the 1-Second Summary section below is a giveaway but I’m loving the Millennial Teams vs Gen Z Teams trend that’s taking over social — give me short and to the point any day. Gen Z’s version comes across as way more authentic than the millennial-themed marketing fluff.

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Instagram’s VP of Product says she’s thinking about how the platform can best support long-form creators — and to expect changes in the next 1-2 years

• Instagram is testing an “AI creator” label

• TikTok’s partnership with Issa Rae’s company launched this week, racking up close to 100M views for micro drama

• One of TikTok’s highest predicting factors of a first purchase is comments by other users

• TikTok’s Head of Creator Marketing says high quality storytelling yields 23x the views and 70x faster follower growth

• YouTube announced US creators can now generate royalty-free tracks for their videos

• Report: In 2028, brands will spend more to boost creator content on social media than they spend with creators to produce sponsored content

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 Instagram Updates

• Instagram is testing “AI creator” labels for creators that regularly post Gen AI content. You can opt in or Meta will automatically add whenever they “detect AI tools were used in the creation process.” It’s a limited test but Instagram says it will be expanding the feature in the coming weeks.

• Meta published a blog post detailing how AI's helping them identify which users should be categorized as Teen Accounts and removing anyone under 13.

• Threads rolled out access to DMs on desktop. An in-app notification says Group Chats are coming soon.

• Threads now allows users to add music clips directly to their posts.

• Edits announced several updates, including deeper insights, blending photos into a video with a Fuse feature, and a new text preset called GALA.

• Spotted: Instagram is testing an option that lets replace the text on someone else’s Reel with your own text.

• Spotted: Threads is testing GIF stickers that allows users to animate text.

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok announced a new partnership to extend ad campaigns beyond the app to real-world placements (eg. urban panels, shopping malls and more).

Related TikTok News

• Why TikTok’s comments section is driving the majority of first purchases right now

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube announced US-based creators can now generate instrumental tracks within the YouTube Studio Editor — selecting from one of four royalty-free tracks to replace copyrighted music.

• A new Google Photos feature will catalog your clothing in a collection — then let you mix and match your wardrobe to style outfits that you can try on virtually. It’s been 31 years but we’re finally getting the closet assistant promised to us by Clueless.

📲 Pinterest Updates

• As part of Pinterest’s Q1 2026 earnings call report, the platform revealed people search Pinterest more than 80 billion times a month, half of them commercial in nature. And over 72% of all impressions occur on search surfaces.

📲 Reddit Updates

• Reddit published a guide to the platform for small businesses.

📲 OnlyFans Updates

• OnlyFans announced the launch of OnlyFans community hubs dedicated to Sports, Comedy and Podcasts in an effort to diversify the content that shows up on the platform.

📲 Spotify Updates

• Spotify is testing an AI-powered tool that would let users create podcasts — similar to Google’s NotebookLM — and import it to Spotify to consume later.

📲 Substack Updates

• Substack launched its own founder interview series, called Open Tab. The video podcast is hosted by co-founder Hamish McKenzie and Head of New Media Hanne Winarsky and will roll out on YouTube, podcast platforms, and On Substack.

🔑 ONE BIG THING

Inside Scalable Summit: Clues to Instagram’s Future

The first annual Scalable Summit — hosted by Scalable’s Kaya Yurieff and Jasmine Enberg — took place Wednesday in Venice. The one-day conference was focused on the business of the creator economy.

There were some creators on hand — Joanne Molinaro, best known as The Korean Vegan, spoke on my panel. Other creator speakers included Amanda McCants and Zach Hirsch). But the crowd was largely a mix of entrepreneurs, operators, investors, founders and tech executives.

Plus, there was a full roster of platform execs, including Twitch’s CEO Dan Clancy, Instagram’s VP of Product, Tessa Lyons, TikTok’s Global Head of Creator Marketing & Community, Marisa Hammonds, YouTube’s Top Creator Partnerships Lead, Michelle Beaver, and Pinterest’s VP of Content Partnerships, Lauren Glaubach.

The tl;dr

• The product shift that will affect you: Instagram is thinking about how it can best support long-form creators (!)

• The product development approach that had me nodding along: OpenAI uses creators to beta test its new offerings

• The storytelling style TikTok wants creators to focus on: high-quality (not necessarily high production value)

• The content style every brand should be exploring: Micro dramas (think Issa Rae’s Screen Time, or Reesa Teesa or Sydney Robinson, etc.)

• The most surprising thing about Scalable Summit: the amount of VC guys in vests, giving the event a Bay Area business vibe

• The term that was used more often than “authenticity”: multiple panelists described AI as an “accelerant”

Overheard

Instagram‘s VP of Product, Tessa Lyons, was dropping breadcrumbs about the future of the app — and it looks a lot like a one-size-fits-all solution: think IGTV meets podcasts meets live meets mini dramas.

You might remember that in December, Instagram launched its Instagram for TV app, featuring short vertical content organized into interest-based channels. But short-form alone isn’t the endgame.

“I don’t think short-form vertical content is going to be enough to succeed on TV,” said Lyons. “What we’re thinking about is, how do we best serve the creators who do short-form content, but also do long-form content.”

Her vision for Instagram one to two years from now: “Instagram will be a unique part of creators’ long form-strategy in addition to their short-form strategy. A piece of that is going to be podcasts, a piece of that is going to be Live, a piece of that is going to be short-form dramas. I think we’re living in an exciting time with these formats and giving creators more ways to tell their stories.”

Lyons also acknowledged that Instagram has made people feel less in control — both everyday users and creators — and that needs to change. The platform’s push toward Recommendations has been great for discovery, but it’s come at a cost. “The loss of control is real, and it’s something we need to fix,” she said.

They’ve tackled this in a couple of ways: first with Trial Reels, which lets creators share content that bypasses their existing followers to reach new audiences, and then with Your Algorithm, a feature that shows people exactly what signals are shaping their feed so they can adjust accordingly.

Both are early steps, but Lyons was candid that there’s much more work ahead. “We need to be a place where creators can find their audiences, where the next generation of voices can break out, and where creators can reliably reach those people — getting that balance right is a large part of my job.”

Marisa Hammonds, Global Head of Creator Marketing & Community at TikTok, pushed back on the format debate. For TikTok, it’s not about long-form versus short-form — it’s about quality. And she had the data to back it up: creators investing in high quality storytelling see 23x the views and 70x faster follower growth compared to other creators.

Her favorite example is Jen Miller, a middle school librarian who built a following around her love of books.

But high quality storytelling doesn’t mean high production budgets. Hammonds said it’s not about fancy equipment or over-produced content. It’s about intentionality: a clear story arc, thoughtful editing, captions for global reach. “Production value does matter,” she said, “but it’s not over indexing to the extreme.”

As for whether TikTok is thinking about a TV app: “I don’t think that is on the roadmap right now,” she said. “Never say never.”

Ian Schafer, Co-Founder of Ensemble and Hoorae Media with Issa Rae, talked about their partnership with TikTok. It’s the first time the platform has partnered with a media company to launch a vertical micro-drama series. Schafer revealed the newly released 26-episode series, Screen Time, is currently approaching 100M views in the US and Canada.

Micro dramas are really just an evolution of the soap opera, explained Schafer — a story form that got its name because they were sponsored by Procter & Gamble and Ivory Soap back in the 1930s. “The natural equilibrium for the format will be ad supported — whether that’s interstitially, through traditional advertising, through integration, or through ancillary content.”

OpenAI’s Business & Partnerships Lead, David Duxin, talked about a trend that’s gained serious momentum: building products with direct creator input. Social platforms have long understood the value of creator feedback in product development — but hearing this from an AI company carries a different weight, given the tension between AI and the creator industry.”

“About a year ago, we released our first image generator, which was a really fun consumer moment, and really showed the world that these models could really help with creative processes.” said Duxin. “We got a lot of feedback from creators who said, ‘This is amazing. There’s the kernel of something really great here, but we want more control. We want to be able to edit the aspect ratio,’ or ‘The text is kind of weird,’ or ‘It needs to look a little bit more realistic.’”

“Fast forward to about a month ago. We released our second imaging model, and it’s a much more intelligent image model. You can do any aspect ratio you want. It’s really good at directly editing text. It’s really good at preserving likeness and photorealism. And so in advance of that launch, we gave several creators early access. And again, we got really good feedback of how this was useful to them.”

[Scaling Social Commerce panel, left to right: Pinterest’s Lauren Glaubach, ICYMI’s Lia Haberman, Teachable’s Olivia Owens and the Korean Vegan’s Joanne Molinari]

Lauren Glaubach, VP of Content Partnerships at Pinterest, opened our Scaling Social Commerce panel with a stat that reframed the entire conversation: 70% of Gen Z shoppers who regularly buy on social say they’ve felt guilty right after a purchase. Her argument was that the next decade won’t be won by the brands that make buying frictionless — it’ll be won by the ones that help people choose things that actually feel like them.

The power of niche, high-effort, deeply human content was echoed by Joanne Molinaro — creator and founder of The Korean Vegan brand. She sold out her Korean Vegan Beauty skincare products with zero paid marketing, purely through the community she’d built by being vulnerable about her story, including her family’s immigrant experience. That emotional specificity turned followers into buyers.

Olivia Owens, Head of Product Marketing & Partnerships at Teachable, made the case that the same depth of connection unlocks an entirely different monetization path through digital products — putting a premium on smaller, highly engaged audiences who trust your knowledge over online popularity or an obsession with follower-count.

“We’re shifting toward expertise and trust,” Owens told me. “Follower count is a vanity metric, and reach alone is not a strategy. The creators with longevity are building intellectual property: digital products, owned communities, and experiences that live beyond the algorithm.”

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• VidCon’s new title sponsor is an AI-powered creator monetization platform - TubeFilter

• More money going to TikTok and Instagram ads and relatively fewer dollars entering creators' pockets - Business Insider

• Target is launching Target Ambassadors, powered by LTK, as new data shows 75% of U.S. shoppers already buy through creator content - Retail Boss

• A ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ meme that viewers thought was AI slop was actually made by a human - NBCNews

• OOH company OUTFRONT partnered with Creators 4 Mental Health for Mental Health Awareness Month - Outfront

• Your personal creative projects now have a collective deadline called Release Day (a collab between CreativeMornings and Creative Quests, powered by Adobe) Release Day

• How to build a branded microdrama—the CMO playbook from Marc Jacobs, Crocs and more - AdAge

  ---

  💌 THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT

  If you liked this post, please repost, give it a ❤️‪‪︎ ‬ or leave a comment. It helps and it costs $0.00. Or you can shop from my Bookshop.org storefront for recommendations of the social and creator marketing books I’ve read recently.

Welcome to April’s ICYMI: You Need to Know It Edition, recapping the major platform updates and patterns you might have missed last month. If you only read one edition of ICYMI, it should be this monthly recap.

📋 THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• 9 key platform updates shaping the social landscape

• The AI debate + an upcoming round table for the ICYMI community

• Where Gen Z is spending their time online — and why

• Examples of the best brand storytelling on YouTube

• The new mandate: Read the comments!

• I will not rest until Smart Girl Summer becomes a thing

Read more

[Creator Alena Yuan]

2016 nostalgia isn’t fading: A new report says nearly half of Gen Z would choose to live in the past if they could. I also talked to a young creator who’s crushing it across social by using “old-time” videos from 2016. Keep reading to see the vintage editing effects Alena Yuan is using to connect with her modern-day audience.

Note: Paid subscribers, a recap of April’s most important updates is coming on Monday!

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• It’s Smart Girl Summer! TikTok launched a BookTok bestseller list; a new Meta survey shows expert knowledge is the thing people value most in creators; Pizza Hut’s summer reading program is back; and Vogue is calling this the era of the bookish influencer

• Instagram is cracking down on content aggregators (but not original meme creators)

• The Edits app turned one — I asked a product manager, a creator and the ICYMI community where things stand with the video-editing app

• Google is testing an AI-powered conversational search feature on YouTube

• Snapchat released a new AI-driven ad format in Chat, saying the future of ads is conversational

• Pinterest published a Wedding Trends Report 2026

• Spotify is launching verified artist badges to distinguish humans from AI

• Vine and Friendster are making a comeback

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok told me it evolved its Campus Verification program in the US into a full Campus Hub for verified students aged 18 and older, adding dedicated college feeds and group chats that hold up to 300 people.

• Spotted: TikTok now lets creators add and remove keywords assigned to their clips, which can help better align their content with user searches

• TikTok launched a BookTok bestseller list — this coincides with the latest ICYMI newsletter about library social; Pizza Hut bringing back its summer reading program; and Vogue calling this the era of the bookish influencer. Get in loser, we’re going to the library!

Related TikTok News

• Retailers flock to TikTok Shop to find new shoppers, sales growth

📲 Meta Updates

• Instagram announced it was cracking down on content aggregators who primarily re-upload others’ work as photos and carousels — and they may no longer be eligible for recommendations. They also hosted a live session for the meme creator community to talk about the announcement and emphasized that “material edits” need to be made to the content (eg voice over, commentary, graphics or text) that add entertainment, informational or narrative value to the content. I shared screenshots of the session here.

• Instagram gave its Insights tab a refresh, including a new 3-tab layout and new engagement rates — like share rate and skip rate — to better understand what’s actually driving reach.

• It really is smart girl summer. In a new Meta report, when people were asked what they value most in creators, expert knowledge came first, with 81% rating it as important. That’s ahead of humor, relatability, or any measure of fame. The study also reveals that the largest behavioral gaps aren’t between generations — they’re between lifestages.

Related Meta News

• China blocked Meta’s $2B takeover of AI agent developer Manus

• Some brands may be slower to use Meta’s affiliate tools than others

• Meta’s daily active user count declined in Q1 2026

📲 YouTube Updates

• Neal Mohan announced YouTube is officially launching a fully customizable multiview feature, giving you full control to mix and match live streams

• Google is testing an AI-powered search feature on YouTube, allowing for more conversational queries.

Related YouTube News

• Ad spend on YouTube, Google Search, Amazon Sponsored Products is growing

• Gen Z and Millennials “consistently converge” on YouTube

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn launched an NFL Draft Campaign with longtime power user Fernando Mendoza. Then Taco Bell jumped on the trend and created a PowerPoint deck congratulating the “Franchise Player.”

• Jennifer Lopez updated her LinkedIn account this week as a marketing stunt to reflect the new role she plays as an airline pilot in a new romcom, Office Romance. HR would like to have a word.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat introduced AI Sponsored Snaps, saying the future of ads is conversational. In this case, it means Snapchatters get to interact directly with brands’ AI agents in Chat.

Related Snapchat News

• Snap’s Evan Spiegel warns tech leaders are underestimating a coming backlash against AI

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest published a Wedding Trends Report 2026, focusing on unconventional wedding experiences.

• tvScientific by Pinterest announced brands will be able to tap into the platform’s audience data to reach them through CTV spots on the biggest screen in the house.

Related Pinterest News

• Pinterest’s new brand campaign calls out the cost of being constantly online

📲 Twitch Updates

• Twitch released a transparency report stressing that livestreaming is not conducive to the spread of misinformation, unlike the targeted mis- and disinformation campaigns “that thrive on social media platforms focused on static text and curated image and video content,” said Twitch’s Chief Technology Officer, Christine Weber, in a statement.

Related Twitch News

• Twitch CEO says its edge over YouTube, TikTok comes from their version of ‘community’

📲 ChatGPT Updates

• ChatGPT released Images 2.0, an image generation model that’s free to use within the app. TechCrunch said it’s surprisingly surprisingly good at generating text

📲 Patreon Updates

• Patreon announced a redesigned home feed, membership-only feeds, and a new short-form post format called Quips.

📲 Spotify Updates

• Spotify is launching verified artist badges to help distinguish humans from AI

👀 Deja Vu Updates

• A former Twitter employee is relaunching Vine as Divine — it will include over 500K archived Vine videos from OG Vine creators like Lele Pons and King Bach and includes a no-AI policy.

• Friendster is also back from the dead. Someone bought the domain for $30K and is relaunching as a social network to connect with IRL friends.

Gen Z Is Going Back to 2016 to Crack the 2026 Instagram Algorithm

It’s the one-year anniversary of Instagram‘s Edits app, and there’s a lot to catch up on.

I spoke with creator Alena Yuan, whose accounts have exploded since she launched them last year. She shared her editing tips — including why she avoids the millennial pause and why 2016 YouTube is her unlikely blueprint for Instagram success in 2026.

I also got a peek at new features from Edits’ product staffer Tory Trombley, who joined a UCLA Extension influencer marketing class I teach as a guest speaker. (It’s part of a broader outreach initiative — the Edits team visited Chapman University last month.)

And I checked back in with the ICYMI community — creators and marketers — who first shared their thoughts on the app a year ago.

UPDATES AS EDITS TURNS ONE

Since launching Edits, the team has shipped weekly updates — adding features such as a teleprompter, deep Reels insights and the ability to link out to multiple other Reels (seriously, have you seen this underrated feature?!).

Just launched:

• A new text-to-video AI feature called Generate that allows you to create clips

• A new beta version that allows creators to try experimental features, starting with Versions which allows you to create multiple versions of a video

• Cinematic filters inspired by shows and movies, like a new Euphoria filter

Coming soon:

• More complex templates with overlays, keyframes, and video effects

• Upgrades to captions around accuracy, quality, and language expansion

• Creative studio customization to effects and other creative tools

• More ways to save your favorites in Edits to make the process faster

More Edits scoop:

• I asked whether the team was working on a desktop version. And the answer is… maybe? “A big question for product is really trying to figure out the next iteration. Do people really value having this on desktop? And if the answer is yes, then we’ll build it. It’s just a matter of time.”

• Another question I had: will Edits allow users to export videos to Threads? “Not right now. Obviously, today you could download the video and upload to Threads — but that’s an interesting idea.”

• And in the future, Tory Trombley thinks AI-powered editing tools will allow you to create multiple versions of one video that work across multiple platforms. “But we’re not there yet.”

THE CREATOR POV

The Edits team works with creators daily, Tory Trombley told me, and their feedback drives a lot of what you see in updates.

I asked Alena Yuan — a full-time creator with 632K Instagram followers, 1.1M TikTok followers and 1.25M subscribers on YouTube — what she thought her contribution had been. She said she made an early request for sound effects, which she uses constantly. “I don’t know if it was just me who helped make that happen, but that was one of the features where I realized later, ‘Wow, it has it now.’”

As we talked, Yuan walked me through her editing process, her unlikely source of inspiration, and the types of videos she’s seeing perform best right now.

ICYMI: Where do you get inspiration from?

Alena Yuan: “I take inspo from the 2016 YouTube era. I grew up in that space. The OG YouTubers like Emma Chamberlain and Bethany Mota, their editing styles and video ideas. I asked myself, ‘Why does no one add the roasting sound effect to the videos anymore?’ So I put that in my videos, and then also incorporated newer sound effects. So it’s not just like the 2016 meme sound effects. I try to make it contemporary in that sense.”

I also watch a lot of brain rot stuff. There’s a YouTuber called Slushy Noobs, and more funny niche creators who have this Gen Z humor that I incorporate with old time 2016 editing styles. The editing style is so nostalgic, but the humor is very up to date and very fun.”

ICYMI: If you were editing a video today, what effects would you add to capture that 2016 meets 2026 vibe?

AY: “They have this one sparkle effect. I think that effect paired with a love kind of sound effect is really cool. You can do it when you’re talking about a product that you really love. I feel like that one is very 2016. I also really love this explosion sound effect. It’s great when you’re making a joke, you put that in.”

ICYMI: Did you have this style defined from the beginning or did it evolve over time?

AY: “My style developed a little bit over time but even in the very beginning I had a vision of what I wanted to be known for. I wanted to separate myself from what I saw online — I felt like there was a lack of a new, fun editing style. So in the beginning, I had all my funny, witty humor, but I didn’t have the sound effects and stuff. And I slowly started incorporating more and more.”

ICYMI: What Edits feature are people sleeping on?

AY: “It’s the newest feature they came out with, the sticky tab notes thing. At the end of the day, a great video comes from an idea you have. It’s easy to say, ‘I have this really good idea, I’ll come back to it.’ And then you forget all about it. The iPhone Notes app is not really visually appealing. The new one on Edits is really cute. I feel like something that is super visually appealing makes you write your ideas better, or helps you remember better.”

ICYMI: What video length are you seeing perform best, either for getting in front of new audiences or for nurturing your existing audience?

AY: “Really short videos, like four to seven seconds, are very fun, and whimsy to post, and they do really well short term. But long form, at least a minute, are what makes people stay.

If I was trying to build my brand, I would start off by making personality content. When people see those videos, they say, ‘Oh, she’s actually pretty funny, or she’s very calming or soothing.’ And they follow from that. And then, after a little bit, I would start posting stuff that I think will go viral. If viral is all you post, people look at your account and think, ‘Oh, there’s nothing here to for me to look at or follow.’”

ICYMI: Is there an editing element that makes or breaks a video?

AY: “I don’t like when there’s a lot of long pauses, or a break of you speaking. It’s very awkward. If you can chop it down to make it flow, that will keep people’s attention and keep them engaged. Some people call it the millennial pause. It’s super important to cut that down to get more people to actually finish your video.”

ONE YEAR LATER…

Last year I polled the ICYMI community to see how people were reacting to the launch of Edits. I checked in this week to see how things had changed for better or worse:

“I love it even more! They’ve continued to add features, there’s templates, in-line links, they added the teleprompter feature for voiceovers that I asked for and pinged me when it was implemented - very responsive dev team on threads and I can’t wait to see how it matures!”

Creator Broderick Smylie

“It’s definitely much better than it was and I actually do use it sometimes, however I’m still a CapCut girlie. I’ve been using it for years and it’s faster for me to create in CapCut than in Edits. Plus captions work better. I had so many errors in Edits that I gave up. Even though I have to pay for CapCut. Plus things like retouching, changing order of videos or using overlays - it’s just much easier in CapCut.”

Creator Malgorzata Gogut

“For me, it’s definitely replaced all other iPhone video editing apps. I use it for almost every IG reel but I don’t edit the whole video on it. That’s only because I prefer to edit on a different program from a desktop. I do add text and captions in Edits, it seems to do a better job at captions than my desktop software.”

Creator Eddie Sanchez

“Edits has improved a lot since the initial release and the development team has added many key features like keyframes (pun intended) that allow fine tuning the motion and scale of the image or video. One thing that would elevate the experience would be a way to edit the keyframes and other parameters of the cool built-in motion effects. Currently they are a one-and-done type thing that are set to specific parameters that can’t be changed at all.”

Creator SKR Imaging

“I’m still using Edits and I’m really impressed with how far it’s come since beta testing! I’m now able to edit an entire Reel from start to finish in the app, and I especially love that it saves progress, lets me name projects easily, and makes it seamless to pull in trending sounds from Instagram, which used to be such a cumbersome part of my workflow.”

Creator Francesca Murray

“They finally got templates, sort of. Nothing compared to the quality of the CapCut template library; The stats are amazing. I’m shocked they let us snoop on other creators’ stats; The storyboard is very interesting to me. I want to use the sticky feature because I think it can be helpful, but I can’t figure it out. I saved an IG link today as inspo and I know you can do that on stickies but it’s too many places to keep ideas in. I use it to keep learning and because the remix function on IG is cool. And the handy little “made on edits” which may or may not help.”

Agency owner Mandy Hoskinson

“I love it! I ditched CapCut fully for it. I don’t really use the Inspo tho… I would love for there to be “nesting” like Premier desktop has. And a search for the font and to have more control over effects (like Premier). Also not sure if we can add LUTS in there but that would be helpful!”

Creator Cristina Lopez

THE VERDICT

The app’s come a long way from its fairly basic launch (it even worked its way up to the top 10 most downloaded photo and video editing apps of 2025).

Edits is deeply integrated with Instagram in ways that can genuinely help with reach, it exports in 4K without a watermark, and for now, it’s still free. Meta hasn’t ruled out paid features down the line, but Instagram product lead Matt Simari has said a paid tier would likely only come if they build something new enough to warrant it.

Last year I asked if Edits was worth the hype — a year later, I’d say yes.

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• Netflix launched ‘Clips,’ a vertical video feed meant to help you decide what to watch or play next - Netflix

• Tubi announced a new slate of digital-first creator series, including a two-part Keith Lee special - Tubi

• Agencies turn creators into test labs for campaigns and product innovation - Digiday

• Why Are So Many Influencers Speaking at Harvard Business School? - Vogue

• Big brands boost creator spending, but smaller firms dominate the deals - WSJ

• People do not yearn for automation - The Verge

• Trendjacking versus original content; how to get the balance right - Sprout Social

💌 THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT

If you liked this post, please repost, give it a ❤️‪‪︎ ‬ or leave a comment. It helps and it costs $0.00. Or you can shop from my Bookshop.org storefront for recommendations of the social and creator marketing books I’ve read recently.

[left to right, social posts from City of Marion, Columbus, Milwaukee, Los Angeles]

Hello! This is part of a deep dive series looking at social media strategies in specific categories. I’ve been looking forward to talking to library social teams for so long, having been a fan ever since #bookface became a thing.

Up next, I’d love to tackle highly regulated industries — but I assume it might be tough to find people who can talk? If you have a social account to recommend or another category you want me to cover, please reply to this newsletter!

Books have always been cool. Libraries, too. But lately, it feels like the rest of the world is finally catching on to what book lovers have always known: being well-read is in style. Library cards are stirring up big feelings; people are fighting over free books, creator librarians like Mychal Threets are in the news; Vogue is even calling this the era of the bookish influencer — with intellectual influencers leading the anti-slop movement.

Even when the hype cycle inevitably moves on, the stakes are real. “Whatever helps stem the tide from the literacy crisis, I’m all for,” Keith Kesler, Social Media Librarian at the LA Public Library told me, pointing to dwindling attention spans as an issue.

But there’s more to it than our addiction to short-form video over books.

“Libraries are such multifaceted institutions, which is exactly why social can be so challenging for them. They serve so many purposes, audiences, and community needs all at once,” said The Shelf’s Elizabeth Hassett, who previously worked with the National Archives and holds a Master’s in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Maryland. She told me she breaks library comms and marketing into three categories:

• The library as a physical space where people go to study, learn, play, discover, and access resources like computers and the internet.

• Within that, there’s programming: bringing communities together, offering education, supporting literacy, and spotlighting local and national authors.

• Then there’s the digital side of the library experience. People borrow audiobooks through Libby, rent videos, and access all kinds of content and services without ever stepping into a branch.

So what does it actually look like to run social for a library — navigating the mandate to inform people in the neighborhood, connect with communities, and promote literacy, all at once? To find out, I spoke with social media leads from four standout libraries, everywhere from Los Angeles and Milwaukee to Columbus and Marion, Australia.

• Keith Kesler, Social Media Librarian, LA Public Library

• Jasmine Argent, Marketing and Comms Support Officer, City of Marion Libraries

• Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs, Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Milwaukee Public Library

• Grayson Kelly, Digital Storyteller Specialists, Columbus Metropolitan Library

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ICYMI: How would you describe your library’s creative approach to social?

Jasmine Argent: Our social media first took off with a Keeping Up with the Librarians series, which was a parody of the reality TV show in a library setting. People loved the storytelling, humour and behind-the-scenes look into our workplace. So, that’s been our strategy moving forward. To create content that entertains and showcases our libraries as welcoming spaces.

Keith Kesler: We’re always looking at the resources provided by the library and thinking about how we can package that information into content that our audience will find engaging. One phrase we use a lot is, “how can we make it fun?” Oftentimes we need to promote programs or services that might seem mundane but if you find a unique angle, the promotion can grab people’s attention.

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs: We’ve been able look around the take stock of what resources we have available to us. This person likes to dance, that person can make props, this person knows someone who has a mini tricycle. How can we take what we have available to us and turn it towards championing the library? We have been able to set a pace and tone that feels natural and comfortable to us and still maintains the voice of the library. Generally, we’ve heard our videos being described as cheeky and unhinged while being heartfelt.

Grayson Kelly: On its own, “information” is not always appealing to a social media audience, so we try to wrap it in a layer of entertainment. I like to call it the “exit through the gift shop” method. We’ll show you something pleasant up front, and if you feel compelled, you can stick around to the CTA (if there is one). This can take the form of our Law & Order parody series, where we’re acting out a bizarre comedy while intermittently referencing underutilized library resources. But it can also be as simple as choosing a nice photo instead of a graphic.

@columbuslibraryIf you vandalize the library, you’re gonna get booked #lawandorder #svu #library

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ICYMI: Obviously libraries have always been cool but it feels like social just recently caught up, why do you think all of this is happening now?

Grayson Kelly: I’m really glad to hear you say this. Mostly because I thought I was in an echo chamber!

Threads might be an outlier in this regard, but I’m encouraged by it. Where platforms like X are using their algorithm to bump up controversy, Threads seems to be acting in reverse – placing “Mister Rogers” content at the forefront, and making sure people get something positive out of the experience. I’m projecting here, but it really seems like Threads is taking a calculated risk to amplify joy and interconnectivity, rather than pandering to the worst, loudest parts of ourselves. I’d love to know if it’s working. I really hope it’s working.

It also helps that Mychal Threets is such an icon. Everyone in this field looks up to him. To be honest, I’m a little nervous that I’ll meet him someday – much like Troy from Community was nervous to meet the previous host of Reading Rainbow. You can’t disappoint a picture!

Keith Kesler: It’s interesting because libraries have been breaking through on social for a number of years, so I don’t think there’s much unique about this specific moment. My theory is that sometimes the content reaches different groups of people, who may not have had libraries on their radar, so it appears things are blowing up but it’s kind of business as usual.

What has been changing for the past number of years is the dial turning on virality, so a small library system has just as good a chance of breaking a million views as one of the larger systems.

ICYMI: BookTok has also been credited with helping increase bookstore sales and drive library visits — is that still the case?

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs: It’s very difficult to directly measure quantitatively how social media effects library visits. However, we hear a lot of stories firsthand from patrons who come in the door who have been motivated to read more, visit the library, try a certain book, etc because of something they saw on social media, whether they’ve been motivated by our account or someone else’s.

Keith Kesler: BookTok is one aspect but we’re always seeing the real world effects of our social posts. A few years back, we collaborated with LA Times 404 to promote our Octavia Lab maker space and saw a jump of 800 people signing up to be members in a month! More recently, we posted a video about the excavation of our 100 year old time capsule and it led to a jump in media interest and attendance at our centennial kick off event.

ICYMI: Is there a platform you’re leaning into more heavily this year and why?

Jasmine Argent: We’re currently on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok and we don’t really lean towards one more than the other — they’re all important for us because they reach different demographics.

Keith Kesler: Instagram is by far our most popular platform but I’d love to increase our YouTube presence going forward. There are stories about the library we want to tell that expand past the three minute mark and when people tune in to a YouTube video they tend to watch all the way through.

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs: Generally, we use TikTok as a yardstick. It’s the platform with our youngest following and also our most local following. It gives us a good sense of what is truly resonating and what’s not.

@milwaukeepubliclibraryYou are invited to the Grand Opening Celebration of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Branch Library. The day will begin with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11:30 am, followed by an afternoon of celebration, including live music and performances, local food vendors, live cooking demos, and tours. Our current lineup can be found at mpl.org/king. Thanks again to @Christopher DeAngelo Gilbert🕺🏿. Produced by @sunny #Milwaukee #Library #414 #Neighborhood #GrandOpening

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ICYMI: What types of content formats have been most effective and why do you think that is?

Keith Kesler: Obviously vertical video has been huge for the past few years. We tend to lump it all into the category of short form video but our most popular pieces have been longer form pushing the limit of the three minute reel limit. Once you grab people’s attention, they are willing to stick around as long as they find value in the content.

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs: For us, short form video has been a great tool. It’s wonderful for storytelling and who better to tell stories than a library?

Grayson Kelly: It might go without saying, but our original content is almost always performing better than trends. With an original work, we can focus all of our energy on the entertainment and information. Our group chat is called the “writer’s room”, where everyone can pitch an idea and workshop together before deciding whether or not to move forward on a concept.

ICYMI: Can you share an example of a post that really resonated, and why you think it worked so well?

Jasmine Argent: The ‘not everything is a two person job’ video with Denise and I still sticks out as content that really resonated with our community… People can relate to the unlikely intergenerational workplace friendship, so they were tagging and sharing it with their work friends. Our deadpan expressions made people laugh, so it was evoking strong, memorable reactions. It was a trend at the time, so people kept watching because they knew what they were going to get and it ‘trending’ probably helped with the algorithm. Also the timing, it was posted during Book Week so traditional media also jumped on it as a ‘good news’ story.

Keith Kesler: Our Reference Desk series has been super popular with over twelve million views. We started the series rather haphazardly on a Friday afternoon discussing the new Taylor Swift album. We’ve been able to continue the series, discussing pop culture moments from the Bad Bunny halftime show to recession indicator memes. I think the videos have been successful because people are looking for reliable trustworthy sources and the library fills that need regardless of the topic discussed.

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs: More recently, we felt that our video in promotion of our Martin Luther King Jr. Branch grand opening in September took us to the next level. We wanted to celebrate an important community staple whose beautiful remodel was 9 years in the making. We were able to collaborate with local artists by jumping on something that was a Milwaukee trend at the time, the 414BigFrank song “There It Is”, produced by Sunny Lou, which was popularized by Tommy “the Mayor of Milwaukee”.

One of our posts also featured local dancer Christopher Gilbert (@bmadboss), who is a celebrated Milwaukeean. We did a series of videos with them which were posted on their platforms and ours in promotion of the branch opening which garnered over 5 million views.

The event attendance was amazing and the energy among the attendees was electric, making it our highest attended opening to date. This was something that was Milwaukee specific, but had wide appeal with direct Milwaukee impact. It was a great way to build our Milwaukee community and let the world have fun watching.

Grayson Kelly: Here comes another loose, screwball hypothesis! I used to think that a small cast was best (see: every brand account with just one or two hosts; every small business that features the same half-dozen employees). I thought it was a familiarity game, but I’m getting more and more interested in a maximalist approach.

Two recent overperformers stand out: our 2025 Books of the Year Preview, and the “What Do You Say to the Next Person” trend. They both feature a few different staff members who are each on screen for a few seconds at a time. They’re all being themselves, sharing a slice of their personality.

It’s two strengths coming together at once: human authenticity, and a revolving-door pace which matches our scrolling habits. When it’s done right, it’s like, ten videos at once.

ICYMI: What are the biggest challenges you have to navigate?

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs: Social media changes all the time and just when think you have the formula worked out, something changes. Creators have to stay abreast of the way things are shifting, not only in terms of the platforms themselves but being able to do a temperature check of the room before posting. There is a lot going on in the world. How do you strike the right tone?

At the moment we’ve also navigating a different library landscape than what we’ve seen previously. We were also among the first wave of libraries who experimented with TikTok-styled videos. Now many libraries make short form content like ours. There are so many fabulous, capable creatives also working on library platforms nowadays who are doing their part to spread the word about how wonderful libraries are. An ever-changing landscape definitely keeps us on our toes! We can’t slack off, that’s for sure. We have to keep up with all these other great library accounts.

ICYMI: Is there another account that inspires you?

Grayson Kelly: Tons! I’m a big fan of the LA Public Library, especially their reference desk series. There’s also Milwaukee, the third most-followed public library in the U.S., for good reason. Our library FYP does some heavy lifting, too. There are a lot of smaller systems that hit the comedic jackpot over and over again. Every few days, I think about “Go Patterson” and start laughing out loud in public.

Jasmine Argent: There are a lot of accounts that inspire me, but Milwaukee Public Library was great when we first started posting videos, because they were proving that libraries could have fun, take risks and be really creative with content.

Keith Kesler: There’s so much great content that it’s tough to single out specific accounts but I really like Columbus Public Library. They have a great mix of entertaining and educational content. I also appreciate a video like this one from LMU Library that breaks down a complex topic like AI in library resources in a thorough and thoughtful way.

ICYMI: Are there any favorite tools, workflows, or tricks that make your life easier and you think others should steal?

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs: I have a tentative posting schedule but I also like to leave room for current trends or cultural moments we want to jump in on. I also like to have evergreen content banked for times when we get busy with other projects and don’t make new things. We still have things we can post. This is also helpful for when you’re on vacation, for instance!

Keith Kesler: I would say an LED light is the easiest and cheapest tool you can pick up to increase the production value on your videos. We have a lot of areas in the library that are beautiful but not ideal for filming with natural light. Being able to bring in a light opens up a whole other set of options for filming.

ICYMI: What’s your advice for other libraries on social?

Grayson Kelly: This job can be demanding, but please, give yourself permission to chill out. When there’s a gap on the content calendar, it’s almost instinctive to be hard on yourself. Our output is public, after all, and it feels like everyone’s watching! But no one is refreshing the library’s Instagram account and cursing us out for not posting something on the grid that day. If you’re stressed about “keeping the platforms active”, you might not see the right moment — or have the energy for it — when it arrives.

Jasmine Argent: Don’t be afraid to have fun and showcase your personalities on social media. I know it’s not comfortable for everyone, but it’s the best way to humanize your content, build trust and connect with your community. This is important as people are increasingly questioning what to believe on social media.

Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs: I would say find a unique voice, style and tone that feels authentic to your library and be consistent. How do you participate in trends while being distinctive enough to make others want to follow you? If a viewer liked one of your videos, they might check out your page to see what your vibe is. Followers can turn into users and even library advocates, which is invaluable.

Keith Kesler: Make building an audience a higher priority than going viral. Focusing on creating serialized informational content is a great way to lower the stress of having to think up news ideas and it results in content that members of your community will look forward to watching on a regular basis.

Where do things go from here? I asked Grayson Kelly if he had any predictons or thoughts on how library social evolves to meet the needs of Gen Z and Gen Alpha:

“I’m predicting more on-the-ground authenticity; more brands handing the phone to their most charming, on-the-ground employees,” he told me. “The guy that loves making pizzas at Papa John’s has done more positive PR for them than anything in recent memory. And yet, we feel like we’re getting away with something when we watch it.”

“I’m less certain about what this means for the library space in particular, but I am sure about one thing: the core function of the library is not its collection, but its people. And if it’s authentic human interactions that people want to see… The library will always be a good place to find it.”

*Responses have been lightly edited for length. Paid subscribers: you can read the full, unedited transcript of the library social strategy interviews here: Library Social - Full Transcript

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• Nonprofit Social Strategies From WCK, Planned Parenthood + More

• How To Run Higher Ed Social In 2025 with MIT, UMich and UNC + More

• Community Lessons from Goodreads, Letterboxd, Adidas, + More

[Dove r/eal Reviews campaign on TikTok]

Note, I’ll be back on Monday with a special report on social media for library teams — coinciding with the end of National Library Week and what Vogue is calling the era of the bookish influencer 📚

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Instagram’s testing a new app called Instants — but it’s not available in the US

• Threads announced a new Live Chat feature centered around cultural events

• YouTube announced a deepfake detection tool for high-profile personalities

• Google and Gucci partner for luxury smart glasses

• TikTok and Visa to offering a debit card in the UK with creator-friendly perks

• Snapchat will highlight the most frequent visitors to a place on Snap Map

• LinkedIn is testing a product that lets you compare AI tools side-by-side

• How brands such as United, Dove, Fidelity, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese are using Reddit — plus, tips from a Reddit moderator on what to avoid

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 YouTube - Google Updates

• YouTube developed a proprietary deepfake detection tool that actors, athletes, creators and musicians can use to identify and request removal of deepfakes on the platform.

• Google and Gucci have partnered to develop the upcoming Gucci AI smart glasses, targeting a 2027 release date.

Related YouTube News

• When kids want to watch their favorite creators, they go to YouTube

📲 Meta Updates

• Threads announced Live Chats — public group chats around BIG cultural events starting with the NBA playoffs. As of right now, Live Chats will be available to a select group of creators, including Community Champions who are actively engaged in a Threads community. Keep an eye on this one, the opportunity to plan chats around fandoms, interests and cultural moments seems huge.

• Threads has now incorporated trends into the search page and the For You feed for U.S. users.

• Spotted: People in Europe and the UK are able to download a new app from Instagram called Instants. The Google Play store description says you’re able to: Share disappearing photos with friends — much like Snapchat or BeReal.

• Instagram Edits celebrated its one-year anniversary by announcing some upcoming upgrades to captions, advanced color adjustments, speed curves, and more. They’re also working to make tools within the app more customizable.

• Spotted: Instagram is testing new insights that reveal specific metrics affecting your views, including Skip rate, Share rate and Repost rate.

• Meta announced that parents will be able what topics their teens have asked Meta AI about.

• Meta is upgrading its user Account Center to gather all of your accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads, etc.) under a new Meta Account hub. You can optionally set up a single password to log into your apps and devices so you no longer have to remember multiple passwords.

Related Meta News

• Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data

• Threads edges out X in daily mobile users, new data shows

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok and Visa partnered in the UK to launch a debit card that offers creator-friendly perks.

• TikTok announced its music discovery feature Add to Music App has been used to save more than 6 billion tracks to premium music streaming services over the last twelve months.

Related TikTok News

• TikTok paused its “Meme Remixer” after complaints from creators

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn is testing a new product called Crosscheck that lets Premium users compare AI tools side-by-side.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat announced Place Loyalty — highlighting when you’re among the top 25% of Snapchatters who visit that place on Snap Map over the past year.

📲 X Updates

• X is shutting down Communities because of low usage and spam and will instead focus on its messaging service, XChat.

• X is rolling out a tool to snooze topics you don’t want to see on your For You tab.

📲 Beehiiv Updates

• Beehiiv newsletter platform is rolling out upgrades to round out its content offerings, including webinars, podcast support and paid subscriptions.

📲 Substack Updates

• Substack newsletter platform launched new translation features, starting with the ability to translate Notes written in English into 15 languages, or into English from over 100 languages.

7️⃣ THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT REDDIT

For a long time, brand roles on Reddit fell into predictable buckets — AMAs, ads, and social listening. The message to brands was simple: stay in your lane.

That’s changing, for a few reasons.

First, Reddit itself. In 2024, the platform launched Reddit Pro, a free suite of tools that welcomed businesses wanting to build an organic presence — tracking conversations, analyzing performance, and engaging with communities.

In 2025, it added Reddit Pro Trends, which surfaces what people are saying about virtually any topic on the platform. And this year, Reddit announced it was testing a new AI-powered shopping feature that turns community recommendations into shoppable carousels.

Then there’s the AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) of it all. Reddit signed content licensing deals with Google and OpenAI early on, plus its reputation as the internet’s largest community forum — home to genuine conversations on everything from vintage cameras to skincare to NYC influencers — has made it one of the most trusted sources for LLMs to pull from, despite some early missteps.

Today, Reddit is among the most-cited sources across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and beyond. That’s prompted brands who’d never considered the platform to take a second look.

Finally, brands themselves are choosing to show up in all new ways. For example, Philadelphia Cream Cheese turned an organic conversation about chives into a two-week paid media campaign. And Fidelity shows up daily to its official subreddit to host community conversations about investing.

Keep reading for a closer look:

• How brands such as United, Dove, Fidelity, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese are using the platform

• A mini Q&A with Reddit’s comms team

• 4 tips from a Reddit mod on what to avoid

• The 101 on organic engagement

BRANDS ON REDDIT

✈️ United Airlines Uses Reddit to Surface Bigger Stories

United Airlines‘ most compelling use of Reddit isn’t about posting — it’s about listening to gain valuable insight and feedback.

The airline is still in the early stages of building an active Reddit presence. “We are easing in with the goal of testing what works and studying how other brands are winning,” United’s Emily Snyder, Sr. Manager of Social Media told me.

Already, the United social team has had some early wins in surfacing human stories that a brand brief might struggle to duplicate. A good example of this is when United’s team came across a post from a father whose son had lost his Pokémon card binder. Rather than leaving a sympathetic comment and moving on, the team decided to share the story internally, and employees around the world responded, ultimately donating more than 17,000 Pokémon cards to replace what the boy had lost.

“What started as a single social post turned into a global employee-driven effort to create a moment Reid and his family will never forget,” said Snyder.

When United shared the reunion on social media, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive with comments like, “This is how you do corporate right,” according to Snyder. “There’s a real halo effect when people see a brand go above and beyond for one customer, it builds trust that you’d do the same for others.”

Her advice for brands that want to incorporate Reddit into their social strategies? Just start. “The pressure to be ultra-active as a brand on Reddit is low. Just start and see what opportunities you find,” she advised, pointing to one of the airlines’ more unserious posts, Crumb Scene Investigation, as a grassroots way to celebrate United’s 100th anniversary.

🙂🙃 Dove’s Reddit-Powered “r/eal Reviews” Campaign

Unilever‘s Dove brand turned an unlikely corner of the internet into a marketing goldmine by tapping Reddit for unfiltered consumer opinions — including the unflattering ones.

The campaign began when Dove’s team — in collaboration with DAVID London alongside AKQA Paris and WPP Media — discovered that real women were organically praising the brand’s new hair mask on Reddit, completely unprompted.

As Katheleen Dunlop, CMO of Beauty and Wellbeing at Unilever North America, put it: “It’s the real women of Reddit giving their real women testimonials in a completely brandless space.”

Instead of amplifying only the praise, Dove decided to lean into the full spectrum of feedback — pulling 50 reviews, both positive and negative, and plastering them across New York City bus shelters and billboards.

Alongside the glowing endorsements were honest critiques like “Makes my hair feel amazing, but smells hella bad.” The ads kept Reddit’s raw comments and invited passersby to weigh in with the prompt: “Hit or miss. What do you think?”

To emphasize the connection to Reddit, Dove also overlaid the platform’s “Snoo-vatar” mascot over the faces of real women who agreed to be filmed sharing their reviews — an unusual creative choice for a brand whose identity has long been built around showcasing real faces.

The decision to keep the negative reviews — and reinforce the connection to Reddit’s honest conversations — was deliberate. Dunlop explained that authenticity is a core brand asset for Dove. “It wouldn’t feel real if it were only positive and there’d be no tension, right?”

💵 Fidelity’s Community-First Approach on Reddit

While most financial institutions treat social media as a broadcast channel, Fidelity Investments took a notably different path on Reddit.

The financial services company launched an official subreddit, r/fidelityinvestments, as a community hub. It coexists on Reddit alongside unofficial fan communities like r/Fidelity, something that would be unthinkable on platforms where brand ownership of a name is fiercely guarded.

The roots of Fidelity’s Reddit engagement run surprisingly deep. In 2021, the firm hosted a live AMA (Ask Me Anything) on r/IAmA, Reddit’s dedicated forum for interactive Q&As. The session attracted more than 1,300 comments. “Fidelity regularly engages with customers where they are to answer questions and gather feedback,” the company said at the time.

A year later, the Wall Street Journal reported that CEO Abigail Johnson — granddaughter of the firm’s founder — was checking the pulse of the investing world through Reddit’s stock-picking forums, suggesting the platform’s influence at Fidelity went well beyond the marketing department.

Now, the company hosts its own subreddit, describing it as a place where people can get answers about Fidelity’s products and services and engage with the community through conversations around trading, current events, crypto and more.

Read More: What Dove, Netflix, and Nike didn’t do on Reddit is why they’re winning

STRAIGHT FROM REDDIT

I spoke with a Reddit spokesperson about how brands can approach the platform.

ICYMI: Social teams don’t always know how to get started on the platform. Using Reddit personally is very different from using it as a brand, so please explain it to us like we know nothing?

“Yeah, let’s jump right into it. So Reddit is for everyone. There’s 100,000+ communities on Reddit, from niche things like old cameras for specific types of photography, down to really broad local ones, like r/Sydney in Australia. Some people have a misconception about who is on Reddit or what Reddit is for, but once they start down that rabbit hole, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize I can get recommendations on skincare, or makeup, or petite clothing.”

ICYMI: For marketers, what sets Reddit apart from other platforms?

“Our feeds are not based on an algorithm. It’s really determined by the humans that are on Reddit. That’s all the community, voting up what they believe is most relevant and valuable for the community, and then what’s not, what’s irrelevant, or doesn’t fit the community.”

ICYMI: What is the primary user behavior of somebody who’s coming to Reddit?

“It’s very balanced. I mean, there are definitely people who are coming on to Reddit daily, and they’re going on to their feeds, and they’re seeing all the different subs that they’re subscribed to, and then going deeper into those. And then there are the ones who are looking for more one-off conversations of something super, super niche. They may start on Google, because they don’t know where to find that on Reddit. So I would say it really depends.”

ICYMI: Can you share an example of a brand on Reddit?

“This is a funny one. There was a sous chef that went on and wanted Reddit to critique how well he chopped chives. He said he was gonna post every day until Reddit said his chive chopping was perfect. Philly Cream Cheese came in and brought up this organic conversation on Reddit and made it into a campaign, which was really fun. I think they also sent him some knives. And he posted that back on the subreddit and brought it back to life. It was just fun to see a brand participating in something very Reddit-y and kind of quirky on the platform. And they got a lot of traction for participating in it.”

ICYMI: There’s a lot of interest in AI search results and how Reddit is driving those. Is that something you think about?

“It is something that we’re seeing a lot of clients lean into, but it’s necessarily something we’re pushing. We don’t want people to come on to Reddit just for the sake of showing up to LLMs. That’s not what this is for. We really want it to be about our communities. Iif your brand is being talked about a lot on Reddit — if you are the most talked about face wash — then you probably will surface. From our point of view, it’s a benefit, but it’’s not something we can control.”

THE MODERATOR POV

TheYellowRose, a longtime moderator of some of Reddit’s most active communities, including r/curlyhair and r/Naturalhair, shared what they wants brands to know.

Their biggest piece of advice? Show up as a person, not a brand. “There is a certain brand that is very popular on Reddit because an employee would just chime in candidly from time to time on topics that had little to nothing to do with their website,” they told me. “She was just a person most of the time, and people really appreciated that she didn’t sound like a spokesperson or a corporate mouthpiece.”

Other tips they shared include:

Be human when things go wrong

Redditors will ask hard questions — especially when something’s gone sideways. “If the brand comes off as too safe, too corporate, and not truthful enough, redditors will reject that. People on reddit really value the truth and getting to the bottom of things. Know when to stop responding though! Some people will accept your answers and others will keep digging just to be antagonistic, you need to be able to discern trolls from genuinely curious users.”

Read the rules before you post

Every subreddit has its own culture and guidelines — and moderators enforce them. “I have banned so many brands from /r/curlyhair because we reject all forms of self-promotion. If they had come to be helpful or to add value to the subreddit, they wouldn’t have been banned. We would love for brands to come talk about issues with their products, provide advice on proper use of the products, tell us about upcoming sales or coupons so we can buy at the right times, but we do not appreciate in-your-face ads.”

Know your reputation before you show up

Before engaging in a subreddit, TheYellowRose recommends doing your homework.

“Some brands are really disliked and have no trust amongst the userbase and will receive abuse/tough questions/straight up hate just for showing up, even with good intentions.”

REDDIT 101

🎯 Communities (subreddits or r/) are what users subscribe to based on their interests the basics

📢 Moderators run each community and enforce their specific community rules (that everyone, including businesses, follow)

👥 Users (redditors) contribute via posts (as “OP”) or comments – most users are anonymous which is why Reddit conversations are so honest

👆🏻 Voting determines visibility – upvotes push content up and downvotes lower it

🏠 The Home Feed displays posts from the communities that a user has joined and recommended posts, meaning users see an interest-based feed

Read More: Reddit Pro’s Guide to Organic Engagement for Businesses on Reddit

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• Roblox is taking over Las Vegas Friday, streaming a Creator Showdown across YouTube, TikTok, Twitch and their own platform - Roblox

• If comments are the new frontline, how is your brand showing up? - Adweek

• Who is John Ternus, the new CEO of Apple? - Morning Brew

• Duolingo dials back its ‘unhinged’ marketing - Business Insider

• Clues you’re using AI aren’t just em-dashes, it's a tell-tale sentence construction - TechCrunch

• These marketing leaders were asked how they’d spend an extra $1M — their answers reveal where social is headed - Inc

[via ADWEEK’s Social Media Week 📸 Ivan Piedra Photography]

Last week I tested the Google Pixel 10a camera, and there’s a lot here that’s relevant if you’re creating content. Some of the headline features: Auto Best Take (good for group shots), Camera Coach (photo angles for beginners), Collages (reminds me of Instagram’s Layout app), and a full suite of AI editing and remix tools. The camera also skews brighter by default — handy if you’re always bumping up exposure. But the standout, at least for me, is Add Me. It’s the feature that finally solves the “someone always gets stuck behind the camera” problem. You take the first shot, then Add Me generates an outline so you can swap places and position yourself in the frame — as if you were always there — while someone else takes the second shot moments later.

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Threads is testing Messages on desktop

• YouTube is testing image posts and carousels in the Shorts feed

• Report: Teens choose TikTok for entertainment, Snapchat for friends + family

• Social Media Week Recap:

  • 5 ideas from Social Media Week to have on your radar

  • 5 key takeaways from social leaders at Slate, Calendly, Viral Nation and more

  • Emma Grede, Jessica Yellin and Molly McPherson say some smart stuff about social

  • Business of Comments Report: 68% of consumers review a comment prior to making a decision to purchase

  • LinkedIn Study: Engagement is 63% higher on personal profiles than company pages

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

• Threads is testing Messages on desktop — the web feature should roll out over the coming weeks.

• Threads teased a new Live Chats feature, like a group chat that fans can subscribe to and follow along.

• Meta announced improvements to the Threads API — which means you can embed Threads content on external websites (please make this work Substack!) and the ability to use third-party tools to publish, manage replies and get insights for brand and creator accounts.

• Instagram announced you’ll be able to adjust the topics that show up in your Explore page. Your Algorithm feature first launched late last year as a way to see and control the topics driving your Reels recommendations.

• Edits announced feature updates, including the ability save your favorite fonts and text styles, highlight specific text, and adjust color.

• Meta announced its Meta Business Messaging conference, Conversations, on Wednesday, June 3 in London.

Related Meta News

• Meta is expected to unseat Google as world’s largest digital-ad player

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube announced four ways creator can level up their engagement and earn more on YouTube Live, including fan support on horizontal and vertical screens and the ability to go live in both vertical and horizontal at the same time.

• YouTube is letting you create your own AI avatar to add yourself into your videos.

• YouTube lets you remove Shorts videos from your feed if you don’t want to see them.

• YouTube is testing showing image posts and carousels in the Shorts feed on mobile.

• Google Maps announced three new updates, including a Contribute tab that surfaces relevant photos and videos from recent trips to post — potentially helping the visibility of local-based businesses.

• Spotted: You may soon be able to edit videos directly in the Google Maps app prior to posting them.

📲 TikTok Updates

• Spotted: TikTok gives you the option to allow AI to remix your content.

Related TikTok News

• Teens go to TikTok for entertainment, Snapchat more so for keeping up with friends and family

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat announced a partnership with the Los Angeles Dodgers that will bring a Snapchat Cam to Dodger Stadium throughout the season, giving fans new Lenses and a Snapchat AR photobooth at select home games.

Related Snapchat News

• Snapchat plans to axe 16% of its global workforce to increase profitability via “AI-driven transformation”

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest launched a campaign encouraging people to log off and just live with the tagline: The best thing you can find online is a reason to go offline.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn announced all members in the US will have access to the new AI-powered search experience meant to make it easier to find other professionals.

📲 Bonus Platform Updates

• Adobe announced its new Firefly AI Assistant which allows creators to describe the outcome they want, then orchestrates and executes multi-step workflows across Adobe Photoshop, Firefly, Premiere, Express, Lightroom, Illustrator and more.

• PayPal and Canva announced they partnered for PayPal Payment Links available in Canva that allows creators to get paid directly from their designs.

• Spotify announced that audiobook readers in the U.S. and U.K. will now be able to purchase physical books through a partnership with Bookshop.org.

• ShopMy announced an invite-only concierge shopping experience called Noir that pairs top shoppers with real human curators.

• Roblox announced Roblox Plus, a new global subscription plan that gives players exclusive platform benefits.

🎟️ SOCIAL MEDIA WEEK RECAP

[📸 Ivan Piedra Photography: Brita’s Rita Gorgenberg, VaynerMedia’s Rob Lenois. ICYMI’s Lia Haberman]

I just spent two days in New York at AdWeek’s Social Media Week, got to moderate a panel, catch up with friends and hear what the industry is focused on:

• 5 ideas from Social Media Week to have on your radar

• 5 key takeaways from social leaders at Slate, Calendly, Viral Nation and more

• Emma Grede, Jessica Yellin and Molly McPherson say some smart stuff about social

• Business of Comments Report: 68% of consumers review a comment prior to making a decision to purchase

• LinkedIn Study: Engagement is 63% higher on personal profiles than company pages

👀 MY POV

1. Brand stories are now open source

Content collaboration is happening between brands and everyone from creators to online audiences — whether they want it or not. Because Gen Z doesn't just consume culture — they expect to respond, remix and redefine it. The message here: Social content is now a group project.

That collab mindset has even extended to the brand-agency relationship: "Clients have moved from approvers of the work to contributors," VaynerMedia's Rob Lenois said of their work with Clorox during a panel I moderated: Wellness Is Out. Coping Is In. How Brita Became a Gen Z Survival Tool.

2. Comments are the new currency

Maybe you read the recent newsletter about Raisin Bran’s “Comments as Creative” strategy? The theme carried over to Social Media Week during multiple panels — whether it was about joining cultural conversations (via Sabrina Barekzai, Slack), leveraging AI to analyze comment sentiment (via Kate Kenner Archibald) or respecting that comments influence consumer trust (via Danica Calderhead, Respondology).

3. Your feed posts don’t matter

Good social is now driven by external forces — audience-first thinking that doesn’t exist without online conversations and creator participation. “It’s not just about posting cadence and chasing follower growth,” said Dash CPO Ryan Sasaki. “The best social media teams are optimizing their resources and time to live in the comments.”

Brandwatch VP Eric deLima Rubb echoed this, noting that how a community engages with a post signals what they value. And despite search engines and LLMs, people still turn to social to validate. “They’re still going to social to validate, to ask their community, or ask creators they trust, how do you feel about this?”

4. Steal this idea!

During a panel titled Creator-Brand Storytelling Reimagined with Dhar Mann and Gap, Inc., the audience played a two-round game. First, the entire audience was asked to guess if an outfit was designer or Old Navy. The winners moved on to a Price Is Right-style round, guessing the cost of an Old Navy dress without going over, with a $1,000 gift card on the line. I don’t know if my description is doing it justice but it was one of the most interactive sessions I’ve seen. Don’t just talk at people, get the audience actively involved with your panel.

5. Tactic to drive growth

Addie Hearn, Senior Social Media Manager at FreePeople, explained how Hidden Reels helped the team’s video growth during a panel titled Leading the New Rules of Discovery: Inside Free People’s Triple-Digit Social Growth. “If we see something is doing really well on TikTok — which is our testing fun platform — we’ll bring it over to Hidden Reels. It feels like less of a commitment and that has increased our likes, engagement and views over time.”

📝 YOUR TOP MOMENTS

“I liked SubwayTakes’ Kareem Rahma who said he operates like a content generator. Instead of giving somebody a brief and just assuming this is going to do numbers for you, why don’t you work with somebody who can actually produce something creatively invigorating, something that they’re excited about? It’s a collaboration. A lot of brand partnerships are pretty stale, especially in B2B. What if brands were like, “Hey, we really love this creator and what they’re producing. Let’s invest in them and build off of that,” versus, “Do you want to sell our software for us? Here’s a creative brief.”

Christina Le, Head of Marketing Slate

“A lot of the brands on stage talked about leading with what is going to provide value to your audience. The Daily Show, SubwayTakes, and even some of the panels on the first day — they talked about focusing more on delivering value and less on metrics up front, and then gauging where that resonates across channels. That’s so important. A lot of the time there’s pressure to lead with what’s going to drive a certain KPI. It’s such a great reminder to co-create rather than forcing something, especially as a lot of folks are still negotiating creator contracts like it’s 2013.”

Greg Rokisky, Senior Social Manager Calendly

“Kareem Rahma made a point about how the [SubwayTakes] content looks spontaneous, but obviously it’s not. Every guest is booked. Everything is planned. They often have two to four shooters. These things are designed to look effortless and spontaneous, but they’re not. It’s a good reminder that just because it looks spontaneous doesn’t mean that it wasn’t orchestrated by a team of people.”

Carmen Vicente, Social Lead Slate

“Molly McPherson touched on DEI. What I loved is, she said, “If you’re talking to crisis comms about DEI, you’ve already misunderstood DEI… it’s supposed to be foundational, not something you respond to. It’s not a moment to create. It should already be part of your DNA.” And it’s not just about the color of people’s skin, having worked in Germany, when you say DEI, the color of people’s skin is not the first thing people think of. It’s actually gender, or ableism or even how much family income you have. That is part of DEI. It’s all about access.”

Alice de Vries, EVP Viral Nation

“I work with a lot of clients and friends who think it has to be perfect. So, I really love yesterday what Rob Lenois from VaynerMedia was saying about how they failed fast. You have to be super entrepreneurial and willing to put things out there if you want to get the engagement from your community that’s going to guide you. If you’re not putting content out there because you’re scared it’s not perfect, you’re never going to get the insights that you need to get to where you want to go.”

Arden Frydman, Founder Studio Arden

👑 WOMEN IN MARKETING

Entrepreneur and author Emma Grede:

“I actually think comments are an important signal like any other sales figure. I spend time in the comments, in Reddit for example, in the same way that I would review or any wholesale channel. The most important thing is to take your cues and your signals from that, because there’s no point in doing it and then taking it back into your organization and making excuses for the things that you found. What we do in our businesses is really look at the sentiment and what decisions are we making within the business based on what we’re hearing, not the stories that we want to tell ourselves.”

News Not Noise’s Jessica Yellin:

“There are a lot of very hot button topics that I don’t talk about on Instagram because of the amount of hate I get — no matter how I frame it or what I say. For those topics, I’ll just nod to them on social and then go deeper on Substack. That’s what you’re dealing with on platforms that have a feed, as opposed to Substack where people are making the deliberate choice to engage with you. That’s actually where I found brand relationships have worked best for now.”

Crisis Comms Creator Molly McPherson:

“To the social media managers out there, I am one of your biggest advocates, but don’t hate me when I say this: I don’t want you to be a crisis manager. That’s not your job. I want you to stay in your lane. If they if they give you a seat at that table, I want you to tap into your expertise, and you are going to share the mood. You are going to share your knowledge of what you see and what you feel and that emotion, and then you are going to become invaluable.”

📊 SMW DATA REPORTS

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• Alex Cooper and Alix Earle are fighting. Or are they? - NYTimes

• Offline communities—from dad groups to dance troupes—are poised to become the new influencers - Wall Street Journal

• Advertisers are using retailer sales data to identify which exact creators to work with - Digiday

• Brands were out in full force at Coachella - Vogue Business

• Why Coachella’s brand trip chaos signals deeper creator risks - AdAge

• Mega influencers are replacing themselves with AI clones - Vanity Fair

• Encouraging EGC (employee generated content) or launching an employee advocacy program doesn’t guarantee you’re nurturing the next Staples Baddie - Adobe Express (I wrote this blog post with social teams in mind!)

Hello — this week I tested the DualShot app which allows you to capture content in portrait and landscape mode all at the same time. The quality is pretty good for social video and the dual recorder action is incredible. But it did take me some extra attention to make sure both shots were well framed. You can see my side-by-side here. Next week I’ll be testing taking pictures with a Google Pixel 10a (this isn’t sponsored — it just seems like cool stuff to test).

I’ll also be at Social Media Week Tuesday morning moderating a panel called Wellness Is Out. Coping Is In. How Brita Became a Gen Z Survival Tool.

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Instagram now allows you to edit your comments

• YouTube is expanding its Media Kit feature for YPP creators

• TikTok is casting actors to make its own micro dramas

• LinkedIn added playback speed controls that let you watch video up to 2x speed

• Platform Playbook: Threads rewards replies more than any other platform — and the Raisin Bran team is all over it

• Article: Gen Z is using A.I., but doesn’t feel great about it

Subscribe now

💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

• Instagram announced you can now edit your comments (text only) within a 15 minute window of posting.

• Meta announced Muse Spark, an LLM developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs. What does that actually mean? It’s the technology powering the Meta AI app, which is where you’ll find Chat, Vibes (a Gen AI video feed) and connect your Meta Ray Ban smart glasses. Meta is attempting to catch up to Google, OpenAI and others after spending billions, according to CNBC.

• Spotted: Instagram is testing a Notes update that allows you to share with all your followers, even if you don’t follow them back.

• Facebook and WhatsApp partnered with Arsenal Football Club. For fans that includes the release of a new short film, access to unique digital experiences, and opportunities to attend matches.

Related Meta News

• Meta is running intensive AI training weeks to get employees testing agents and coding with Claude

📲 YouTube Updates

• Last week, YouTube announced it would be streaming from Coachella. Buried in that announcement was the mention of Stations — a 24/7 interactive and uninterrupted music viewing experience of old and new clips. Stations is being compared to FAST (free, ad-supported television) streaming channels. It’s not the first time YouTube has experimented with FAST channels — but now everyone can access Coachella TV and a YouTube exec was quoted saying that soon, anyone will be able, “make a playlist and click ‘Start a Station.” Get ready to dig into your content archives when creating Stations becomes possible for everyone. [First seen in Jim Louderback’s newsletter]

• YouTube announced it’s expanding Media Kit with added insights you won’t find in YouTube Analytics, like Audience Watch and Shopping Interest. Media Kit is an auto-generated PDF that creators in the YPP program can share with brand partners for added insights.

• YouTube released a new Culture + Trends Report: Animation’s New Wave exploring how creators are finding success with independent animation and what this means for entertainment at large.

📲 TikTok Updates

• Spotted: TikTok is casting actors to make its own micro dramas as it jumps headfirst into the hot format.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn is quietly rolling out playback speed controls with the option to go from .5x to 2x speed. If you’re team 2x, let me know in the comments — no other way to watch video IMO! [First seen in Social Media Today]

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat announced its #marchmadness Topic Chat is one of the platform’s most active real-time group chats.

🔑 ONE BIG THING

Raisin Bran’s Comments-as-Creative-Strategy on Threads

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Threads this year — me and about 150M other daily users. The platform launched as a Twitter-killer but has found its own groove. Beyond the emphasis on text-based content, it’s not an X duplicate: the moderation tools are more powerful, the conversations less toxic, and brands have brought a TikTok-style emphasis on comments to the feed.

In fact, Buffer recently found that replying to comments on Threads can boost engagement by 42% — rewarding replies more than any other platform.

The team behind the Raisin Bran account has figured out how to make that work. Sam Lurie, Lead Creator at VaynerMedia, and Katie Haller, Associate Creative Director, walked me through the nostalgic vibe that drew them to the platform, the faster approval process they negotiated with their client, the communities they’ve embedded themselves in, and the strategy behind it all.

If 2026 is the year your brand joins Threads, this is the inspiration you need to get your wheels turning.

ICYMI: What was the ignition point for joining Threads?

Sam Lurie: Katie and I wanted a place where we could have that real-time social engagement. And we miss 2014 Twitter dearly. So, we came together and we pitched them a month before the Super Bowl, and then, lo and behold, a few days before the Super Bowl started, we got approval to start our [Threads] account.

ICYMI: There are a lot of brands on there — Beyond Meat, Calm, PBS... Did any of those accounts inspire you?

Katie Haller: When we went through an overview of the platform and how it works, a lot of those brands were sort of listed as examples of brands that are doing it right and really using the platform well and building a community there.

SL: Beyond Meat, especially building out a mascot tone of voice, I really admired how all of their Threads are from the perspective of a cow.

Sunny, Raisin Bran’s mascot, is obviously a sun figure. And there are many different directions you can go with that. And because the sun is this witty, acerbic figure, 4.6 billion years old, and also a little bit of a ball of fire, it gives us a little bit room to have some fun with it. So I’ve been working with Katie writing from the perspective of the sun to make that brand association.

ICYMI: I love that. How do you describe your approach to Threads, whether it’s to the Raisin Bran team or your friends?

KH: We included a couple of screenshots of people describing Threads as that AOL chat room vibe that millennials love and miss.

The other thing that makes it unique — and we pitched it this way as well — is that it should be treated differently from our longer approval process. The brands that are winning are the ones that feel like someone’s stream of consciousness. It’s just a bit freer. And so we were very adamant about that being true in order for us to win.

ICYMI: That‘s so interesting. I was going to ask, how does the Raisin Bran voice differ from Threads to other platforms? But is it the voice that changes or is it the process?

SL: A little bit of both. Threads shows more Sunny stream of consciousness, whereas platforms like Instagram and Tiktok are more visual, so they’re showing Sunny’s behaviors in the office and how that comes to life.

On Threads, we’ve really hit our stride with finding communities in the astronomy community, with plants and books, especially with our initial Threads post which Katie will get into about libraries, and we’ve been able to build a good rapport with Mychal the librarian and PBS and Nat Geo.

Typically, we see that on Threads it skews a bit more toward an older millennial, Gen X audience. Whereas on Instagram, our audience skews a bit younger so we try to show Sunny a little bit more chaotic physically.

KH: Threads has been more Sunny speaking from his point of view, and then our Instagram has evolved into the social team running it, and he’s our co-worker. It’s a kind of subtle thing. We don’t make a hard and fast rule. It’s just what we found to be working.

ICYMI: Do you call it a proactive engagement strategy or what’s the marketing-speak for joining conversations on Threads, especially with people who aren’t tagging you or talking about the brand?

SL: At Vayner we call that CasC. It’s Comments as Creative. The work is usually split between the creative department and our strategy department where we’re mining for insights in real time with our comments as creative.

And then there’s another Vayner term, AIM sessions, which is like a writer’s room, where we analyze, ideate and make every week. We’re able to bring those insights, the conversations we’re having and what’s performing, and then we’re able to bring that into bigger campaign work.

ICYMI: You talked about the approval process and how you knew that on Threads you were going to have to shorten that. So I’m curious, how do you negotiate that? And what does that system look like now?

KH: We use the approval process as an analogy to what our CasC approval process is in terms of what we comment on. There are certain things that we know are going to be a hard no that we just won’t touch. And then there’s things that we know are generally safe to comment on. For example, if PBS posts something we want to comment on, we don’t need to reach out to the clients for that. But if we wanted to come up with a net new post, that would obviously have to be routed.

We set it up with the expectation that, “We’re going to run most of our Threads by you. But don’t be surprised if you check the feed and some days Sunny is just saying, ‘Good morning.’” There has to be a bit of fluidity, because if it feels too scheduled and regimented, it won’t work. The brands that are winning have this process in place.

SL: To add on to that, we have a list of Threads that we brainstorm way ahead of time. And usually we’ll pick from that list and then see what’s going on, and what conversations Sunny would be a part of.

For example, Artemis II was launching and Sunny being the sun, obviously astronomy is a huge conversation for us. So we were able to adjust some pre-approved writings to participate in the conversation.

ICYMI: People say if you’ve already built up trust with a brand then they tend to be a little bit more… lenient or laid back about the whole thing?

KH: Yeah, making them feel safe knowing that we don’t give everyone the logins and then staying within the realm of things they have seen … we’re able to have a lot of freedom within that framework they’re comfortable with. Trust is huge. Every brand that’s winning, clearly someone has the trust to be able to do what they do.

ICYMI: You comment on the PBS account or around Artemis II, but I noticed that you also respond to regular people on the platform as well. What’s the decision making process there?

SL: Yes, I usually have a vetting process of checking accounts and I’ll cross reference with a quick internet search to make sure that there are no red flags.

At first, I thought, “OK, I bet that Sunny would have a lot of opinions about cereal and spoon conversations. So let’s do a quick search, and see what the conversations are.” And, lo and behold, people are really passionate about their spoon choice when it comes to cereal. And I was like, “Sunny definitely has an opinion on this.” It’s finding conversations that make sense, in the community surrounding what Raisin Bran is as a product

Sometimes it can feel like a brand is talking at an audience rather than with an audience. But what’s been working for us is this community-driven approach, and that was our whole point in going to Threads. We want to be able to be part of these real-time conversations. Sunny doesn’t hop on trends as much as he follows the conversation and he has something of value to bring to it.

You’ll notice whenever we comment on things, it’s pretty specific to, cereal conversations, education, space, astronomy, and plants because of Sunny being able to photosynthesize.

ICYMI: I did not know about Spoon TikTok until one of my friends told me she’s in deep. So, that’s a big thing?

SL: Oh yeah, I’m very much deep into SpoonTok. People have an affinity for the small spoon, and some people really do not like metallic silverware.

ICYMI: I love that tangent but back to Threads. What’s the rough breakdown between feed posts, replies to comments under your own posts and CasC or proactive engagement?

KH: It depends on what me and Sam’s day is like, but we both are such nerds about it. It’s fun for us. It’ll be Saturday at 11am and Sam and I are texting each other, like, “What should I say about this cat who’s sitting in the sun?”

I would say it’s a lot of CasC and one to five in-feed posts, and then if something’s blowing up, for example that library one that took off, we try to divide and conquer.

ICYMI: What is the library post?

KH: One thing that we love about Threads is that people get obsessed with Threads lore that is just normal people’s stories. This was just an average couple, but she posted that she got broken up with and in the breakup text, he said something like, “Your library card is immature.” Everyone on Threads was like, “This is insane. Reading is cool.” Everyone was talking about how having a library card is the biggest flex. And so we said something like, “If you love Raisin Bran, you’re legally required to have a library card.” And we added the topic, which is a great feature on Threads. That started to do well.

And then we took a learning we got from Instagram the week before, where we had this post blow up that was Sunny watching his followers go from 230 followers to 231 or something like that. So we posted, “We may be an unverified brand account with only 20 followers, but at least we have a library card, and no one will take that away from us.”

That post alone got us 8,000 followers. I’ve never seen anything like it in my seven years here of posting for brands. But that really opened up this reading community. And then people started following us, and then we had the brands follow and start commenting. That really unlocked a lot for us.

ICYMI: Have you been able to replicate the success of the library post?

SL: Last Friday there was this trend on Threads called the Bro Cruise. There was this woman in North Carolina who was texting with her friend about this bachelor cruise he was on and she essentially narrated the story and assigned color coded emojis to every character.

I saw this, and was like, “Oh, we have some Threads about the weather forecast. Do you think we could tie that to sunny skies, smooth sailing, unless you’re on a Bro Cruise?” And then that ended up catching fire like crazy. Everyone was like, “Oh my god, Raisin Bran is in on the Bro Cruise.” And we just kept commenting.

And this has to do with a cruise, right? We know that we’re an offering on Royal Caribbean’s continental breakfast so can we say that we’re making a special appearance at the Bro Cruise breakfast, weather permitting? That was the thought process behind getting involved in the conversation.

ICYMI: To tie this up, what advice would you give to someone at an agency or brand about activating their account on Threads?

KH: I think the biggest thing that helped is Sam and I having such a love for this text-only format It has to be one or two people’s main focus on the creative team. Really dedicating somebody to that platform is like the biggest thing.

SL: I agree that having dedicated time and people working on Threads has definitely been an asset for us. And the love of a text-only platform. A lot of our platforms right now are so visual, people are craving community and they’re not able to find it in the same way that they did like when they were on Twitter or Tumblr back in the day.

And my last piece of advice would be, “Don’t be afraid to pander to the mundane,” if that makes sense. A lot of marketing has been a romanticized version of a life. But our best posts have been from people who have slowed down and we’re part of their daily routine. As people get older, it’s not as romanticized to have everyday routine things show up in your feed.

Threads tl;dr

The basics: Threads is a text-based platform, developed by Meta, and deeply integrated with Instagram. It’s designed for real-time’ish conversations around things people love (sports, TV, K-Pop, books, tech) with a growing presence of journalists and news outlets. Note: it’s Meta, so of course the feed isn’t chronological.

By the numbers: Threads has 150 DAUs and 400M MAUs — similar to Pinterest. (This data is from August 2025 because Meta hasn’t released new active usage numbers yet.)

Accounts to inspire you: Beyond Meat, Calm, The Whitney Museum, Lake Lanier, Channel 4, King Arthur Baking, PBS, Tim Hortons

Related: The Secret to Beyond Meat’s Threads Strategy

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• The content that gets “engagement” on Twitter is mostly complete crap - Nate Silver

• What to know about the third model in the Creator Economy: Pay for participation - Forbes

• Gen Z is using A.I., but doesn’t feel great about it - NYTimes

• AI is creating B2B content monoculture that’s saltine-cracker bland - Kaleigh Moore

• The Slop War: About those viral social videos dominating the war narrative - Intelligencer

• Alix Earle shares how she built her Reale Actives skincare brand launch strategy - AdAge

• Gen Z buys at least one item per month based on creator recommendations at a 69% rate, versus 50% for Millennials and 24% for Gen X - NeoReach Creator Impact Report

Looking back: Big Tech couldn’t resist taking part in April Fools shenanigans this week: Snapchat was the funniest as Evan Spiegel announced they were renaming Spotlight videos as Reals; Yahoo was the most prescient, introducing a Scrōll Stoppr you could actually buy on their TikTok Shop; Threads was the most subversive, deploying a comic sans font across the feed; and Instagram for Business … shakes head, there’s always next year.

Looking forward: Expect lots of experiential updates stemming from two sold-out weekends at Coachella, including a phone-free Pinterest experience, a TikTok K-Beauty lounge, a historic HBO Max TV screening, livestreaming on YouTube and even a first-time Gap Hoodie House. Whether online or in-person, brands are starting to activate around cultural events more than ever.

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Meta confirmed they’re testing a premium subscription on Instagram

• Adam Mosseri announced you can now schedule Trial Reels in Instagram

• Instagram rolled out a Teleprompter feature and a face-tuning Touch Up feature in Reels

• TikTok partnered with Cameo, allowing creators can offer personalized videos directly within the app

• YouTube’s new Comments to ❤️ lets creators like video comments in bulk

• Google is letting users in the US change their Gmail address

• Pinterest is hosting a free Trends tool tutorial later this month

• Snapchat’s first-ever Snappys Awards Show crowned David Dobrik as Creator of the Year

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

Meta slowed down the releases in March but they’re back with a vengeance this month.

• Meta confirmed to TechCrunch they’re testing a premium subscription on Instagram — which is separate from Meta Verified. The new subscription unlocks features such as multiple Story audiences, Story rewatch insights, search Story viewer list and extended Stories.

• Adam Mosseri announced you can now schedule Trial Reels in Instagram.

• The Instagram’s Edits team seemed to be everywhere all at once this week:

  • Instagram exec Brett Westervelt was announced as the head of Edits, according to Scalable Pod

  • Edits is currently free but could introduce a paid tier if there were advanced features to introduce, according to an interview between Matt Simari, Director of Product Management at Edits and Geekout’s Matt Navarra. Simari said it was unlikely Edits would roll back current features if a paid model is introduced.

  • Edits‘ engineering lead Shawn Simon lectured at Chapman University — part of an effort to participate more in higher ed programs with marketing students.

• Spotted: Instagram Reels rolled out a Teleprompter feature and a face-tuning Touch Up feature.

• Meta announced new Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses styles designed for prescription wearers

Related Meta News

• A new study shows Instagram holds the highest concentration of music Superfans among social media platforms

• Meta brands’ reach is up, but their status among the most-often used brands has declined

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok partnered with Cameo — which means creators can offer personalized videos directly within the app. It’s a new revenue stream for creators and a new way to interact with your favorite TikTok creators for fans.

• TikTok Korea in collaboration with Gushcloud International is hosting a two-day, pop-up and content house called the K-Beauty Lounge: Desert Edition at Coachella on weekend 1.

Related TikTok News

• New York will allow agencies to start posting on TikTok again as long as departments follow a set of security precautions

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube is rolling out Comments to ❤️, a feature that helps creators identify comments to heart and will allow them to heart them all at once rather than individually.

• YouTube announced details about its upcoming Brandcast presentation in New York. Trevor Noah will host alongside execs and special guests as the platform pitches advertisers on how to align themselves with creators and cultural moments to reach viewers.

• YouTube partnered with Jeopardy for a special edition of the game show with creator-contestants Rebecca Black, Monet X Change and Brennan Lee Mulligan getting quizzed on YouTube lore and trivia. (I went to the taping and the categories were amazing!)

• YouTube and Coachella partnered to offer livestreaming from seven stages simultaneously.

Related Alphabet News

• Google is now letting users in the US change their Gmail address

• Neal Mohan, YouTube's CEO, talks about the platform's dominance

📲 Reddit Updates

• Reddit is expanding access to Reddit Pro’s tools for publishers. Any publisher who wants to grow their reach on Reddit can sign up, verify their domain, and get access to the Links tab in Reddit Pro for free as part of a public beta test.

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest is hosting a Trends tool tutorial, Thursday, April 23rd at 10am PT, meant to identify rising trends and anticipate future demand. Register here.

• Pinterest launched its new Bring My Pinterest to Life lifestyle/DIY streaming series on Roku last week.

• Pinterest announced its Coachella activation would be phone-free: guests will lock their phones in a pouch and step into an experience “designed for uninterrupted joy.”

• Pinterest partnered with e.l.f. Cosmetics for a Pinterest beauty bar — while e.l.f.’s activation will feature a 15-foot Pinterest board wall showcasing seasonal festival visuals.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat hosted its first-ever Snappys Awards Show, recognizing 22 standout creators. David Dobrik was named Creator of the Year.

📲 Beehiiv Updates

• Beehiiv announced you can now host, distribute, and monetize your podcast on the platform.

📲 Roblox Updates

• Roblox launched Makeup, a new category in the Avatar Marketplace that allows you to customize your avatar.

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• OpenAI bought TBPN, a tech talk show - Business Insider

• How creators ‘supercharged’ Coach’s Gen Z strategy - Business Insider

• For the first time, Gap is hosting an immersive Hoodie House experience at this year’s Coachella - Gap

• HBO Max is hosting a “historic late-night campground screening” of Euphoria’s Season 3 debut episode - Deadline

• Emma Chamberlain partnered with West Elm for a special home decor collab - Architectural Digest

• It took Alix Earle all of 5 minutes to hit hit $1 million in sales of her new skincare line - Puck

• Verizon (yes the mobile network carrier) dropped a short film from Nia DaCosta featuring Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie - Variety

*This week’s top downloaded paid app was DualShot Recorder, which shoots video in portrait and landscape mode simultaneously. I ran out of time to test it but will share a review next week — has anyone else tried it yet?

💌 PLEASE SUPPORT ICYMI

If you liked this post, please repost, give it a ❤️‪‪︎ ‬ or leave a comment. It helps and it costs $0.00.

If you’ve got the budget, you can Buy Me a Coffee or upgrade to a paid member subscription.

Or you can shop from my Bookshop.org storefront for recommendations of the social and creator marketing books I’ve read recently.

I’m grateful to the following leaders running social at their libraries who answered all my questions and shared their insights and ideas so generously. This is an opportunity to read their full, unedited responses since I had to trim the original newsletter slightly for length.

• Keith Kesler, Social Media Librarian, LA Public Library

• Jasmine Argent, Marketing and Comms Support Officer, City of Marion Libraries

• Fawn Siemsen-Fuchs, Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Milwaukee Public Library

• Grayson Kelly, Digital Storyteller Specialists, Columbus Metropolitan Library

The following is a special ICYMI edition for paid subscribers

Read more

Welcome to March’s ICYMI: You Need to Know It Edition, recapping the major platform updates and patterns you might have missed last month — plus bonus insights.

📋 THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• 8 key platform updates shaping the social landscape

• The creative style that’s become an AI antidote

• What Alix Earle and I have in common (I am reaching here but it’s a personal branding approach that works)

• What YouTube and Snapchat know about recap content (that you should too)

💻 MINI ROADMAP

ICYMI: Instagram and YouTube are both racing to own the creator commerce space, rolling out updates that make it easier for creators to sell online and connect with brand partners. And TikTok is looking to dominate micro dramas.

Read more

*Paid subscribers, keep an eye out for a March recap + bonus insights coming on Monday!

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• You can now reorder photos and videos in your Instagram carousel posts

• Instagram announced new ways to make your Reels shoppable

• YouTube lowered the eligibility criteria for access to its YouTube Shopping affiliate program

• TikTok is testing a new mini-drama feed, TikTok Short Drama

• Pinterest launched Promote a Pin to boost pins

• Trend Watch: The internet is obsessed with AI fruit drama, even as OpenAI shuts down the Sora app

• A jury finds Meta and YouTube engineered to be addictive; a creator, an attorney, a marketer and more weigh in on what might happen next

Note: All of the major platforms rolled out new ad solutions at the NewFronts in New York. It doesn’t really impact organic social but it could affect the user experience. Just like Pizza Hut maximized its pies by finding more available places to stuff with cheese, social platforms will now be offering every available surface to advertisers.

Subscribe now

💻 ROADMAP

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok is testing a new mini-drama feed, TikTok Short Drama. This is in addition to its spin-off app, PineDrama.

• TikTok announced several new ad formats: Logo Takeover, allowing advertisers to co-brand with TikTok on the logo launch page when users open the app; Prime, lets an advertisers target the same person 3 times in 15 minutes; TopReach allows for visibility at the top of the feed; Pulse Mentions puts advertisers alongside mentions of their brand or category; And Pulse Tastemakers allows for advertising alongside certain creators.

📲 Meta Updates

• Instagram announced you can now reorder photos and videos in your carousel posts after publishing them by pressing and dragging the content.

• Instagram creators will soon be able to tag any product in Meta‘s commerce catalog. Before you share your Reel, you’ll see a new Add product option. From there, you can paste a product URL (including affiliate links) to a specific item, or search and tag a product from a brand’s catalog.

• Meta announced new ad solutions, including expanding Reels trending ads around cultural events like Fashion Week, F1, Black Friday, NFL games and more; And Voices of Culture is a solution to better pair brands and creators and scale video production with new GenAI tools.

• Meta announced updates to the Threads Marketing API to make it easier to launch feed ads.

• Spotted: Meta is testing how viewers can see your content with expanded views and different angles through Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

Related Meta News

• Facebook Reels that include human speech in the first 3 seconds drive better engagement

• Mark Zuckerberg is building a CEO agent to help him do his job

• Meta is rebranding some employees as “AI builders” according to a leaked memo

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube announced a glow up to its YouTube Creator Partnerships program which pairs brands and creators — powered by Google Gemini. The new and improved portal will work directly through YouTube Studio for creators, and Google Ads and Display & Video 360 for advertisers.

• YouTube also announced the Top Sports Podcast Lineup to help advertisers get in front of sports fans.

• YouTube lowered the eligibility criteria for getting access to the YouTube Shopping affiliate program. Any creator already in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) with at least 500 subscribers can now use Shopping tools to tag products and earn commissions.

Related YouTube News

• Jeopardy produced a special version just for YouTube with categories spanning YouTube-inspired topics

• Olympics content on YouTube saw a 150% increase in views from people 18-34 compared to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

• The Clios are launching a new Clio Creators awards program in partnership with YouTube and Influential

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn is updating the LinkedIn Live experience. Starting June 22, 2026 all live events must be scheduled ahead of time and the ability to go live spontaneously will no longer be available.

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest launched Promote a Pin, a new feature that allows creators, small businesses and everyday users to boost their Pins.

📲 Snapchat Updates

• Snapchat announced Total Snap Takeovers which allows advertisers to show up as the first ad spot in each tab.

• Snapchat launched AI Clips in Lens Studio, a new AI-powered Lens format that transforms a single photo into a five-second video.

• Evan Spiegel shared that two trillion Snaps were created in 2025 — that’s 5.5 billion Snaps per day.

📲 Beehiv Updates

• Newsletter platform beehiiv announced beehiiv MCP — a native integration that lets you run your account from Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity.

🔑 ONE BIG THING

Is Social About to Get Slapped with a Warning Label?

It’s not you. It’s them.

An LA jury just found that Meta and YouTube were deliberately engineered to be addictive — and held them liable for ruining a teenager’s mental health. This follows a separate trial in New Mexico, where a jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in damages for harming children.

People are calling it social media’s “Big Tobacco” moment. And everyone seems to agree it’s a problem (minus Zuckerberg and Mosseri).

It’s the solution where things get murky.

Can big tech even be regulated? Should under-16s be banned outright? Who’s really responsible for monitoring what kids consume — parents or platforms?

I don’t pretend to have the answers. But I do think the potential fallout will touch everyone in this industry — creators, marketers, and platform staff alike — especially if social comes with a warning label.

“Will we have serious dialogue on our participation in the ecosystem that we now know harms people, including children?” social director Jonathan Carmona wrote in response to my related LinkedIn post. “Or will we simply carry on?”

Brands won’t demand change because they’re reaping the benefits of the platforms’ current design, an industry insider told me. They’ll follow the platforms’ lead — until they catch strays from an anti-social campaign or get dragged into litigation.

I decided to ask other industry folks (and a 16-year-old teen) how they’re thinking about this week’s verdict and its impact on social marketing and the social experience in general. Plus: who’s responsible for stopping the doomscrolling?

The Platform Executive: Pinterest CEO Bill Ready wrote an op-ed for Time magazine, saying governments should ban social media for kids under 16. “As both a tech CEO and parent, I know legal compliance is not the same as safety. And I understand broad restrictions come with difficult tradeoffs. But social media, as it’s configured today, is not safe for young people under 16.”
(*Ready’s piece was published before the verdict and is not in response to me.)

The Attorney, Veronica Ramirez: “This feels like a fundamental reframe to me, from platforms as distribution channels to platforms as behavior-shaping products. If that is the lens, then brands and platforms are not just looking at what creators post anymore, but how their content is designed to keep people watching. Once that becomes part of the analysis, it is not hard to see more internal safeguards, especially around content that could be framed as driving compulsive use. Eventually, that will trickle down into how campaigns are structured and how creators are incentivized to drive engagement.”

The PR / Corporate Comms Pro, AJ Feuerman: “What’s really notable here is the narrative shift: this isn’t about bad actors or harmful posts, it’s about the overall intent of the platform – they’re no longer just defending what’s on their platforms, they’re now being asked to defend how their platforms are built. For companies like Meta and Google (YouTube), it moves the conversation from content moderation to corporate responsibility, which is a much harder message to manage.”

The Academic, Jessica Maddox, Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Georgia: “As much I’d like for this to be a moment that returns to a chronological social feed or one where we see a big warning label slapped on social media platforms, I fear instead for pushes towards all-out bans for minors. So maybe a bit cynically, I don’t see much changing for platforms themselves - just who can use them and when.”

The Marketer, Kate Winick, Social Media Director, Klaviyo: “I don’t think they can hold back the rising tide of awareness that social media is not good for us, in the way that many fun things are not good for us, and that as such it ought to have more restrictions on use. These are giant for-profit entities operating under capitalism and we shouldn’t expect them to act in our children’s best interest. We have to act in our children’s best interest, and advocate for institutions like government and schools to support us. I think we can say, ‘I’m sorry, I made a mistake, I gave you something I thought was safe and it isn’t, so we’re not going to use it anymore… I want to qualify that I’m very much speaking as a parent on this as much as a social media person.’”

The Creator (with teenage children), Anonymous: “My kids don’t think it’s addictive, but I see that it is because they are constantly checking their socials. We actually have to take their phones away sometimes. It’s definitely changed how they live. Hanging out with friends used to just be hanging out — now it’s filming TikTok videos. My daughter posted photos from our trip and asked me to share them in my Stories for more likes. Just last night, both my daughters were watching their friends’ stories from a party and feeling FOMO — even though we’re on a Disney Cruise. It really does take away from living in the moment. Ultimately, it’s part of their culture and how they connect with friends now. I don’t think it’s the platform’s job to monitor our kids. It’s up to parents to set boundaries.”

The Teenager, 16, Anonymous: “I fall victim to doomscrolling all the time. The short and fast-paced videos give constant hits of dopamine, which makes it much easier for people like me with ADHD to get sucked into. Just watching one video can suck me in for hours subconsciously. To feel less addicted, I would have to delete the app all together — or the app’s videos would have to be slower in pace and less personalized.”

My question for you: If the platforms are held liable for how they’re built — not just what’s on them — does that change the way you think about how your brand shows up on social?

Related Takes:

• You Can Finally Blame Your Screen Time On Mark Zuckerberg

• How Do We Protect Children from Becoming Addicted to Social Media?

🎟️ APRIL EVENTS

• Adweek’s Social Media Week | April 14-16, New York

• Canva Create | April 16, Los Angeles

• Ad Age Creativity Awards Gala | April 20, New York

• POSSIBLE Conference (this year with a new Creator Economy Academy) | April 27-29, Miami

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• Elon Musk misled Twitter investors ahead of $44 billion acquisition, jury says - CNBC

• Aura reading is Gen Z’s latest spiritual obsession — brands are embracing the trend - AdAge

• Influencer tax rules: A guide for TikTok, Twitch, and other creators - Yahoo Finance

• Influence happens everywhere on the web but social and news are the most-overlooked channels - Sparktoro

• Social media has officially become the top source of breaking news globally, according to new research - Sprout Social - SproutSocial

• Move aside Brick, there’s a new privacy-first browser extension to help pause your doomscrolling - Product Hunt

• Journalists out here doing the work — bringing us much-needed explanations of the AI fruit drama - NBCNews

• AI talking-object videos actually started as anthropomorphized household products providing life hacks - Intelligencer

• AI fruit is in, but an infinite scroll of AI slop is out. OpenAI’s video app, Sora, is shutting down - The Hollywood Reporter

💌 PLEASE SUPPORT ICYMI

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Or you can shop from my Bookshop.org storefront for recommendations of the social and creator marketing books I’ve read recently.

[Vivian Tu and and Governor Gavin Newsom speak at Networth and Chill podcast at the Vox Media Podcast Stage at SXSW]

Today’s newsletter is a long one — if this email cuts off, you can read the entire thing on the Substack platform here.

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Meta plans to pay Instagram, TikTok and YouTube creators to post on Facebook

• YouTube’s Reimagine tool lets you turn a single frame of Shorts into video clips

• TikTok partnered with Tubi to support creators developing original shows for the streamer

• Pinterest published its Spring Trend Report 2026

• SXSW: 7 key themes to have on your radar

• SXSW Bonus: 2 innovative brand ideas from Patreon and Whataburger to borrow (or steal)

💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

• Adam Mosseri confirmed you can now pause Reels by tapping on them.

• The Edits app announced five new cinematic effects.

• Meta's new Creator Fast Track program will pay Instagram, TikTok and YouTube creators to post on Facebook.

• Facebook updated its content guidelines to clarify what it means to be “original” on the platform. Among the guidelines: reaction videos that don’t add anything meaningful are considered unoriginal and will likely be deprioritized in Feed and Reels.

• Facebook and Instagram will offer 24/7 AI-powered support for account issues.

Related Meta News

• Meta confirms it’s discontinuing end-to-end encrypted chats on Instagram

• Meta is planning sweeping layoffs as AI costs mount

• Meta backtracked on the decision to end Horizon Worlds VR after fans spoke out

📲 YouTube Updates

• YouTube and FIFA announced their partnership allowing fans, media partners and creators to experience FIFA World Cup™ from every angle. With a global cohort of creators given unparalleled access, expect them to deliver unique POVs, tactical breakdowns and behind the scenes action.

• YouTube announced Reimagine, a new AI-driven tool that gives you the ability to transform a single frame from an existing YouTube Short into an entirely new 8-second clip.

Related YouTube News

• YouTube is increasingly where family purchase conversations begin

📲 TikTok Updates

• TikTok and Tubi announced a new Creatorverse Incubator partnership to support creators developing original shows for the streamer.

📲 Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest published its Spring Trend Report 2026 with an emphasis on personalized spaces, spring soups and micro-escapes.

📲 LinkedIn Updates

• LinkedIn announced new ad solutions for B2B marketers, including sponsorship of Top Voices 360 videos. This builds upon the launch of last year’s Shows by LinkedIn.

🔑 ONE BIG THING

[Keith Lee and Ronni Lee at the Vox Media Podcast Stage at SXSW]

🌮 🌵 Everything You Need to Know From SXSW

1 vintage trench coat, 3 panels; 4 partners, 7 times I ate tacos; 9 parties, and more conversations than I can count — I spent SXSW embedded with creators, marketers, and executives, and I’m bringing you the most important themes in today’s newsletter.

Everything here is something I heard across multiple venues from multiple people, giving you a sense of what the marketing world is actually talking about and how you can borrow (or steal) these strategies for yourself. And because I can’t help myself, I’ve thrown in two unique ideas at the end that you should consider implementing.

Let’s get into it!

1. Audio was THE main character

The first official event I attended in Austin was JBL’s Livebrary, celebrating the launch of their new Live headphones. The space doubled as a live music hub, with performances from Steve Aoki, LP Giobbi, and rising artists from JBL’s Music Academy.

Then, on my way home, the last person I ran into in my hotel lobby was podcast entrepreneur Casey Adams — in town for Podcast Movement Evolutions festival, which ran alongside SXSW.

Two very different moments, but together they captured something bigger: just how much SXSW this year revolved around music and podcasts.

Seen ‘n’ Heard:

• Audible hosted SXSW’s first-ever musical, bringing a bit of Broadway to Austin with Mexodus: A Musical Journey Across Borders. Viral Nation’s SVP of Marketing Alice de Vries told me it was the best show she saw all week.

• Spotify’s Saturday night show, Live at Stubb’s, with Alanis Morissette and others, was one of the hottest tickets of the week.

• Twitch’s Head of Community, Mary Kish, spoke on a panel — Play It Live: How Livestreaming is Rewriting the Rules of Music — with artists Tierra Whack and DJ Dave. “Tiara is one of the musicians that we work with. She’s been walking around [Austin] with a streaming crew the entire time she’s been here.”

• TikTok and iHeartMedia used the occasion to launch a dedicated TikTok Radio Station focused on creators, trends, music and cultural moments.

• YouTube presented multiple podcast sessions, including a keynote at Podcast Movement Evolutions, and a SXSW panel titled, From Shorts to Shows: Why Creators Are Flocking to Podcasts.

• Apple Podcasts was also at Podcast Movement Evolutions, reportedly its first ever official keynote at a podcast conference in North America.

• Food critic and influencer Keith Lee used SXSW to announce a new weekly podcast from Vox Media that will launch in the spring.

• Vivian Tu interviewed Governor Gavin Newsom during a live-taping of her podcast, Networth & Chill, from the Vox Media Podcast Stage.

There’s even more but you get the idea.

And I wasn’t the only one feeling it. elf Beauty CMO Patrick O’Keefe told me he was inspired by a session Billboard hosted that introduced CMOs to emerging artists, including Momo Boyd. ”It made me go, ‘I want to work with you!’ I walked out of there with 10 ideas,” Patrick told me.

Takeaway

This isn’t just about jumping on trending audio. It’s about thinking more intentionally about how music, sound, and emerging artists show up across your content — and recognizing that podcasts and video podcasts are becoming core media channels.

Interestingly, the platforms themselves felt less central. They were present, but subtly — and creators seemed more likely to refer to their podcasts than to their platform indentity (eg. YouTubers or TikTokers).

2. AI’s role in search and creator marketing

Creators aren’t just making content for feeds anymore — they’ve become trusted beacons for LLM search engines.

“Instead of a YouTube strategy for conversion… we’re seeing brands ask for a dedicated video focused on, let’s say, Gusto, versus Rippling for AI search,” Creator Match founder AJ Eckstein told me. “Creator marketing for search is going to be huge this year.”

Seen ‘n’ Heard

• There were more than 20 official panels dedicated to AI, everything from When AI Shops for You to Building Influence on AI-Saturated Algorithms.

• Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone joined Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg to discuss the launch of Yahoo Scout, an AI answer engine. Yahoo also had street crews and sidewalk decals promoting Scout.

• Meanwhile, Yahoo CMO Josh Line joined me for a panel about creator-brand partnerships and building trust in the age of AI.

• Jack Conte, Patreon’s CEO, was in town to deliver a keynote advocating for creator compensation when their work is used to train AI models.

• AirOps, an AI-powered platform creating branded content for SEO and AI search, roamed the streets hosting-man-on-the-street interviews.

Takeaway

Search is no longer just Google — it’s Claude, TikTok, YouTube, or whatever AI interface your audience is using that day.

That changes the role of creators.

They’re not just storytellers — they’re trusted sources who help brands rank higher in an AI-driven discovery ecosystem.

3. Sports as a force for good

SXSW may not be known for its athletic programming — it’s less about workouts, and more about whiskey tastings. But there were yoga sessions and a JBL music‑powered run club with 1,500 UT Austin students.

The sports conversation also came up across the Brand and Marketing track, where it was framed as one of the few remaining spaces where mass audiences still come together in real time — and where brands can tap into something bigger than themselves..

Seen ‘n’ Heard

• Bank of America’s Brad Ross shared the story of the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa and its role in uniting the country post-apartheid — and again in 2010 with the FIFA World Cup. I can barely do it justice here but it was powerful stuff.

• Whoop CMO John Sullivan talked about how the brand uses its creator ecosystem to amplify moments like the Boston Marathon, turning a local activation into global content.

• Deloitte Digital’s Kenny Gold emphasized that sports aren’t just about the game — they’re about the subcultures around them, from women’s basketball to niche fan communities.

Takeaway

For brands, the opportunity isn’t just sponsorship. It’s participation.

The smartest activations don’t just show up at big moments — they plug into the communities, stories, and subcultures that make those moments meaningful in the first place.

4. The Growth of Experiential

Sports and experiential are increasingly part of the same conversation, whether it’s about the Olympics, the Boston marathon, or NBA All-Star Weekend.

Of course, it’s not just sports. It’s about any event that creates a memorable experience for fans on the ground, while also being valuable for your online audiences.

According to Team One’s Nichole Kirsch, experiential is also emerging as a natural counterbalance to AI — a reminder that human presence still matters.

And when it comes to making that content travel further, creators are your ideal +1 at the party.

Seen ‘n’ Heard

• There were more brand activations on the ground in Austin than you could count — JBL’s Livebrary, Vox Media’s Podcast Stage at SXSW, Manychat’s Creator Hub, Paramount+ The Lodge fan experience, Traackr’s Boots and Brunch event, Teachable’s Sunset Sail on the Colorado River and many more.

• Crocs’ Carly Gomez shared how an All-Star Weekend activation with Deandre Ayton led to this viral content, which was amplified through a Footlocker partnership.

• Teachable’s Giovanna Carvalho emphasized that in a world of AI-generated content, personality and human connection become the differentiators — and experiential brings that to life.

Takeaway

The goal isn’t just event attendance. It’s amplification online.

The best IRL experiences are designed for three audiences: the people in the room, the creators capturing it, and the millions who will experience it later through BTS content.

5. Diffusing bad reviews

“Are brands too afraid of being polarizing?” asked Viral Nation’s Chief Commercial Officer Nicholas Spiro during a panel on the Emotion Economy of Social Media.

Based on what I saw — a lot of brands are in their bold era, using negative customer reviews as part of their campaigns and responding to critics online.

Seen ‘n’ Heard

• Dove recently took unfiltered Reddit reviews and incorporated them into a new campaign for their hair serum.

• Yahoo’s Josh Line shared an anecdote about a comedian who joked about his wife using a Yahoo email address and the brand jokingly responded that they were there for her before he was. “Our comment got 500,000 likes.” (It’s now over 900K)

• Crocs’ Carly Gomez revealed the brand has playfully engaged with the Tampa International Airport after it went viral for jokingly “banning” Crocs and pajamas from its terminals.

• Note: Burger King wasn’t at SXSW but they used the same weekend to launch “a brand reset,” openly acknowledging mistakes and inviting feedback..

Takeaway

Leaning into criticism (when done right) signals confidence. It also lets audiences know that you’re listening to them.

In a crowded, AI-generated content landscape, self-awareness stands out.

6. Employees as influencers

The “creator” isn’t always external anymore.

Some of the most compelling voices brands have are already inside the building.

From CEOs to frontline employees, internal talent came up again and again as an underutilized — and highly credible — content engine. And yes, McDonald’s CEO was referenced in a lot of those discussions.

Seen ‘n’ Heard

• Whoop’s John Sullivan shared how the company treats CEO Will Ahmed as a creator, complete with dedicated content support.

• Bank of America’s Brad Ross described how employees, who were marathon runners became central storytellers in campaigns tied to charitable initiatives.

• Crocs’ Carly Gomez shared how an internal employee story about decorating Crocs with Jibbitz inspired an entire content series.

Takeaway

Employees don’t just understand the brand — they are the brand.

They’re also the voice people actually want to hear from: 74% of people surveyed in a recent Harris Poll say employees are more influential than traditional marketing.

7. The rise of creator experts

Someone referred to me as an SME (subject matter expert) on this trip and it stuck with me — because it really captures where we are right now with the rise of the creator educator. Not just influencers, but people who teach, explain, and guide.

Seen ‘n’ Heard

• Teachable hosted a panel — leveraging their Creator Trend Report — which emphasized the value of human connection, the role of AI in enhancing learning, and the importance of adapting to industry changes to maintain relevance.

• Teachable also planned a creative mastermind session with Jayde Powell and myself built around our mutual subject matter expertise

• Whoop’s John Sullivan described matching the expertise of creators to campaigns based on the type of story being told — from performance science to thought leadership.

Takeaway

Access to information is now endless. Expertise is not.

So if you’re a creator, that’s your edge. Frame your content around what actually works in the wild, not just what theory and best practices say. That’s something AI can assist with, but not replace.

🏆 I’d Like to Thank…

The trip to Austin — and this newsletter recap — wouldn’t have been possible without my partners: JBL, Teachable, Team One and The RealReal. Please show them some love!

• Team One and The RealReal helped set the tone, outfitting me before I had even left LA. I post a lot about packing for conferences and we all see eye to eye on intentional luxury and finding pieces that tell a story. And if you think you saw me sneaking into Austin 24 hours early so I could go shopping for vintage accessories — um, no you didn’t.

• JBL’s Livebrary was my first official stop to see friends, listen to music and learn about their new JBL Live 780NC over-ear and JBL Live 680NC on-ear headphones.

• Teachable paired me with Jayde Powell for a top secret project (coming soon) based around their Creator Trend Report.

🥸 SXSW Bonus: Steal These Ideas

📝 Mutual Benefit Ratio (MBR): A New Way to Measure Creator Partnerships, inspired by Mike McGarry, SVP Marketing, Patreon

Most brands track campaign performance religiously — but when working with creators, how often do you ask: did this actually help their business too?

The Mutual Benefit Ratio (MBR) is a 1–10 scoring system that Patreon came up with to evaluate campaigns on what they delivered for the brand and the creator. Did their subscribers go up? Did search volume increase? The metrics aren’t new. It’s just applying the same lens you bring to your own marketing efforts to the creator’s side of the equation to strengthen the relationship.

🍔 The WMoA: Turning Fan Art Into a Brand Channel, inspired by Donna Tuttle, VP Marketing, Whataburger

Whataburger fans are obsessed — crochet burgers, glitter fries, paintings of the restaurants. The art was already happening. Whataburger just gave it a home.

An idea for a physical museum got reimagined during COVID as an Instagram account: The WMoA (Whataburger Museum of Art) is a platform for fans to share their work and for the brand to amplify it. It has become one of their highest-engagement channels. For their 75th anniversary, they finally brought it to life as a real museum at SXSW. The lesson: fan art and edits are brand assets. Build infrastructure to celebrate the work.

🌮 SXSW: Random Fun Stuff

• I got to meet my favorite podcasters of all time, Watch What Crappens’ Ben Mandelker and Ronnie Karam.

• I managed to incorporate Heated Rivalry into all three panels I was on through the lens of culture; co-creating with audiences (edits and fan fic); and the importance of happily ever afters:

  • The Emotion Economy of Social Media

  • Building Brands That Back Creators

  • A New Era of Creator Brand Partnerships

• I reviewed my daily taco and quesadilla consumption on Threads. Spoiler alert, there are no bad reviews. All the food is good food in Austin.

👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• ByteDance paused the launch of its new video-generation model, Seedance 2.0 - PC Mag

• LTK released Quick Collabs connecting brands and creators for ‘flat-fee’ campaigns - Digiday

• Adobe’s AI can now be trained on your own style - PetaPixel

• Gen Z and Gen Alpha marketing playbook - AdAge

• Creator marketing in 2026: What the data reveals - Traackr

• Fohr, an influencer marketing platform, angered a lot of creators by suggesting brands were overpaying - Thread