December 9-2024: A Recap of What Happened in The Digital Space Last Week

Hello there and happy new month!

Welcome to this week’s edition of Digital Trends and Insights!

To all my new readers, I’m so glad you’re here! This is where I share my curated picks of social media updates, tech news, digital trends, and weekly insights to keep you informed and inspired. ??

Here’s a recap of what stood out in the digital space last week. If you’d like to catch up on previous editions, click here.

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Pssst! Don’t forget to click the links to dive deeper into the stories that interest you.

Thanks for reading, and let’s dive in! ??

Meta

• Instagram is testing a new feature for Instagram DMs, “Scheduled Message”.
• Facebook is now showing a new “Topics that you may be interested in” carousel.
• Meta introduced new updates to broadcast channels that will help you better understand and collaborate with your followers.
• Meta to force financial advertisers to be verified in a bid to prevent celebrity scam ads targeting Australians

X

X analytics is getting some new updates:

—Follows over time widget

—Posts over time widget (your posts)

—Tile for engagements

—Media activity section with media and video views

I also noticed you can now see a percentage of verified followers

[Ht @ZachWarunek]

• X is rolling out a new label for Parody, Commentary, and Fan (PCF) accounts. If your account is PCF, you can enable the label here https://x.com/settings/account/parody so as not to risk losing your account

• The X post button is now black!

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn introduces dynamic cover images that allow you to select up to five photos to create a rotating slideshow on your Profile. The feature is only available to Premium Subscribers

• If you are building your personal brand on LinkedIn, consider these writing tips shared by LinkedIn

??Have a hook

??Use Short Paragraphs

??Use Relevant #

??Tag accounts

??End with a Call to Action

TikTok

• TikTok releases Year On TikTok 2024: A little African Creativity & Culture Sparks a lot of Impact
• In October TikTok parent company ByteDance fired an intern for “maliciously interfering” with the training of its internal AI models. The intern is alleged to have sabotaged their AI via code manipulation and unauthorized modification. Now? slapped with a $1.1 million lawsuit
• TikTok is testing a new UI for TikTok Search with added search tags: “Just watched”, and “Related to your search”.
• A U.S. appeals court has rejected TikTok’s bid to disqualify the U.S. government’s enforced sell-off bill, which means that TikTok could be removed as early as January 19, 2025.

YouTube

• YouTube rolls out the ability to upload 3-minute shorts on mobile apps. On my end, it's still at 60sec max. YouTube had made this announcement a few weeks ago
• YouTube now has the ability to generate an AI image directly in the app for use in posts.

AI

• OpenAI to release ChatGPT Pro, a new $200-per-month subscription tier that provides unlimited access to all of OpenAI’s models, including the full version of its o1 “reasoning” model.
• Sam Altman may not be a fan of ads but it's reported OpenAI is exploring bringing ads to ChatGPT to increase their revenue. Currently, ChatGPT is only relying on subscriptions
• Google's video generator Veo, an AI model that can generate short video clips from images and prompts, will be available in private preview for customers using Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s AI development platform
• Google says its new AI model, PaliGemma 2 can identify emotions — and that has experts worried?

Brands

Remember Jaguar's controversial rebrand ad a few weeks ago with the tagline "Copy Nothing?" Jaguar revealed the Type 00 concept in two colours: London Blue and Miami Pink

Chief Creative Officer Gerry McGovern says the controversial ad was intentional to capture attention

I hope you found these updates informative and inspiring. Stay ahead of the curve by subscribing for weekly insights delivered straight to your inbox! Subscribe now!

I'm also always looking to collaborate with fellow digital marketing, social media, and tech enthusiasts. If you have any hot takes, industry insights, or partnership ideas, don't hesitate to reach out! email at [email protected]

I will be taking a social media break ahead of the festive season. See you soon!