Social Media Industry Round-Up #85: NEW TikTok AI tools, Pinterest key summer trends, Google’s Marketing Live updates & driving reach on Instagram

Every week, the Marketing team at The Social Shepherd puts together all the relevant industry updates in a round-up newsletter sent every Monday morning.

This way, we keep our team, clients and interested marketers up to date with what's going on in the social media industry :)

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Influencer Marketing DRAMA & Increasing Reach on Instagram

Listen to our CEO discuss all of the updates mentioned in this newsletter, the controversy surrounding recent ASA rulings and how Netflix nailed the social strategy for the latest season of Bridgerton. ??

Instagram States That ‘Shares are the most important metric to focus on if your goal is overall reach’

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, said during his latest Instagram Q&A:?

“More important than watch time or like and comment counts is send rates, [and] generally, I think the rate is more important than the count. So, the number of sends per reach, the number of likes per reach, the number of comments per reach. But sends per reach correlate more, in my experience, with overall reach than anything else because we are looking to help people discover content they want to connect with friends over, so sends is a great proxy for that sort of connection over creativity.”

This doesn’t come as a shock to us as we know viral content often has a high share rate, but it does confirm the fact that marketers need to segment their reporting by the types of engagements they see, and not look at ‘total?engagements' as a metric of success.

Top tip from the TSS team: Use a weighted engagement rate instead of a standard engagement rate to identify content that has a higher volume of higher intent engagements e.g. saves & shares.

‘Lately’ Story Highlights

This new feature, currently under testing, automatically highlights Stories from the last 7 days. However, users will be able to remove stories from it or turn it on and off.

TikTok Fan Spotlight

The platform has launched Fan Spotlight, a new tool for artists that will provide more ways to prompt engagement with fans in the app in order to maximise reach.

TikTok said: “Fan Spotlight is a new artist-first feature which allows artists to showcase their favourite fan videos on their music tab.”

New Media Buying Certification

TikTok has announced a new certification for Marketers who want to expand their knowledge of Media Buying.

TikTok said:?“[The Media Buying] certification allows digital marketers to highlight their expertise in TikTok advertising, fostering professional development and opening doors to new opportunities. For companies and agencies, building a team of TikTok-certified professionals boosts credibility and shows a dedication to excellence in TikTok ad services.”

TikTok Symphony

The platform has launched a new suite of generative AI tools for brands to help them write scripts, produce videos, and enhance current assets:?

• Symphony Assistant: AI assistant designed to help advertisers enhance their campaigns.?
• Symphony Creative Studio: Generates TikTok-ready videos with just a few inputs from an advertiser.?
• Symphony Ads Manager Integration: Helps brands automatically fix and optimise a brand’s current videos.

Change Makers Program

TikTok is launching a new program to support creators on the platform. This time, they’re focusing on creators who focus their content around topics and stories that aim to have a positive impact on society by using TikTok and highlighting their content to help them reach more users.?

Floating TikTok Player

TikTok has released a ‘floating player’ that allows users to watch TikTok videos on their desktop PC while switching to other tabs.

Gen Z Pinterest Report

Pinterest said: ‘Gen Z make up more than 40% of our global monthly users.’?

Following this statement, they released a Gen Z on Pinterest report highlighting consumer behaviours and trends and showing how to reach them on the platform.?

The key points they’ve covered in the report are:?

1. Appear when they search?
2. Build traction for transactions?
3. Make it shoppable?
4. Stay ahead of the trends?
5. Connect them to culture?
6. Don’t forget the people shopping for them?

Key Summer Trends

Pinterest is the ultimate destination to discover the hottest trends for the summer of 2024, and they’ve just released a list of the most searched keywords that marketers can take as inspiration to plan their summer campaigns:?

• Tomboy femme +3900%
• Alt baddie +5550%
• Y3k outfits +6030%
• Maximalist jewellery +3460%
• 2000s chunky highlights +5400%
• Razer cut bob +8200%
• Nancy Meyers living room +2090%
• Grandma core bedroom +2605%
• Mango float +3700%

Google’s New AI Tools

Google has announced a range of new ad tools at its “Marketing Live” event:?

• Brand Guidelines: Marketers will be able to enter the brand logo, colour guidelines, selected fonts, and product images to generate more cohesive and consistent brand-aligned creative variations.?
• AI Creative Enhancement: Add in generated objects, extend image backgrounds, and crop your visuals to fit via text prompts.
• Google Business Profiles in Search: This updated and more visual format highlights information listed in Google’s Merchant Center and Shopping Graph to provide a more attention-grabbing overview of your business.
• AI-Generated Body Shape Examples: These are available for shopping ads and provide more context as to what items of clothing look like on different body types.