Carousels Are Back, Baby!

? 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Instagram is hyping Carousels — and their reach
• Instagram rolled out profile “business” cards
• Threads will now show people when you're online
• YouTube announced collaborative playlists and custom thumbnails for playlists
• TikTok Notes wants your photos — but you still can’t access the app
• TikTok looks to help creators launch their own products
• Teens use Instagram but say TikTok is their favorite
• Shadow ban, touch grass and FYP are now in the dictionary
• What it's like to speak at and attend Adobe Max
• Book it: 12 global conferences to attend in 2025 ?? ??
• Resources: 6 free reports whether you’re a creator, social media pro or influencer marketing manager

?? ROADMAP

?? Meta Updates

Instagram announced that photos and Carousels with music are now eligible to appear in the Reels tab, which may help with reach.

(Also, isn’t it time they just called it THE tab since it now includes photos, Carousels and Reels?)

So many of you have mentioned having success with Carousels lately. And there are a couple of valid reasons for that, according to Adam Mosseri, who chalks Carousel success up to:

• multiple slides means more interactions, which means — on average — more reach
• the algorithm gives your Carousel a second chance, resurfacing it to followers who previously swiped by

This comes just shortly after Instagram - and Threads - increased the amount of images and video you could add to 20 photo and video.

And consider Dash Hudson’s recent social benchmarks report which said that photo and Carousel content actually drove greater reach for brands on Instagram than Reels.

Meanwhile, even TikTok was promoting its own photo Carousels earlier this year, promising to “help you reach even more people.”

That doesn’t mean you stop producing videos but, if you love photo content, Carousels are looking like a really good option.

• Instagram officially rolled out profile cards, aka IG business cards. The doubled-sided profile card features your bio, avatar, links, music, and QR code with a background you can customize with an image of your choice.?

• Spotted : Instagram now allows you to name your drafts
• Spotted : Instagram is working on a Social Library that would list posts and Reels you’ve shared and received in chats.
• Threads will now show people when you're online if the online activity status is turned on. You can turn off your Online Status in settings.??

?? YouTube / Google Updates

YouTube just announced over two dozen new or upgraded features. The ones that stood out for brand or creator purposes include:

• Collaborative playlists??
• Custom thumbnails for your playlists
• Voting in playlists which will launch later this year

The playlists updates are interesting — especially in light of the recent announcement that YouTube creators will be able to organize content by Seasons and Episodes. It’s the ability to create endless collections of bingeable content, along with community baked in.

• YouTube is testing AI-enhanced comment reply suggestions for creators written in their own tone and style.
• Google announced new features for NotebookLM, its AI podcast tool, including the ability to focus the conversation on a source or a specific topic and the ability to target a specific audience

?? TikTok Updates

• TikTok is reportedly connecting manufacturers with creators to help them make their own products to sell on TikTok Shop.
• Spotted : TikTok is encouraging US users to opt into letting their profile, photos and comments be shown on the TikTok Notes app, even though people in the US don’t have access to the app — saying it will “help you get discovered by more people.”
• Spotted : TikTok is rolling out new features for captions, including: “Trending fonts” and “Text animations.”

?? X (Twitter) Updates

• X (Twitter) announced that public posts will now be visible to people you’ve blocked — but they won’t be able to engage with the posts.

?? Pinterest Updates

• Pinterest is inviting creators to share their best Pins and collages for a chance to be featured in Pinterest content and on socials.

?? Kajabi Updates

• Creator commerce platform Kajabi released several new features, including a new newsletter feature that allows users to create exclusive paid and free content for subscribers.

?? Twitch Updates

• Twitch rolled out Shared Chat, which allows streamers to easily bring their communities together for a combined chat experience; and ‘enforcement notes’ – which provides clarifications and examples about how they apply their Community Guidelines.?
• Twitch is celebrating Fright Fest by showcasing horror content from Oct. 24-31 and giving streamers a chance to be featured while participating.

?? Adobe Updates

I’m fresh off speaking about social trends at Adobe Max in Miami, where the company announced multiple updates, including:?

• An extended Adobe Academy that aims to teach 30 million people AI, content creation, and marketing skills by 2030
• New enterprise capabilities for Adobe Express for collaborating across teams, agencies and partners
• Adobe’s Firefly Video Model allows users to generate videos from images and prompts; and extend existing clips in Premiere Pro

AI was clearly a big topic but more as a service to support creatives versus generating new content from scratch.

There was also a heavy emphasis on social media this year with bookend sessions from me (Social Strategies for Driving Growth) and Link In Bio ’s Rachel Karten (Craft Creative Responses to Social Trends).

I also ran into creators such as Lucas O’Keefe , Goldie Chan , Jack Appleby and Lissette Calveiro ; and saw creator economy leaders like Influential’s Ryan Detert and Penn State professor and author Bill Zimmerman .

Finally, there were dueling activations and panels from Meta and TikTok.

Overall, it was an amazing experience and I appreciate everyone who came to my two sessions, but especially the folks who woke up early to attend the 8 am presentation.

*More details will be included in Monday’s paid subscriber newsletter

??? 2025 CONFERENCE PLANNING

Creators have been around forever, but 2024 was definitely the year they finally got their flowers. SXSW, Cannes Lions, The NAB Show, The Future of TV Conference, and even Tribeca all added dedicated creator tracks to their events. And let’s not forget—the White House jumped in with its first-ever Creator Economy Conference.

So, with all these new creator-focused conferences popping up — plus the usual social media events — where should you spend your 2025 conference budget?

I ran a survey to find out where people felt they got the most bang for their buck. And while the survey got hundreds of views (I tracked it!) and I got plenty of DMs asking for the results, only 15 people actually shared their top picks?! ?? Not sure if that says something about the events themselves or just a lack of excitement in general.

Either way, I’m sharing some of the responses I did get. This list isn’t the be-all-end-all, but it’s a solid starting point to help you plan your 2025 conference lineup.

*Note: I’ll be sending out some additional survey results and specific community recommendations in the next paid subscriber newsletter on Monday

Where are people hoping to go next year:

• “I’m hoping to hit SXSW, Cannes, Nas Summit, 1 Billion Followers Summit, and Open Sauce next year”
• “I wish I attended VidSummit!!”?
• “I wish I had the opportunity to attend Cannes Lions!”??
• “I’m definitely going to Open Sauce and VidSummit”

?? DATA DROP

CreatorIQ released it’s latest round of The State of Creator Marketing report. The survey of 1,137 brands, agencies and creators is a hefty 54 pages of data; Here are some of the findings that caught our attention:

98% — The percentage of industry leaders that believe creator content drives more ROI than traditional advertising 62% —The increase in the number of recurring partnerships for brands (YoY)

?? QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Technical excellence helps to sell the story, but only if the story is worth telling. And the stories we want to be told have human connection at their core… They [viewers] want stories that capture their attention, that make them laugh, that relate to their lived experiences, or that simply move them”

via the YouTube Why We Watch Report ?

?? FREE RESOURCES

• Buffer released an extensive list titled: The 28 Best Marketing Resources for Social Media (including an ICYMI ?? mention)
• Influencer Intelligence released a report diving into the youngest generation: Influencer Marketing for Gen Alpha (with quotes from me!)
• The Influencer Marketing Factory put together a comprehensive playbook for creators, The Ultimate Creator Guide , that details how to navigate brand deals, make more money and launch their own businesses.
• Superfiliate and Superbloom partnered to release an Influencer Marketing Field Guide to share tactics and insights from a variety of influencer marketing pros.

?? IN CASE YOU MISSED IT HEADLINES

• Instagram is the most used social-media app and TikTok is the favorite social app among teens -Piper Sandler; Taking Stock With Teens Survey
• Creators getting paid to post on Threads don’t understand its algorithm either -Engadget
• Meta is laying off employees at WhatsApp, Instagram, and more -The Verge
• TikTok wants to turn millions of Americans into paid shopping influencers -Rest of World
• Inside the TikTok documents: Stripping teens and boosting 'attractive' people -NPR ?
• How did LinkedIn turn into America's hottest comedy club? -Business Insider
• Shadow ban, touch grass and For You Page (FYP) made Merriam Webster’s list of new dictionary words -Merriam Webster
• Marketers grapple with the question of how to get in front of Gen Z -The Current
• Pop-up event strategies — how Poppi, Cetaphil and others are reaching Gen Z and building brand communities -AdAge
• How Microsoft and Adobe are using influencers to promote AI platforms -AdAge
• “Influencer Studies” Break Into the Ivy League -The Hollywood Reporter
• How social media changed the sports marketing game -Sprout Social

?? UPCOMING EVENTS

??? Content Marketing World Oct. 22-25 | San Diego

??? ZCON Oct. 24 | New York City

??? Kajabi Hero Live Oct. 24-26 | Los Angeles

??? Future of Television Oct. 30 | Los Angeles

Thanks for reading!

- Lia and Mo Brady