May 6-2024: A Recap of What Happened in The Digital Space Last Week

Happy new month!

Welcome to your weekly dose of Digital Trends & Insights Update!

This week has been a whirlwind of updates across the social media landscape, with a clear theme emerging: AI is making its mark. From Meta's new AI-powered advertising tools to YouTube's content inspiration feature, platforms are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance user experience and empower creators. Instagram is also tweaking it's algorithm

But AI isn't the only story. Let's dive into the biggest headlines:

Pssst! Kindly click on the hypertext links to read more from the sources

Meta, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp

• Meta Verified is testing two new features on Facebook: "Search Optimization" and "Help with Discovery"

• Meta launched new AI-Powered tools for advertisers to drive performance with creator content, AI-powered campaign creative and delivery, and Reminder ads on Reels.
• Meta implements new AI disclosure requirements labeled “made with AI”
• Instagram announced a new way to rank recommendations to give all creators an equal chance of breaking through on the app. Historically, Instagram has been ranking creators with large followings and aggregators of reposted content have gotten more reach in recommendations than smaller, original content creator

Other changes

??Replacing reposts with original content in recommendations.

??Adding labels to reposted content, linking to the original creator.

??Removing content aggregators from recommendations.

• Instagram announced new updates:?

??Revealed sticker that allows you to post a hidden story for your friends and followers to uncover.

??Added Yours Music sticker that allows you to share a song that fits your mood with your followers, who can add their music too.

??Spotlight Memories With the Frames Sticker

• WhatsApp announced a new way for people to organize events on WhatsApp. Also, people can reply to announcements from admins in WhatsApp Communities
• WhatsApp rolled out a chat filtering feature for managing storage

Insight: How Meta Makes Money

Pinterest

• Pinterest users are now up to 518 million monthly active users, up from 498m in Q4.

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn rolls out 3 games in app: Crossclimb, Pinpoint, and Queens. LinkedIn says these games will give people a way to exercise their brains while taking a quick break, but also give people a reason to connect with others. Your thoughts?

X/Twitter

• X launched GrokAI in United Kingdom for premium subscribers
• X launches Stories, delivering news summarized by Grok AI
• X made changes to how the block works. If someone who blocked you, replies to one of your posts, you will now be able to see their reply in the past you couldn't. The change enables you to identify and report any potential bad content? safeguarding both your account and the overall integrity of our platform

TikTok

• TikTok? introduced new advertising products and opportunities that will allow marketers to better control what sort of content their ads appear against.
• Universal Music Group and TikTok announced a new licensing Agreement that will deliver significant industry-leading benefits for UMG’s global family of artists, songwriters and labels and will return their music to TikTok’s billion-plus global community.
• TikTok shared insights about TikTok Shop

??They have 15 million sellers around the world

??Since 2021, TikTok Shop has expanded from Southeast Asia, United Kingdom and United States in 2023

??Onboarded more than 6 million sellers onto TikTok Shop and assessed their products before they went onto the platform.

??Prevented 37 million products being listed that breached their policies and removed an additional 133,000 individual products after listing.

??Deactivated the accounts of more than 1 million sellers and removed their products due to policy violations.

??Removed e-commerce features from more than 500,000 creators due to policy violations.

Snapchat

• Snapchat announced a series of new augmented reality (AR) and machine learning (ML) tools designed to help brands and advertisers reach users on the social network with interactive experiences

Google, YouTube

• YouTube is testing a GenAI content inspiration tool on YouTube Studio on desktop that helps creators? brainstorm ideas, understand their audience better, and build videos faster by generating ideas
• Google updates its Google Ads Inappropriate content policy to prohibit sites or apps that generate and promote deepfake pornography or nudity, effective May 30, 2024
• Google confirmed links are not that Important. Google's Gary Illyes says that Google needs very few links, more evidence that links matter less than at any other time in SEO history

AI, Generative AI?

• Anthropic launched Claude AI to the iPhone and iPad that allows seamless syncing with web chats.
• Apple earnings saw a 10% iPhone sales drop. Apple’s slow adoption of AI versus competitors like Google and Microsoft likely played a role in consumers’ decision to hold off on purchasing a new iPhone.
• Apple is poaching dozens of AI experts from Google and building a secret AI lab in Zurich. A review of LinkedIn profiles of Apple’s AI team, reports that 36 Apple AI employees used to work for Google parent Alphabet
• Warren Buffett says AI scamming will be the next big growth industry.? “When you think about the potential for scamming people ... if I was interested in investing in scamming, it’s gonna be the growth industry of all time and it’s enabled, in a way by AI"
• Financial Times announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI to enhance ChatGPT with attributed content, help improve its models’ usefulness by incorporating FT journalism, and collaborate on developing new AI products and features for FT readers.
• 13 Best AI Assistants for Marketers

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See you next week!