Ragan and PR Daily’s 2024 Social Media Conference kicked off Wednesday with a memorable pre-conference workshop slate. During an afternoon session, Mackenzie Perna, co-founder at Sun & Sol Co., and Tyler Paget, social media director at Fox Racing, did a deep dive into how organizations can create impactful short-form content on TikTok, Reels and Shorts.

Here’s what we learned.

Establishing an ownable identity

Perna began by sharing how brands can create an ownable identity to show they’re truthful by embracing truth in various ways.

“We recommend that brands take on a very editorial approach and show their human community truth,” she said. “If we look around, we’re all diverse in ages and ethnicities, in what we like to do on the weekends. And consumers are looking at some of this from their brands as well. So when you’re programming your content showing diversity in your audience, and what you’re providing in regards to the entertainment and content, you’re sharing consumer truth. We all want to trust the brands that we’re purchasing from as well as the content we’re investing our time into.”

“The days of speaking through a one-way megaphone are over,” Perna added. “We really want to dig in.”

Lead with the hook

It’s important to remember that the hook is everything on TikTok — and action should come first. “Jump into a scene — don’t set it,” said Paget, emphasizing that this will encourage your audience to join you in the scene – and stay with you..

Some examples of effective hooks include:

• “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but..”
• “This is for you if [describe your target audience’s needs]”
• “Stop scrolling if you [describe your target audience] who [desire or dislike]”
• “Here’s 5 things to [desire]”
• “You need to do this if you [desire]”
• “Here’s a hack to [banish/attract]”
• “Did you know that…”
• “5 mistakes you are probably making…”

Optimizing your content

Creating a great video is only the beginning. When you’re putting the finishing touches on a piece of content, make sure you’re also considering:

• Showcasing premium content by staying in safe zones. “There’s a lot of stuff going on on your screen, a lot of business with engagement icons … making sure your content is within that safe zone is very pertinent,” Paget said. Checking preview mode can help here.
• Leveraging audio and voiceover to create an immersive expereince. Remember that TikTok started its life under the nameas Musical.ly, and music is still rooted in its DNA. Leveraging royalty- free, in-app music is the best way to go here.
• Optimizing keywords. These should be optimized in your profile, text on screen, caption and copy. “Social media has really become a search engine,” said Perna.
• Alt-text. Right before hitting post, you can find alt-text in your settings and add a description for what the content you’re sharing looks and feels like. This helps people with disabilities access and enjoy your content.

Telling a story and being a human

A 2024 Sprout Social Report found that most customers want to see more humans show up on brand social accounts.Front-line employees, social media teams, community employees and corporate leaders were most desired.

When spotlighting these employees, it’s crucial to not overthink it or try to be flawless. Accept that the aesthetics won’t be perfect and don’t stress having a strict storyline. Shakiness will happen, as will spelling mistakes and background noise. “If anything, it’ll cause chaos in the comment section, which is great for engagement,” Paget said with a smirk.

When to step in and when to stay out of trends

Just because a trend is happening on TikTok doesn’t mean you should be jumping in. Finding trends requires being an active participant. “Whether you’re on your lunch break or you’re having your morning coffee, just scroll through your brand’s account,” Perna said. “See what your community’s talking about. See what sounds and formats and conversations are happening in real time and allow this to be applied to your strategy on a daily basis. This allows your team to be quick and reactive.

When determining whether to jump into a trend,ask yourself:

• Is it authentic? 90% of consumers say that authenticity matters when choosing brands to support, from retail to healthcare to higher ed and beyond.
• Is it relevant? Citing Gary Vaynerchuk, Paget reminded us that good content is not about selling your content or services — it’s about understanding culture to decide when you can enter relevant conversaitons taking place online.
• Is it memorable? Visual appeal, evoking emotions and leaning on the tenets of storytelling will help you get there.

“If you answer no to any of these questions, consider sitting out of that trend,” Perna said.

Justin Joffe is the editorial director and editor-in-chief at Ragan Communications. He oversees the editorial strategy for Ragan across brands and products.

The post Live from Ragan’s Social Media Conference: Optimizing your short-form video content appeared first on PR Daily.

Kennyatta Collins is a freelance brand strategist. Follow him on LinkedIn.

The emergence of new social media apps has blessed us with tools and features to enhance how we communicate. After Elon Musk purchased Twitter and subsequent changes led to a mass exodus of users from the platform, Threads became the ideal destination for many social media marketers, including Hubspot. The customer platform saw the Meta-owned network as a unique alternative that provided what many enjoyed about the early days of Twitter and Instagram.

Chi Thukral, Hubspot’s senior team manager of brand social, has adeptly navigated the changing social media landscape while spotting opportunities for deeper connections for the brand’s audience. Her latest social media strategy positions the text-based app Threads as a core platform for building stronger connections with the Hubspot audience.

“When it first launched, it was a special moment where everyone was exploring it, people were having fun and brands were just showing up as people. You could see how much the audience enjoyed that, and we decided to keep that going,” said Chi. Hubspot entered the platform in proper form with a meme and caption that spoke to the mood of many social media managers at the time.

With almost a year on Threads under her belt, Thukral shares how to get the most out of Threads, especially when looking to connect with Gen Z, extend the lifespan of your visuals and maintain relevance.

Threads is not Twitter

“Sure, Threads is a Twitter competitor, but that’s a completely different audience there. It might lean closer to your Instagram audience or even your LinkedIn audience, but you can’t assume it’ll match your Twitter audience,” says Thukral. Being born of Instagram, Threads naturally skews to a younger demographic than Facebook or X, as 61% of users fall within Gen Z and Millennial categories.

Similarly, user behavior on Threads takes root from years of Instagram use, so it’s just as important to consider when building a strategy around it. “Things that are going viral on Twitter don’t necessarily go viral on Threads,” Thukral said.You have to think more in line with what would work on Instagram now and what would have worked on Instagram when great copy and long-form captions were a thing.”

The value is in the visuals

Even though it’s touted as a text-based app, Threads is built to harness the power of visual storytelling, combined with text to build deeper context for narratives. “Because of how many people are using Threads from Instagram, we know that visuals work well. Threads is the one platform where you can include 10 mixed media in one post and build a digital storyline,” said Thukral.

Hubspot’s strategy takes advantage of this by extending the lifespan of graphics and visual media that may have worked well on Instagram and repurposing it for their growing audience on Threads.

“Because Threads is tied with Instagram, people are switching between those two so easily,” Thukral explained.”So when people are enjoying our content on Instagram, they can head to our bio and engage with it even more on Threads and vice versa.”

 

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Experimentation is essential

The name of the game is experimentation, and that has served Hubspot well, especially when it comes to connecting with Gen Z and resonating with their tone of voice.

“This is where the Gen Z audience is at their purest form,” said Thukral. |”With Threads still being a small pool, they’re comfortable sharing memes and expressing themselves more freely, so we are embracing that too.” Hubspot freely engages with its audience by using memes and tapping into cultural moments with commentary that coincides with the broader conversations of the day.

An added benefit is the brand enjoying increased relevance while becoming more approachable to its target customers due to relationships being built over shared interests.

“We’re keeping the same energy, especially in the replies and comment section, to keep that vibe going. That way if you’re going to hit the comment section, audiences can feel like we’re having fun just like they are,” Thukral said.

 

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Enjoy the ride

As Threads continues to welcome more users around the world, we’ll continue to see more creative ways people are using the platform to express themselves. Being in flow with the pace of the platform works to your advantage as an increase in relevance improves connections and audience synergies across relevant channels. Thukral points out Threads is more akin to early Instagram or even Tumblr in the way users engage with each other and share their experiences.

“Threads is a great place where people can still engage with long captions, share unique visuals and lean more into goodwill rather than being hyper-critical.”

How long that lasts, we won’t know. For now, however, it pays to enjoy the experience and contribute to helping the audience do the same.

The post How Hubspot brings it all together on Threads appeared first on PR Daily.

After a fairly quiet period of updates last week, social media platforms are announcing a ton of new features. Some might cause you to raise an eyebrow, but others could seriously up your social media game.

Let’s get into it.

LinkedIn

In a move that will be either prove to be brilliant or a miserable failure, LinkedIn confirmed it will incorporate gaming into the professionally focused app, TechCrunch reported. Expected to be simple puzzle games similar to the massively popular Wordle, app researchers found that it’s possible that employees from different companies will be able to compete together against other organizations. This could be a great tool for internal team building — or an awkward fit for a platform that’s meant to be all business.

In more traditional LinkedIn news, the app is tweaking its collaborative articles function on the feature’s one-year anniversary. The AI-generated prompts allow users to share their experiences on a variety of topics.

New features for collaborative articles include:

• A focus on prompts that ask people to speak to personal experience.
• An “unhelpful” button to help weed out low-quality content.
• Updates to the algorithm that matches users to prompts.
• A mobile experience that now mirrors the desktop design.
• Expanded distribution that can match organic content.
• A collaborative article search filter.

Finally, new thought leader ads will allow companies to sponsor any post from a first- or second-degree connection, not just those from employees. The creator must approve the sponsorship before it appears, but this could be a unique way to surface content that matters, even if it wasn’t made by you.

TikTok

Even though TikTok’s future in the United States is in doubt, the company is still rolling out plenty of updates and even contemplating a whole new app.

Blog The SpAndroid did some digging and discovered strings of code that seem to indicate a separate TikTok Photos app in the works. That’s right, after years of Instagram chasing TikTok, TikTok is now creating its own Instagram clone. Photos can already be posted in TikTok itself, but this would create a new option. TikTok has not confirmed the app yet, but it’s certainly an interesting concept for marketing and PR pros to watch.

TikTok has also rolled out a new library of Sounds for Business — Voice Clips. These clips, voiced by popular creators on the app, are on a variety of small business-related topics and are free to use. Whether or not you’ll want to is another question. Take a listen for yourself.

Finally, TikTok unveiled a new Creator Search Insights tool that helps show what people are looking for on the app, which is now one of the world’s most popular search engines. The results are searchable by topic and  also show “gap topics,” or content users search for but for which there isn’t a great deal of content, creating a unique opportunity for creators.

Instagram

There are no new concrete announcements of new Instagram features this week, but plenty of intriguing hints leaked by the intrepid users who hunt through code for insight into coming attractions. Here’s a quick rundown:

• A survey hints at some new features that may be implemented into Meta’s Verified program, including the ability to add links in Reels, a dedicated customer service phone line and priority advertising reviews, among others.
• Instagram may soon allow you to attach files to DMs, though this feature might only be available for businesses.
• Photo Carousels could expand to 15 photos.
• A Spins feature could allow people to add their own audio and text to your Reels footage.

If any of these come to pass, you can read about it right here.

Snapchat

Snapchat is giving users the ability to opt-out of a core part of its functionality: the disappearing DM. Currently, if you want to save a message, you must do it manually each time. But in a feature currently in testing, users could choose to save all DMs from a conversation forever. Users would have the ability to change settings on each conversation so you don’t have to save every message from everyone, and in-chat notices would ensure everyone in the conversation knows how the messages will be handled.

Reddit

In a move that is certain to enrage Reddit users, the soon-to-be public company has announced a new set of ads that’s quite difficult to distinguish from organic content. Dubbed free-form ads, advertisers can share multiple media types in a single ad. “As our most native ad format yet, free-form ads are designed to look and feel similar to the type of content redditors share with each other, inviting maximum engagement from the community,” according to the announcement. These will likely be great for advertisers, but do be aware of the backlash from the notoriously advertising-averse community.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week appeared first on PR Daily.

TikTok faces yet another potential challenge from the U.S. government. The House today passed a bill, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which seeks to force TikTok parent company ByteDance to divest its U.S. business.

The bill, which may encounter more opposition in the Senate but has the potential to become law, is the latest move against the social media app from U.S. legislators who have concerns about national security and the Chinese parent company’s user data practices.

While previous legislation at the federal, state and city level have banned the app from government devices, this bill would have more sweeping implications: The ban would penalize app stores from carrying and updating the app. It’s a notable gambit with stateside implications beyond just socialization and entertainment for its more than 150 million U.S. users, considering that more than 5 million U.S. businesses are active on the app, and it’s estimated to contribute billions to the U.S. GDP.

Social media strategy on TikTok and its vertical-video competitors will be a hot topic at PR Daily’s upcoming 2024 Social Media Conference, March 27-29, and that conversation will be shaped by the passage or failure of this latest bill. We spoke with experts who will grace our stage to get their take on what this means for the future of the app.

Why it’s different

This attempt at a ban is unusual for its overwhelming bipartisan support in the House, especially around national security — and for its speed and decisiveness.

“This could potentially be more serious and real for TikTok,” said Karen Freberg, professor in strategic communication at the University of Louisville. “From what I’ve seen, this has caught everyone by surprise not just for the initial ban being brought up again, but how swiftly it made it through Congress today.”

While legislators seemed to fumble with the mere concept of the app in prior discussions and ban attempts, they’re more targeted with their approach this time around.

“This proposed legislation specifically targets ByteDance’s ties to China and establishes a clear process for addressing perceived risks,” said Carlos Gil, longtime social media leader who also operates the sneaker resale brand HypeSection, which has more than 300,000 followers on TikTok and has benefited from organic growth and engagement on the platform. “Moreover, there seems to be a heightened sense of urgency among lawmakers to address these concerns, which could increase the likelihood of the ban being implemented.”

But it’s a double-edged sword because, as Gil points out, it’s also a news source for U.S. users and presents free speech implications in that regard. “It highlights the need for a consistent and transparent approach to regulating social media platforms to ensure the protection of user data and uphold constitutional principles,” he said.

Implications for TikTok and beyond

If the ban is successful and a divestment remains in limbo, the move could impact the way brands and organizations that have been successful on TikTok interact with and build their audiences. They may have to pivot to other platforms and communities, and potentially lose access to audiences they have cultivated in the past.

“The latest attempt at a TikTok ban could have devastating implications for the creator economy and small businesses alike,” Gil said. “The potential ban serves as a stark reminder of the precarious nature of relying solely on social media platforms. While platforms like TikTok offer unparalleled reach and visibility, they also represent ‘rented land,’ where users have little control over their longevity.”

That said, this presents an opportunity for Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and other platforms capitalizing on vertical video — which it now appears will include X, formerly known as Twitter — to help creators and brands invest more time with them.

“This could lead to heightened competition in the social media landscape, with platforms vying for user attention and loyalty through innovative features and content offerings,” Gil said.

What now?

Freberg noted that brands will need a plan for either outcome. In the event of a ban, she advised brands and organizations to “embrace the different results this could bring to their business and make plans for what to do if TikTok is banned, (and) be actively communicating with creators and influencers they are working with on the platform so they know they are supported. These individuals have built their brand on the platform, and are probably going to raise questions, concerns, and be scared about the uncertainty.”

Gil recommends ensuring that your organization’s content and marketing mix is diversified across channels, and especially includes owned channels such as newsletters and websites. “Building a robust digital presence beyond social media ensures business continuity even in the face of platform upheavals, reinforcing the adage that businesses are only as good as the platforms they inhabit while they remain relevant,” he told PR Daily.

TikTok has reshaped the social media landscape — but what does the future hold for the app, and how should your organization think about it? Find out more from these speakers and many more at PR Daily’s 2024 Social Media Conference, March 27-29, at Disney World.

Jess Zafarris is director of content at Ragan and PR Daily, as well as an author, editor, journalist, speaker, social media engagement strategist and creator. Follow her anywhere @jesszafarris and connect with her on LinkedIn.

The post What a potential U.S. TikTok ban means for your social media strategy appeared first on PR Daily.

Social media was fairly quiet on the updates front this week — but Google made up for it with some major changes, including core algorithm changes. Take a look at what’s new, what will make your job easier and how you may need to re-learn how you use X.

X

The platform, long known for its microblogging, is now getting … regular blogging. The new Articles on X feature is available for Premium+ subscribers and Verified Organizations, according to an announcement posted last week. The posts will have basic formatting options as well as video and image embed capabilities. The articles will appear directly in followers’ timelines, which could be an interesting way of getting more eyeballs on a notable post.

X owner Elon Musk announced that a new, “very clean” timeline will soon roll out, nixing some of the most basic controls, including the like, reply and repost buttons. Only view counts will be shown, with other functions available via touch controls: “Swipe right to reply, left to favorite, tap & hold for all other actions,” Musk posted. No word on how this functionality would play out on desktop.

Threads

Threads has now rolled out its in-stream camera option and drafts functionality to all users, bringing it more in line with most other social media platforms.

Reddit

Reddit is rolling out a new suite of tools for businesses on the community-based social platform. Currently in beta testing, Reddit Pro will eventually serve as a dashboard to help organizations build an organic presence on Reddit, according to the announcement.

Features will include:

• An AI tool to help organizations find relevant conversations, subreddits and topics to engage with.
• Organic post analytics.
• Publishing tools, including scheduling and drafts.
• A dashboard to help measure overall organic engagement.

Naturally, there will be easy integration to put paid boosts behind posts.

In early testing with brands including the NFL, Wall Street Journal and Taco Bell, brands saw a 35% boost in organic engagement when using Pro.

This is a big move forward as the platform continues to position itself as more advertiser-friendly ahead of its IPO.

TikTok

TikTok will begin rolling out a subscription offering to all creators on the app. Previously, the option was available only to LIVE creators. While initially only available by invite only, subscriptions will eventually roll out to all, giving creators a new revenue stream and new community engagement options.

As Congress yet again rattles its saber about banning the clock app, TikTok has deployed a pop-over to ask users to contact Congress and demand that the app stay, including an easy “call now” option.

But Business Insider reports that this tactic may have backfired.

It worked all right: people did call, with some offices receiving more than 50 calls on the matter. Though they called to support TikTok, the move apparently led some wavering representatives, especially among Republicans, to push for opposition to the app.

We’ll see if this is really lights out for TikTok.

Google

Not exactly social media, but news you need to know anyway: Google has made another core algorithm update. While Google never gives full details on how its algorithm works, it says the major changes this month were designed to keep spam and low-quality results out of search engine results pages.

“This update involves refining some of our core ranking systems to help us better understand if webpages are unhelpful, have a poor user experience or feel like they were created for search engines instead of people. This could include sites created primarily to match very specific search queries.”

This and previous updates reduce low-quality results by up to 40%, Google said.

Among other changes:

• Google will focus on penalizing large-scale, low-quality content creation in a way that’s agnostic about whether it was created by humans, AI or both. “This will allow us to take action on more types of content with little to no value created at scale, like pages that pretend to have answers to popular searches but fail to deliver helpful content.”
• The search engine is also cracking down on otherwise great websites that offer low-quality content a home. “We’ll now consider very low-value, third-party content produced primarily for ranking purposes and without close oversight of a website owner to be spam. We’re publishing this policy two months in advance of enforcement on May 5, to give site owners time to make any needed changes.”
• Finally, Google will deal with expired domain abuse, where spammers purchase expired domains that formerly had great reputations and proceed to fill them with low-quality content, banking on the former owners’ credibility to help them get clicks.

As always, the best way to deal with Google algorithmic changes is to focus on solid, human-centric content.

Google is also overhauling how it views Marketing Mix Models, analyses that help businesses measure their effectiveness across platforms. As cookies begin to fade from the modern internet, MMMs could be an alternative for better understanding user behavior.

Meridian will be Google’s new open-source MMM, focusing on increased accuracy, transparency, actions you can act on and education.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has spruced up its “interesting views” feature to see who’s creeping on your profile. Social media expert Matt Navarra reports that you can now more easily sort views to see if someone may be able to help you find a job, is a LinkedIn influencer and more.

The networking app has also announced new career development tools. Next Role Explorer will help people understand their job journey and what skills they need to level up, even creating customized Learning Plans to help them get there. They’re also making it easier for users to find and express interest in internal roles so they can grow in their current company rather than looking elsewhere — surely a powerful tool for keeping talent in-house.

YouTube

YouTube will now only show video recommendations if you’re logged in or have watched a few videos to fuel the algorithm, Android Police reported. Otherwise, you’ll be greeted with a blank screen.

For more social media insight, joins us at PR Daily and Ragan’s Social Media Conference at the Walt Disney World resort, March 27-29!

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week appeared first on PR Daily.

The term “high tech” conjures mental images of gleaming buildings of steel and glass gleaming along the northern California coastline, or piercing through the clouds of lower Manhattan.

They probably don’t conjure thoughts of Iowa cornfields.

But John Deere is working to change that.

“We’ve gone through this tech journey to try to adapt ourselves from a traditional legacy manufacturing company to a tech company,” said Franklin Peitz, tech & innovation manager for John Deere. Those efforts include major activations at CES and now, a social media campaign with an influencer better known for his cellphone reviews than his knowledge of soil conditions and corn futures.

That’s entirely the point.

With so many people living in urban areas and having less interaction with the agricultural sector, many Americans don’t take the time to think of where their food comes from beyond the grocery store. John Deere wants to change the conversation from thinking of farmers are unsophisticated and old-fashioned to cutting-edge.

“These are highly complex businessmen and women that are operating across, at some points, 30 to 60 miles of farmland, and all these different pieces of equipment in different areas,” Peitz said. “There’s a lot of money invested in a farm to be profitable and productive and also sustainable. We’re trying to get that message out to the larger community outside of just agriculture in rural America.”

That’s where David Cogen, also known as TheUnlockr, comes in. With 770,000 YouTube subscribers and tens of thousands of subscribers each on Instagram and X, he’s best known cellphone reviews, though he also offers a series called Decodr, which offers deep-dive explainers on topics like how induction cooking works.

But he also has a deep passion for farming and food that he can trace back to his pandemic binge watch show: “Clarkson’s Farm,” headlined by “Top Gear” star Jeremy Clarkson.

“I started watching that show and just was fascinated by all the stuff that was happening. And it was shortly after that, John Deere offered me a trip to a farm,” Cogen told PR Daily.

That was three or four years ago. Since then, they’ve done several influencer activations together. And as John Deere’s influencer program grew, they kept getting one specific request: have an influencer do the farming rather than just visiting a plot.

“And so we thought of this idea: It’d be really neat to give someone the whole experience from soup to nuts, right from tillage all the way through planting and crop protection and then ultimately harvest to be able to understand agriculture, the challenges that our farmers face, and how they’re using our technology today to be more productive and profitable and sustainable,” Peitz said.

By May – or maybe sooner, as the Midwest has been unseasonably warm – Cogen will visit his temporary farm, 20 acres not far from Des Moines, Iowa to plant his crop. He’ll return several times over the growing season and be responsible for every aspect of the process, from what seeds to plant to applying herbicides, harvesting and even selling the corn.

He’ll be documenting it along the way with plenty of content for his social channels. He’ll also create both Instagram Reels as well as at least one longer piece for YouTube. Cogen is confident that even though his audience tends more to city slicker than field hand, they’ll find something to like in his farm-centric content.

“I think just following along the journey is valuable to everybody,” Cogen said. “And I think as long as I feel like I can capture the experience in a very authentic way, even through my bumbling and things that I’m going to not do well, because I don’t know what I’m doing.”

But he’s not alone in figuring out what he needs to do. In addition to John Deere’s experts, Cogen has also been teamed up with an actual farmer, who he refers to as his “phone a friend.” Chelsey Erdmann, a North Dakota farmer and rancher, will be Cogen’s mentor through the experience. Right now, Cogen says she’s helping him understand the complicated world of corn futures. As part of the PR campaign, she’s also helping John Deere’s message reach their legacy audience of agriculturalists with her own 80,000+ Instagram followers.

There is an element of danger here: Cogen could fail. And there is no plan B. But that’s just part of a farmer’s life, Cogen said.

“Regardless of whether I turn a profit or I don’t, the story is still there. And the things that I want to tell and show, it’s still interesting to for people to see it. Because it’s thin margins. And rain could change everything. It’s just fascinating.”

But there’s one payoff that Cogen is looking forward to even more than the possibility of a bumper corn crop: riding in the comfortable cab of a massive John Deere combine to harvest his corn.

“There’s a weird complex when you just sit in that giant machine, and you’re just like, ‘oh, have all of the power.’ It’s just fun.”

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.

The post Why John Deere is targeting tech by sending an influencer to farm appeared first on PR Daily.

Threads

The Meta-backed, text-based social platform is continuing to test and implement tons of new features.

Likely the most exciting for social media managers is news that Threads’ API will be broadly available in June. Currently, the app is testing in beta with partners including Hootsuite, Sprinklr, Sprout Social and a handful of others, according to engineer Jesse Chen. “The API currently enables users to authenticate, publish threads, and fetch the content they posted through these tools – and soon, we will enable reply moderation and insights capabilities,” Chen wrote. This will be a big quality of life improvement for social media managers who rely on third-party posting tools.

In a minor update, the “save” function is now available to all users. It’s a bookmark feature.

Threads is also instituting a number of other intriguing tests, including a much-requested draft post option appearing for some users, according to social media sleuth Matt Navarra. Social Media Today also reported that the app is testing an in-app camera function, allowing users to snap photos without leaving Threads.

This last update isn’t even a test yet, but an interesting insight into the mind of Threads (and Instagram) head Adam Mosseri. In a poll, Mosseri said he believes the app “should move to automatically archive posts on Threads after a month or so.” Threads users, however, strongly disagreed, with a huge 83% saying posts should “never” be archived. Will the app buck consumer sentiment and become a more temporary social network, somewhere between the ephemera of Snapchat and the permanence of X?

Instagram

Over on Threads’ sister site, Instagram rolled out new features to help users identify and avoid scams. “This is particularly important because bad actors often don’t immediately use their accounts in malicious ways,” the update announcement reads.

Instagram will now remind users to be cautious of scams if they’re followed or contacted via DM by an account they’re flagged as suspicious, or if they click on a link to a sketchy website.

Social media expert Ahmed Ghanem found that Instagram is testing a new Games function in Lives, including “This or That” and “Trivia,” both of which could be fun ways to boost engagement during live events.

App leaker Alessandro Paluzzi has found progress on a previously reported feature that remains in testing: a Friend Map, a pretty direct rip off of the Snap Map.

 

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Users will be able to share either live locations or past locations, as well as the ability to leave Notes.

Finally, Meta announced it will begin to expand its Instagram creator marketplace outside the U.S. to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Japan, India and Brazil. Creator marketplace makes it easier for brands and creators to find one another and connect on campaigns that work for both parties.

Meta

In other creator news, Meta is updating its creator monetization program. The Performance Bonus monthly cap will be removed by mid-March, the announcement said. Additionally, content can be monetized via Performance Bonus, Reels ads or In-Stream Ads on photos, text, long-form video, Live or Reels. The invite-only program will also now be available to creators in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is eyeing its next round of algorithm updates, which could have a major impact on the platform. According to an interview with Senior Director of Engineering Tim Jurka and Editor in Chief Dan Roth in Entrepreneur, these changes and tweaks are on the horizon:

• Suggested Posts would help extend the lifetime of your best content. If your post is identified as “uniquely useful,” the algorithm could continue to display it for months or even years to relevant users as a specially marked “suggested post.” Jurka cautions that this is in its “very early days.”
• Expanded newsletter features that could allow the platform to compete with other similar tools like Substack.

While not updates per se, the interview also revealed two other tidbits of information worth knowing:

• LinkedIn is moving away from using the term “creator” for one simple reason: “Our members told us that it was not something they identified with,” Roth said. So keep that lingo over on Instagram.
• Finally, Roth flatly said you should ignore those slick white papers and infographics that tell you how to crack the LinkedIn code by posting at precise times and in precise ways. Because the algorithm is constantly evolving, chasing posting trends will hurt you in the long run. Just focus on posting good stuff.

X

X is implementing a number of mostly minor feature tweaks/updates:

• All pinned posts will be recommended to all followers once every 48 hours, X head honcho Elon Musk said.
• You can now choose your video playback quality, according to an X engineer.
• Video and audio calling is now being rolled out to all users, not just Premium subscribers.
• A new Monetization tab will help creators keep track of their payouts.
• Tests of Video Spaces (previously Spaces were audio only) are rolling out to Premium users.

TikTok

TikTok has implemented an opt-out feature that will allow creators to make any video “shoppable.” Lindsey Gamble reported that when used on product reviews, promotions, tutorials or similar content, it will direct viewers to the TikTok Shop to find (and buy!) similar products.

Reddit and Google

Reddit and Google have announced a renewed partnership that will better integrate Reddit into both search results and AI, Google announced. It’s a smart move, as more and more people search for the personalized, specific information that can only be found on Reddit. Direct access to Reddit’s API will allow Google to “have efficient and structured access to fresher information, as well as enhanced signals that will help us better understand Reddit content and display, train on, and otherwise use it in the most accurate and relevant ways.”

For more practical social media advice, join us at our Social Media Conference, presented by PR Daily and Ragan Communications, held in Walt Disney World March 27-29! Learn more. 

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week appeared first on PR Daily.

Gen Z adults are big believers in themselves. Specifically, 67% believe it’s very (25%) or somewhat (42%) important to have a strong personal brand, according to new research from Morning Consult. Those percentages far outstrip even their generational neighbor Millennials (51%) and U.S. adults as a whole (a mere 40%).  

Morning Consult attributes this spike in self-branding to Gen Z’s love of influencers and their use of creator-driven apps as entertainment: When you see other people building a brand, you’re more likely to see the value in building one for yourself, even if you’re not streaming for millions of fans. But there’s also a darker potential reason for the emphasis on personal branding. As Morning Consult Brand Analyst Ellen Briggs writes: “Their coming of working age happened amid waves of mass layoffs and broader economic uncertainty. Under these circumstances, being a known entity with a public portfolio of work safeguards against job insecurity and serves as a calling card to attract better opportunities.” 

Where and how Gen Z builds their brands 

Unsurprisingly given Gen Z’s love of video content, they vastly prefer to show off their personality and expertise with visual content over written. Sixty-six percent of the generation prefer to build their brand with video versus just 27% who favor written.  

We also see this play out in the social networks Gen Zers use to foster their image.   

For Gen Z, Instagram reigns supreme by a wide margin. Its ability to combine still images, videos and text captions offer a wide range of creative options. Next comes YouTube, nearly tied with TikTok — again, very video centric. 

But then look at what comes in fourth place for Gen Z: Good old Facebook. It seems news of its demise has been greatly exaggerated. The platform still offers a huge audience, tons of posting options and easy integration with Gen Z favorite Instagram. And after all, it’s clearly where Millennials are still hanging out — 63% of the older group turn to Facebook for their brand-building needs. 

Just as notable are which platforms Gen Z tends to shy away from. X sees relatively little use, ranking just above Pinterest and personal blogs, while professionally focused LinkedIn is used by only one-in-five members of Gen Z working to build their brands. 

So what can we glean from this? Gen Zers are gravitating toward more lifestyle-focused networks rather than hard business, like LinkedIn. Part of this could be attributable to age— while the survey only spoke to adult members of Gen Z, many may be in college or else entering trades that don’t benefit from the buttoned-up social platform. Or they could be embracing a brand that spans both personal and professional rather than pigeonholing it into one side.  

What companies should know 

Gen Z’s emphasis on personal branding presents a number of opportunities — and a few challenges — for corporate brands. 

First, this proliferation of people building brands means an army of microinfluencers who might be strong partners with targeted, dedicated audiences. When everyone is carving out a unique niche, that allows for better targeting from people who have already put in the work to build an audience you want, often for reasonable rates.  

It also offers a vivid window into the lives of hordes of people and what matters to them. By seeing how they choose to brand themselves, brands can better understand what values matter to their audiences writ large. How do they present themselves? What products do they already have an affinity for? What values do they espouse? By consuming this content, communicators can learn to build better content that resonates. 

Finally, it does present a challenge for employers. While these may be personal brands, their behavior will still reflect on their employer — for better or worse. You might have a worker who gets famous and becomes a brand advocate for you — or one who behaves badly and becomes a liability. Either way, it’s worth keeping an eye on these accounts and creating policies about how employees navigate their relationships with their employers and content partners, just to ensure your own brand is protected. 

How do you build your personal brand? 

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post By the Numbers: Gen Z loves building their personal brand. What that means for companies. appeared first on PR Daily.

Having a brand social video strategy around TikTok is a crucial part of connecting with audiences today.

Dropbox’s head of social media, Susan Chang, has been with the software company since 2014, two years longer than TikTok has been in existence. During her time there, she’s had the chance to craft the social media strategy around the short-form video app from its inception.

“It was just undeniable that TikTok was becoming such a popular way to consume content that we couldn’t not be on it anymore,” said Chang, who occasionally guest stars on her brand’s channel. Dropbox joined just two years ago with a cheeky “let’s go” post. Today, the channel regularly pulls in millions of views on individual videos.

Part of Chang’s strategy was to create videos that felt like they belonged on that platform. “As a team, we needed to be smart about understanding the channel and the audience that was there.”

Ahead of her session at Ragan and PR Daily’s Social Media Conference, Chang shared her best advice for TikTok, including how to be authentic, the evolving role of user generated content and ways to engage beyond videos.

Create videos specifically for the platform

It’s important to understand the audience on TikTok. “You might feel that there are some similarities between [TikTok and other short-form video platforms],” said Chang, “however, the audience is different from the audience that’s on Reels.”

Specifically, TikTok videos need to be tuned into the app’s own unique, self-referential culture. “So much of TikTok is responding to what else is happening on TikTok,” said Chang. “You have to react quickly to the new thing that day.”

When videos are recycled across platforms, they feel inauthentic. “When brands do that, it’s very obvious and people (notice).”

@dropbox This is your sign to stop remixing the same password. Starting today, all Dropbox users can store unlimited passwords and payment cards. Dropbox Passwords lets you seamlessly sign in to websites and apps by storing your passwords. The Passwords app remembers your usernames and passwords on all your devices so you don’t have to—helpful tool to keep safe and secure online. #passwordmanager #passwords #Dropbox #DropboxPasswords ♬ Keyboard_typing sound(894890) – keiichiro Akamine

Don’t ignore the comments section

“The comments section is very special,” said Chang. “Sometimes it’s more interesting and entertaining than the actual video.”

TikTok thrives on engagement between video creators, including through the stitch and duet tools. But the comments section is where engagement can thrive. “You can’t just post (and) leave,” said Chang. “Look at what people are saying, how are people reacting to you. Could you be reacting to their reactions?”

Dropbox’s strategy for the TikTok channel now includes best practices around the comments section and is part of their larger community engagement strategy.

“It’s another way for us to interact with our customers. You’ll see other brands pop up [in the comments] on popular TikTok all the time.”

Build a UGC strategy

UGC has become a critical part of Dropbox’s strategy.

“TikTok is a channel where people love to see someone talking to you and having a conversation with you,” said Chang. With that thought in mind, her team vetted micro influencers who had been previously posting content that felt on brand for Dropbox.

“These (were) real customers using Dropbox, in their actual daily lives, talking about how to use it and why they like it,” said Chang. “Having them say that on our behalf (was) more effective than the Dropbox brand saying (the same thing). When you see an actual customer saying something, it feels much more authentic and it helps you see yourself in that customer.”

As an added bonus, it’s allowed the channel to post more regularly.

“It’s been a great way for us to feature customers (and) also create video content at a much more efficient rate than we previously had been.”

@dropboxDropbox Dash keeps everything you need for that important meeting all in one place. Join the Dash beta program at the link in profile.♬ original sound – dropbox

Followers aren’t everything

“Your executives probably ask you ‘How many followers do you have?’” acknowledged Chang. “It’s one of those key metrics that a lot of brands will track. (But) I don’t feel like followers (are) that important to a channel. Discoverability has nothing to do with number of followers on TikTok.”

TikTok’s discoverability model allows relevant videos to appear on viewer’s For You tab even if a user isn’t following the account — which means any video can go viral.

“We want to know that content we’re publishing is doing well with our audience and that people are watching it,” said Chang. Her key metrics include engagement, as well as ROI on video creation.

“With UGC content, our costs to make each video have come down. That’s also something that we track as a business to make sure that we’re investing (correctly).”

Have fun

The short-form video platform turns 8 years old this September and now boasts over 1 billion monthly active users. A trend Chang has noticed is that increased audience means that more and more public figures or celebrities have joined the platform in earnest. (President Biden’s social team just joined in early February.)

“(The audience on TikTok) love to see the authentic sides of people,” said Chang. “You have to be aware of the beats on the platform on the daily.”

Whether those celebrities can adapt to that platform will be something she’s curious to watch. “You (can’t) only post beautifully produced videos or things (that feel) brand approved.“

Remember: in the end, sometimes you just have to give the audience what they want.

@dropbox Replying to @ch226799000 #Dropbox ♬ Cheers and applause(201652) – おでぃ

Join Chang at Ragan and PR Daily’s Social Media Conference on March 27-29. Chang will speak alongside communications leaders from Alaska Airlines, Hyatt, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Intel, AARP, Wendy’s and more.

The post 5 tips for TikTok brand engagement appeared first on PR Daily.

Happy Wednesday, PR and comms pros. We hope you enjoyed a day off (if you had one!) Now, we’re a day late but not a dollar short. So, let’s read the latest edition of social media updates!      

X
X News Daily posted that X is updating its Explore page. The platform will display trending topic summaries created by its AI tool Grok. User @swak_12 noted on X that the new Explore page sectioncould replace the current What’s Happening section located on the home timeline.

In other news, X announced on a company blog that it’s debuting a new Creator Targeting program. Creator Targeting will let advertisers place ads “against a curated list of premium content creators via Creator Targeting,” according to the announcement. Creator Targeting works in addition to X’s primary brand safety solutions, Sensitivity Settings and Adjacency Controls. The platform will soon feature ads on an individual creator’s profile “completely eliminating the unlikely event of unwanted adjacencies while aligning your brand to creators you love most,” according to X. Creator Targeting is described as an extension of X’s Amplify Pre-roll program, which got off to a shaky start after MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, seemingly received preferential treatment with his initial post.

Meta

Social Media Today reported that Meta is testing a Verified comment-filtering process on Instagram. This would allow users to surface comments from blue check-marked accounts first, which could help them prioritize responding to these comments from verified humans.

Threads

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, posted on Threads that the platform is finally testing a much-requested trending topics feature. “Today’s topics on Threads will be on the search page and in the For You feed. The topics are determined by our AI systems based on what people are engaging with right now on Threads,” Mosseri wrote.

A Threads post indicated that the platform is conducting some fact-checking. The notice reads: “The same false information was reviewed in another thread by fact-checkers. There may be small differences. Independent fact-checkers say this information has no basis in fact.” Keep an eye out for more of these as we enter election season.

Instagram

Social media expert Matt Navarra posted on Threads that Instagram seems to be testing the limit on how many hashtags users can add to a post. An image in the post featured six hashtags with a notification at the bottom that says, “You can only add 5 hashtags to this post.”

In other news, Jonah Manzano, social media enthusiast and singer-songwriter, posted on Threads that Instagram is letting users take video cutouts and turn them into stickers. Instagram already announced photo cutouts last month. To create a sticker, select a video or photo “with one distinct object.” See the process here.

Mosseri posted a video on Instagram announcing that the platform is updating the direct message process for creators by adding a filter for people you follow. “Because maybe you DM a lot of people you don’t follow yet, negotiating deals, figuring out collaborations, but sometimes you just want to focus the experience on people you know in order to make the experience a bit safer and more positive,” Mosseri said.

App trendspotter Radu Oncescu posted on Threads that Instagram is testing video carousels of Reels on Android.

TikTok

Next month, TikTok will debut a local language Election Centre in the app for nations in the EU ahead of the union’s June elections, according to a TikTok newsroom announcement. “This initiative is just one element of a wider strategy to ensure that TikTok remains a creative, safe, and civil place for our community during the election period,” the announcement noted. Some feature initiatives include:

• Policy enforcement: Over 6,000 people moderate EU language content along with technological tools to enforce rules and root out “covert influence operations.”
• Handling misinformation: Misinformation moderators who have specialized training will take down problematic content, working alongside experts who can add local knowledge to capture the full nuance of each market.
• Media literacy: TikTok launched media literacy campaigns last year in 18 European countries to address misinformation. There are nine more campaigns on tap this year.

LinkedIn       

LinkedIn announced a Media Planning API tool to help agencies. When creating a brand campaign, an agency can use the API to understand the “forecasted reach and frequency of brand campaigns before spending any budget.”

YouTube

Creator Insider announced updates to mobile, posts-only feeds and free creator gifting elements. Creators can now upload videos or Shorts directly from YouTube Studio mobile. Creators can also set the video’s monetization status from YouTube Studio.

The platform also built out a posts-only feed for iOS and Android mobile devices. Users can access this feed by selecting the “view all posts” link on the community posts in the home tab. After tapping that button, users will be able to see posts from channels they’ve viewed previously or posts the platform thinks you’ll fancy.

The platform also launched affiliate product tagging on livestreams. Creators in the YouTube shopping affiliate program can tag products from involved merchants directly in their livestreams. Creators can promote products in long-form videos, livestreams and shorts. When creators tag products featured in their own livestreams, a shopping button will pop up to create a more engaging way to shop. Creators can also pin products during livestreams.

The YouTube Official Blog announced that creators can add some extra flair to their Shorts with music video remixes. Go to YouTube and hit the “Remix” button to choose from one of four remix options: Green Screen, Sound, Cut and Collab.  Here are the feature deets:

• Users can use the sound from a video as a soundtrack.
• Make a Short right next to the video featuring the artist.
• Green Screen. Let the video be your next Short background and film your reaction.
• Cut a scene from the music vid and add it to a Short.

Pinterest
Lindsey Gamble, associate director of Influencer Innovation at Later, posted on Threads that Pinterest updated its Business Manager feature (formerly known as Business Access) to create and share assets like profiles and ad accounts, assign partner and employee permissions, and more. “This is a long-awaited update, as Pinterest now has similar capabilities to Meta and TikTok’s Business Managers, making it easier for brands/agencies to collaborate,” Gamble said. “It should lead to more paid media amplification of Pinterest creator content, too.”

The new features include:

• Audience sharing to repeat popular social media tactics on other accounts.
• Asset groups. Make custom groups according to needs by brand, product line or language.
• Two-factor authentication. Business owners can make employees use a two-factor authentication process to access assets, according to Pinterest.

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week  appeared first on PR Daily.

No trip to the mall is complete without a bucket of Pretzel Nuggets from Auntie Anne’s or a White Gummi smoothie from Jamba Juice. And if Bari Rosenstein Tippett has her way, no scroll through your social media feed will be complete without stopping to glance at the latest meme or status update from the same classic brands.  

“Our social approach is to make our brands part of the conversation, whether it’s by aggressive community management, or hopping on a trend, sending surprise-and-delights or just doing a bunch of testing,” Rosenstein Tippett said during a call with PR Daily. “We try our hardest to be present in all of those moments, viral and not viral.” 

The senior social manager for Auntie Anne’s and Jamba, both under the umbrella of Focus Brands, takes a fan-centric approach to her craft, focusing on organically becoming part of the conversation – both the big and little stuff.  

“We just want to make our fans part of the journey and we want to create for them and speak with them, not directly to them,” she said. “We want them to feel like we know who they are, and that we create this content for them.” 

Here’s how Rosenstein Tippett’s team of two handles their community of more than a million fans with fun and a strong sense of brand. 

A commitment to the community 

What makes Rosenstein Tippett’s approach to social media notable is her commitment to fostering a true community rather than just pushing content out. 

On TikTok, her team is committed to replying to every comment. Most of these are short and simple – a “Yesss” of agreement, a smattering of emojis, a simple “thank u bestie” — but it serves several key purposes in their overall social media plan.  

“It’s crazy how many likes some of our top comments gets,” Rosenstein Tippett said. “And that’s just another form of engagement, another form of brand awareness. And so that’s one of our goals this year is to really have a community management strategy.” 

But that community building goes beyond commenting. It goes all the way to surprising a bride and groom with nuptial pretzels.  

It all started with a TikTok post where Auntie Anne’s were served at a wedding. It hit WeddingTok and blew up. From there, Auntie Anne’s started angling for wedding invites. They found one in northern Georgia, just an hour away from their Atlanta headquarters. It was time for a road trip. 

While they did work with the wedding planner and the bride’s mom to make sure they’d be welcome at the wedding, the bride and groom were completely in the dark that pretzels were being rolled and baked in the back of their venue.  

When the grand pretzel reveal was made, unveiling bread products that spelled out the couple’s initials, the newlyweds were stunned. Rosenstein Tippett said it was possible they forgot they’d invited Auntie Anne’s at all. But their surprise gave way to huge smiles.

@auntieannes So we crashed a wedding last night #auntieannes ♬ Wedding March – Felix J L Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Helmuth Brandenburg

“It was just one of those moments where we just created lifelong brand fans, and you just can’t replicate that. And yeah, it was definitely a core memory for everyone involved,” Rosenstein Tippett recalled.  

And of course, they turned that moment into content, which scored more than half a million views.  

TikTok, Instagram – and Facebook 

Jamba’s target audience is Gen Z, while Auntie Anne’s is both Gen Z and Millennial. It’s probably not surprising that their two highest priority platforms are TikTok and Instagram. Not only is that where those audiences spend the most time, they’re also the most time-consuming for content creation, ranging from their monthly Instagram photoshoots to the time required to film TikToks. 

“We spend a lot of time ideating and concepting around those main content pieces,” Rosenstein Tippett said. “But we do carve out time to make sure all of our other platforms are up and running.” 

Indeed, their largest audiences are on Facebook – 1 million likes for Auntie Anne’s and 1.7 million for Jamba. And those aren’t just legacy fans – they’re active and engaged today. 

“I always say Facebook isn’t dead because it’s working,” Rostenstein Tippett said. “And we have the facts to show it. We have a very engaged audience to show it. And so that’s why we get super excited about our results that we see on Facebook.” 

This horoscope post is a perfect example, Rosenstein Tippett said. According to data she shared on her personal LinkedIn, that post has earned 6.7 million impressions, 12,000 likes, 3,000 comments and 6,500 shares. 

“People were so moved to tell us how right we were, how wrong we were, tagging their friends and asking them is, ‘is this you?’ And that alone just showed us that we’ve created such an engaged community that when we create content, we want people to share and repost and comment.” 

They’ve even found success with Gen-Z focused Jamba on Facebook, asking fans to chime in to name smoothies and other questions that offer real-time feedback.  

“Not only have our Facebook learnings helped us increase our benchmarks, they help us shape the way we think about our content,” Rosenstein Tippett said.  

Whether it’s from their fans or elsewhere, Rosenstein Tippett’s team is always on the lookout for great new ideas for social content. 

“We get inspiration from everywhere. We are active users on Twitter, we are active users on TikTok, active users on Instagram.  We also find inspiration from other brands that are not in our industry. So we look at fashion brands, soda brands, snack brands.” 

Still, it’s vital to make sure you are staying true to who you are and not hopping on any trend just to look cool.  

“When Tik Tok was a whole dancing platform, we were not dancing,” she said with a laugh. “We don’t want that at all. We’re a pretzel brand.” 

And at the core of those brands is a boldness and a willingness to experiment.  

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jamba (@jambajuice)

“We are not afraid to flop. And I think that’s the coolest thing. Because we learn from our flops, we learn from our successes.” 

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.

For more practical social media advice, join us at our Social Media Conference, presented by PR Daily and Ragan Communications, held in Walt Disney World March 27-29! Learn more. 

The post From wedding crashing to Facebook fans, how Auntie Anne’s and Jamba keep social fun appeared first on PR Daily.

It’s another Tuesday and you know what that means – we have the latest social media updates to get you going this week. Now let’s get to the good stuff!      

X

X recently began to feature long-form X articles on the social media platform. These original X articles might have their own feed in the app in a similar blog-post format, Social Media Today reported. The long-form articles will have a link preview card on the platform’s feed, which users can click on and navigate to these stories. Users can experiment with posting these articles in the near future. Have you seen any X articles yet while scrolling?

Meta

Meta announced that it is working on tools to label AI-generated images on Instagram, Threads and Facebook. They already use “Imaged with AI” labels on photorealistic images made with its Meta AI feature. The company’s working to do the same with content from other generative AI tools. Meta specifically cited the upcoming global elections and the high potential for misinformation as the impetus to get these tools up and running quickly.

Instagram and Threads released new information on how they recommend political content. They will not “proactively recommend” political content to users via Explore, Reels and Suggested Users, though users will be able to opt-in. This is all part of Meta’s ongoing push to move away from polarizing politics in feeds, which is concerning some journalists and politicians.

Professional accounts on IG can go to Account Status to see if their account is considered political, which is determined by recent post activity. While in Account Status, they can remove or edit recent posts, ask for a review, or stop posting political content for “a period of time” to regain their recommendation status.

Wired reported that WhatsApp and Messenger will soon have third-party messaging to meet requirements from the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The third-party messaging interoperability feature will let users from other platforms send images, text messages, files and videos to WhatsApp users, according to Wired. Group chats and calls are not on the horizon yet. Messaging platforms interested in connecting with WhatsApp will have to sign a company agreement and follow its protocol. WhatsApp users who agree to view messages from other platforms will be able to see them in their inbox in a separate section at the top once the feature is available.

Facebook

Meta announced in late January that it’s doing away with third-party access to its Facebook Groups API on April 22. Developers and businesses use Facebook Groups API to schedule posts to Facebook Groups, TechCrunch reported. Agencies that schedule or automate their customers’ posts would feel the effects of this change. Meta Certified Community Manager Maurice W. Evans told TechCrunch that removing the third-party Facebook Groups access “could significantly alter the digital landscape, creating both hurdles and opportunities for community managers and businesses alike.”

Jonah Manzano, singer-songwriter and social media aficionado, posted on Threads that Facebook is now letting users create photo captions with AI. If this feature is available on your account:

• Visit the “create post” section.
• Select the Write with AI option and choose your tone: professional, funny, heartfelt, etc.
• Publish your AI-generated caption.

Threads

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram posted on Threads that the platform began a limited test of a highly requested feature post bookmarks. The feature works just like it does on Instagram, according to Mosseri.

Bluesky

The decentralized social app Bluesky is now available for anyone to join after a long stint as invitation-only. Since last year, the nascent platform and X competitor have built out features like custom feeds and moderation tools with a small user base. Shortly after removing the invitation requirement, Bluesky added 856,000 new users, reaching a total of more than 4 million, according to ZDNet.

TikTok

Manzano posted on Threads that TikTok introduced a new feature specifically for communicating with subscribers. In Sub Space, creators can create chat threads, post polls and more.  To access, go to tools, click Sub Space and post to “extend interactions beyond LIVE.”

LinkedIn

LinkedIn announced new tools under the Network tab, including:

Grow tab

• Make more professional connections and manage current ones through updates to the People You May Know

Catch Up tab

• This tab lets you keep up on major life news with connections by letting users know when someone achieved a milestone like celebrating a new job, birthday or work anniversary.

LinkedIn is getting rid of the hashtags and Creator Mode button in profile settings, according to a newsletter article on LinkedIn from The Social Media Scoop. The Creator Mode debuted in 2021 and let users tag their profiles with hashtags. LinkedIn now prefers keywords and topics and is moving away from hashtags. Some Creator Mode features like the “Connect” with or “Follow” option will remain, as will the associated creative tools and analytics.

YouTube

TeamYouTube announced on X that users’ live stream previews can be seen in Shorts. Viewers can tap on one of these videos to enter into a scrollable live feed, according to the post.

YouTube is also testing out its video feeds with red, green and blue colors, according to 9To5Google. The article noted that 9To5Google came across a “Craving something new?” card on the platform for Android users. This feature lets users create their video feeds based on color groupings.

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week  appeared first on PR Daily.

Gone are the days when social media pros have to develop engaging content ideas using their brainpower alone.                                                                         

Now these platform-posting maestros can use generative AI to help get their juices flowing. 

From brainstorming ideas to creating first drafts of content, using generative AI to draft quality social media posts takes curiosity and creativity to strike a balance between your human voice and the bot.  

Boston University Social Media Director Dave McDonald spoke to PR Daily about how his team uses generative AI for social media success by sharing a step-by-step guide to posting even better content.

Brainstorming

McDonald and his team use generative AI if they have writer’s block or just want a creative boost with social media posts. 

For example, McDonald might first ask ChatGPT to create SEO-optimized outlines for things like Instagram Reels, YouTube videos, photo captions for posts. Or McDonald might ask the bot for help creating SEO-friendly titles for BU’s platforms. 

When needing SEO assistance for titles, his team might give a prompt like: “I’m seeking a name for a new YouTube video series at Boston University. Please give me five SEO-friendly titles for…”. Then they refine ChatGPT’s output to meet their needs. 

He added that users should experiment with ChatGPT and see what works for them and their organization.

“AI can be helpful throughout the production process of these projects,” McDonald said.

 3-step guide to drafting social media content with AI

Here are some useful steps McDonald uses when creating content with ChatGPT:

 Step 1: Type the prompt, “Please act as a social media manager. Create five posts for an X (formally Twitter) post using the critical points from the content below.” 

After the prompt, McDonald pastes an entire original article into AI for better chances of accuracy because the bot could potentially use other web sources for the request, which can lead to issues with plagiarism and attribution. 

 “By including the whole article, AI will only use your original content to build out your request, ensuring accuracy,” McDonald said. 

Asking ChatGPT to act as a social media helps ChatGPT to generate specifically for McDonald and his busy social media team, who work on various posts that highlight the student experience and engage the 184-year-old university’s students, faculty and other stakeholders.

“When giving AI a prompt, it’s essential to be as specific as possible to help get your desired outcome,” McDonald said. “Including information like the particular job function you want the AI to act as, the tone of your desired result, and your target audience will save you a ton of time when editing and building off of what the AI engine you’re using produces for you.”

After providing the context and content you’d like generated, add a call-to-action segment. Provide a website link or other CTA request and ask ChatGPT to incorporate it.

Step 2: Add and edit.

McDonald asks generative AI to suggest various additions to posts, like keywords. 

These might include the names of a featured student’s hometown or major. The SEO keywords are easily searchable for future students who can relate to who they’re reading about on social. 

McDonald said it’s important to edit generated posts so they fit a brand’s tone and voice. 

“AI is whatever you make of it, right? So, if you want it to be a robot, copy and paste what it puts out and put it out there,” he cautions. 

 McDonald then double-checks the generated content for accuracy, brand style, voice and tone. Then, McDonald adds relevant social media handles as needed. 

Step 3: Publish the post and bask in the glory of your hard work, but not for long – there’s always more to do!

Here’s an example of a BU article the team fed to the chatbot and asked to create this X thread. 

Working with generative AI for social media takes practice and a willingness to learn. McDonald, who is self-taught in AI, encourages people to test out different tools and grow every step of the way. 

“Don’t be afraid to experiment,” McDonald said. 

Learn more about social media and AI by joining us at Ragan’s Social Media Conference at Disney on March 27-29.

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post Step-by-step tips on using AI for social media content from BU’s social director  appeared first on PR Daily.

The Ragan and PR Daily teams are gearing up for our annual Social Media Conference at Disney World, this year held March 27-29, 2024, with a powerhouse lineup including social media leadersfrom Bloomberg, Eos, Intel, Hallmark, USPS, Activision Blizzard and many more. 

Also gracing the mainstage on the morning of March 29 is social media legend V Spehar, who has become a media empire of one via their social media persona “Under the Desk News.”  

They report on the latest news, social media updates and cultural trends while literally under their desk — hence the account name — but with journalistic standards that echo those across the most respected media outlets in the world (and are respected by those outlets). 

They will deliver a thought-provoking keynote address that examines their journey to more than 3 million followers on TikTok, and how their application of top-notch journalistic principlesled them to consult with U.S. presidents, report from the Senate floor and even speak before UNESCO. 

Spehar has a storied history of understanding the evolution of short-form video platforms , and how they have redefined the way audiences consume information, news and media.  

In this video, for instance, they examine a major development on TikTok: Universal Music Group pulled its music catalog from TikTok, which means millions of videos using those sounds are now muted. 

@underthedesknews

It also seems any video you used a UMG song in are now muted #music #tiktok #umg #trendingsound #technews #taylorswift #greenscreen

♬ Dance You Outta My Head – Cat Janice

They have spoken on the “Today” show, guest-hosted the Los Angeles Times TikTok account and earned a New York Commendation Award for their journalistic work on TikTok and their podcast as well as a Webby award. 

Join Ragan and PR Daily at our 2024 Social Media Conference at Disney World, March 27-29, 2024, to learn how social media’s future, scope and impact will continue to change the way information reaches billions of people around the world. 

Jess Zafarris is an author, content director, editor, journalist, social media engagement strategist and creator. Her 13 years of experience in this space have included such roles as the Director of Content at Ragan Communications, Audience Engagement Director at Adweek, and Content Strategist and Digital Content Director for Writer’s Digest and Script Mag. She moderated and emceed at events including Social Media Week and Brandweek, and presented at the Writer’s Digest Conference and State of Social. She is also the author of the etymology books “Words from Hell” and “Once Upon a Word” and an educational social media creator who speaks and creates entertaining content about word origins.

The post Go ‘Under the Desk’ with V Spehar at Social Media Conference at Disney World appeared first on PR Daily.

The Super Bowl won’t kick off until Sunday, but PR practitioners have already been at work for months as they prepare for the biggest brand bonanza of the year.  

Social media mentions will be a key metric this year in measuring interest and excitement around the ads, and some have already earned a greater share of the conversation than others.. 

From Jan. 31 to Feb. 6, NYX Cosmetics was the winner in the buzz bowl, with a big assist from Cardi B. According to data from Sprout Social measuring Super Bowl-related brand mentions across social platforms, a teaser that saw the rapper and singer recreating her “that’s suspicious” meme raked in 8,782 mentions and 156,127 engagements.  

Cardi B recreates her viral “That’s suspicious” meme in new teaser for her upcoming Super Bowl commercial with NYX Cosmetics. pic.twitter.com/U9NpbohXDZ

— Pop Base (@PopBase) February 1, 2024

It’s fairly logical that playing on a meme that became an incredibly popular TikTok sound was successful on social media; it’s also a bold, confident move to call your product “weird,” “suspicious” and “freaky,” but one that pays off here. The smart pairing of celebrity to brand is also paying off here, with the hip, fashion-forward star paired with the budget friendly, youth-oriented makeup.  

The next most-discussed Big Game ad on social media was also thanks to a big celebrity. Pringles released its ad featuring a mustachioed Chris Pratt and earned 4,049 mentions, 60,620 engagements. The ad, which sees Pratt compared to the Mr. Pringles mascot, apparently features real facial hair Pratt grew during the writer’s strike. After he posted about it on social media, Pringles spotted the resemblance to their mascot and a Super Bowl ad was born, Variety reported.  

Chris Pratt becomes Mr. Pringles in a new #SuperBowl ad pic.twitter.com/2FTjNArUV3

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 5, 2024

The third most buzzed-about brand in connection with the Super Bowl was FanDuel. Not only will many people be using the sports book during the game, their Big Game plans were disrupted by the death of Carl Weathers, who is featured in their ad alongside Rob Gronkowski. Weathers died last week at age 76.  

“FanDuel was fortunate to have had an opportunity to work with him during our Super Bowl campaign. We are adjusting our campaign accordingly out of respect for the family during their time of grief,” Fan Duel said in a statement.  

It’s a tragic loss and a disruptive event for the brand — but it also provided a surprise boost in conversation about the ad. How they address Weathers’ death in the ad and honor is legacy will be crucial now.  

Other top-mentioned brands, according to Sprout Social, include Michelob Ultra’s star-studded ad, Bud Light’s ongoing struggles to overcome its influencer controversy and a BetMGM ad that’s for everyone but Tom Brady.  

The commonality? Social media tie-ins, big celebrities and major news all lead to more buzz. No surprises there. 

The music angle 

Outside of brands, the Super Bowl is also a critical moment for all manner of musicians. Halftime show star Usher has been featured in more than 24,000 media articles since Jan. 1, according to data provided by Muck Rack, a respectable number. But the real musical star of this Super Bowl is, of course, Taylor Swift. 

Despite having no official role in the big game — she’s reportedly turned down requests to perform the halftime show herself — she’s been featured in more than 99,000 articles about the game, most circling around her relationship with tight end Travis Kelce, though some involve bizarre conspiracy theories.  

There’s no conspiracy here: Swift is simply wildly popular and has a devoted fanbase. Indeed, the new audience that she brings to the table is changing the composition of Super Bowl ads and putting a new focus on female viewers.  

Which brands will continue to drive forward on their pre-Super Bowl momentum to sales success? And which dark horses will pop up during the game? 

We’ll just have to wait and see.  

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.

The post By the Numbers: These brands are already winning the Super Bowl appeared first on PR Daily.

Social media is no longer a shiny new toy. Facebook just had its 20th anniversary, after all. The industry is mature, developed and deserves the same focus on strategy and results as any other communications practice. 

But if you aren’t there yet, that’s OK.  

During PR Daily and Ragan’s 2023 Social Media Conference, Andre Hidalgo, associate state director of social media for AARP, shared simple steps to create social media goals and strategies that yield real results. 

1. Audit Current Performance: You can’t figure out where you’re going until you determine where you are now. Look at the metrics you currently have available: reach, engagement, web traffic driven from social and so on. These will serve as your benchmarks and help guide you in your next steps.  
2. Set Goals: Once you understand where you are, you can figure out where you want to go. What metrics do you want to see improve? How long do you think it will take to get there? Set ambitious yet achievable SMART goals and make sure they tie into the overall business goals, not just seeing increase in social metrics.  
3. Identify KPIs: This is where you identify the metrics that will help you reach your goals. Increasing followers, CTR and engagement can all be the first steps to boosting leads, sales or share of voice.  
4. Content Types: Identify what kinds of content will help you reach your goals. This will depend on the platform you’re on: do you need fun, short-form video for TikTok, meaty blog posts to link to on LinkedIn or splashy infographics for Pinterest? Outline the main content types you’ll need along the way.  
5. Editorial Calendar: Help keep yourself on track toward your goals by outlining the major dates in your content year. These could be affinity months, like Black History Month, major events, like the Super Bowl, or simply a hot season, like the run-up to Christmas. Know what content you’ll need when.  
6. Target Audience: Who do you want to reach and where are they spending their time? What tone and concepts resonate with them? Everything comes back to understanding this key factor. 
7. Analyze Data and Optimize: You won’t get all these factors right. There will always be areas for improvement. So go back to step once: look at how you’re doing and figure out where you need to go from there. The cycle begins anew. 

Setting a social media strategy isn’t easy, but it can be simple if you keep your focus on your target audience and your business goals. Then you’ll see just how valuable social media can be. 

Watch the full presentation here.

The post 7 steps for setting social media goals and strategies appeared first on PR Daily.

Hello, PR and comms pros! It’s Tuesday and you know what that means – we have the most recent social media updates. Now let’s get to it.

X

X is wooing advertisers with promises of a “video-first experience.” The app recently announced that all advertisers in the U.S. and globally can purchase “pre-screened, brand-suitable vertical video inventory” thanks to an expanded partnership with Integral Ad Science. Advertisers can choose where their ads are shown on X in the vertical video feed near organic content.

Also, X engineer Dong Wook Chung posted on the platform that X Community admins can add tags to improve their community’s visibility in search results and recommendations on the web. To access this feature:

• Look under admin tools and click settings.
• Go to the edit search tags section.
• Add relevant search tags in the search bar.

A previously announced plan to add video to X Spaces is getting closer to reality, according to a post from X Designer Andrea Conway. Currently, Spaces are audio only. There’s no date set yet for when the video feature drops. Check back here for the update.

Meta
Meta announced a new tool that lets advertisers see conversions from their video ads through Engaged-view.  Engaged-view reports if a user plays a video ad for at least 10 seconds or watches 97% of a video if under 10 seconds and takes a desired ad action within the next day. Engaged-view is not available for Facebook in-stream video ads that aren’t skippable.

Instagram

Social media marketer Nadja Bella Marrero posted on LinkedIn that Instagram recently launched a platform feature that lets users preview what carousels or photos would look like in their feed before making it public. The preview feature does not work for Reel covers. To access, hit the “show preview” button in the pre-post stage and view the grid preview and switch up the photos until they suit you – or post once you see what you like!

TikTok

Social media expert Matt Navarra posted on Threads that TikTok is encouraging users to post horizontal videos that are over one minute long. Qualifying longer horizontal vids will receive boosted views within 72 hours of posting. Original content – no lipsyncing or “random recordings” – is prioritized, and ads won’t see the boost either. To get the boost, accounts must have been on TikTok for at least three months.

TikTok owner ByteDance debuted an AI model, “StreamVoice” system, which can mimic a person’s voice using “just a few utterances,” according to a Business Insider article that Social Media Today pulled information from. Time will tell exactly how this could be integrated with TikTok, which already embraces AI.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn announced that it’s debuting Website Actions, which lets B2B marketers see buyer preferences and interests through Insight Tag and improve their marketing strategies. The tool lets marketers learn and measure website actions minus the extra tracking codes on websites, according to the announcement.

To access Website Actions, log into Campaign Manager.

YouTube

YouTube’s Creator Insider recently announced a new playlist chip in the content tab in the platform’s analytics where users can compare their top playlists right next to each other. To access, click on a playlist to see grouped analytics for videos featured in the playlist. Audience metrics, top-performing videos and other viewer-behavior metrics are available.

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week  appeared first on PR Daily.

It was a simple question asked in the voice of a child. A Muppet child, to be precise. 

“Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” the furry red “Sesame Street” staple asked on X.  

The responses poured in. While there were the usual jokes, snark and brand pile ons we’ve come to expect from the platform, there were also a number of truly heartfelt posts that indicate that no, we are not OK. 

“I’m kind of a crossroads and frankly could use a little support,” wrote comedian Rainn Wilson.  

“I shouldn’t have rushed wanting to be an adult I need a break big guy,” a user going by the name Hiram Clarkian said.  

“Elmo I’m suffering from existential dread over here,” David Leavitt wrote.  

The tweet received 14,000 replies, 49,000 retweets, and 122,000 likes as of January 31, 2024. That alone would have been a huge social media win. 

But the social media managers on Sesame Street went a step further. They built on the initial post, first using it just to share mental health resources. 

Mental health is health! For #EmotionalWellBeing resources and more, visit @SesameWorkshop: https://t.co/yKqps8aEy2 https://t.co/iw5gpFfUYy

— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) January 30, 2024

Then they went further. 

A shocking number of Sesame Street characters have X accounts. And many of them chimed in and used that platform to model supporting friends through hard times. 

“I love being a Snuffleupagus because I have huge ears that are made to listen to you share your feelings. #EmotionalWellBeing,” Big Bird’s best friend tweeted. 

“I’m not great at listening to others share their big feelings, but my worm Slimey is. You should talk with him if you ever need to chat. #EmotionalWellBeing,” wrote Oscar the Grouch. Good for you for knowing your limits, Oscar.  

“Me here to talk it out whenever you want. Me will also supply cookies. #EmotionalWellBeing,” said … well, we’ll let you guess who said that one. 

The president of the United States himself even responded to Elmo’s follow-up tweet.

I know how hard it is some days to sweep the clouds away and get to sunnier days.

Our friend Elmo is right: We have to be there for each other, offer our help to a neighbor in need, and above all else, ask for help when we need it.

Even though it’s hard, you’re never alone. https://t.co/ffMJekbowo

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 31, 2024

These additional tweets racked up tens of thousands of additional impressions (tracked with that hashtag) and spread a message of kindness, compassion and emotional intelligence that Sesame Street is known for. And the overall social media trend racked up tons of media hits, too.  

What to take from this success 

Sesame Street has a leg up on many other brands. It has massive brand recognition and emotional resonance with nearly any child who grew up in the United States in the last half-century. And adorable puppets. But there are still lessons any brand can take from how they handled the response to their first message. 

Simplicity works 

It’s doubtful that the social media manager who hit “send” on this message thought it would warrant a response from the president’s X account. It was a text-only post. There was no joke, no meme, and no overarching storyline (which sometimes does happen on the Sesame Street Extended Universe accounts).

But sometimes stripping content to the bare essentials can stand out in a field of try-hards. Just look at all the brands looking for a bit of that same attention in the replies to Elmo’s tweet – and then see how the initial post shines all the brighter.  

Humanity works 

All right, this one’s a bit ironic since Elmo isn’t a person in the classical sense, but the reason the tweet took off is because of the humanity in the tweet. Times are tough: wars are raging, political division is high, everything is madly expensive, it’s the dead of winter in much of the country. And we can all become so enmeshed in our own unhappiness that we forget to check in on others. 

But Elmo remembered. 

And people responded to the connection they had with the critter, both in earnestness and in jest.  

Following up works 

You can’t predict which tweets will go viral, but you can certainly control how you respond. The Sesame Street social team quickly moved to involve other accounts, then to share resources, and then used the attention to double down on their mission to help “children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.” And serving that particular vision matters more than all the views and retweets in the world.  

Thanks, Elmo.  

For more practical social media advice, join us at our Social Media Conference, presented by PR Daily and Ragan Communications, held in Walt Disney World March 27-29! Learn more. 

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.

The post How Elmo’s simple question took over social media appeared first on PR Daily.

Happy Tuesday, PR and comms pros! You know the drill, we have the latest social media updates to get you going on your work week. Now let’s get to it.

X

X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced on the platform that all Premium users in the United States can now post jobs to their personal X accounts. Previously, only verified organizations could post job opportunities.

Social Media Today reported that X used MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, to boost its Amplify video program, though things got off to a bad start when the platform misrepresented how Donaldson earned money on the platform. Donaldson reposted an older video on X and earned $260,000 from pre-roll ads in a week through the program, which he later disclosed after uproar. The Amplify program is made up of a small, handpicked group of creators, which Donaldson joined.

Keen content creators said X gave his post preferential treatment, as they have never earned that much in similarly engaging posts. X made it seem like Donaldson was posting as a typical X creator when he wasn’t. Donaldson is actually a partner in X’s Amplify program expansion efforts, though X only shared that later. Amplify will expand to other users soon, according to X’s Evan Jones.

Even when Amplify becomes more widely available, will others make nearly as much as Donaldson? Unlikely, given his superstar status, but they could rake in a pretty penny, according to Social Media Today. “So while not everyone will be seeing the types of payouts that Donaldson does, even a portion of that would be significant, and that could be enough to drive more video content through the app.”

Furthering their play for the video space, X will soon debut a new Video tab on mobile, X News Daily reported. The Video tab would be located between the search and notification buttons.

In other news, X plans to create an Austin-based Trust and Safety center of excellence to enforce platform safety and content rules and combat child sexual exploitation-related material, Bloomberg reported. However, the move comes more than a year after Musk cut trust and safety operations to the bone, likely contributing to the surge in CSAM.  The platform plans to hire 100 content moderators, though a launch date has not been announced.

An X Safety post announced that the social media platform launched Passkeys as a more secure login option for iOS users in the United States.

Meta

Meta has updated its Brand Rights Protection tool and debuted its Intellectual Property Reporting Center, according to a Meta announcement.

Brand Rights Protection gives rights holders the ability “to monitor for misuse of their brand and report intellectual property infringement and business impersonation,” according to Meta.  Updates include:

Saved Search

• Save your most searched-for terms and filters.

Cross-Surface Search

• Searches will be performed for Commerce, Posts, Ads and Accounts and you won’t have to put in the same search request for every login.

Reference Library expansion

• The reference library limit used to be 50 images and is now 200 images. Allowing for easier monitoring of a wider range of assets.

Apply for the tools here.

Meta’s new Intellectual Property Reporting Center lets rights holders better protect their intellectual property. The Intellectual Property Reporting Center also keeps IP Reporting Forms and important account info in one place.

The platform improved its Advantage targeting product to help advertisers with advanced automation and machine learning technology, according to a Meta announcement. Advantage can improve a campaign’s performance by letting Meta’s system tap a “broader group of people than are defined in an advertiser’s initial detailed targeting selections, if our system predicts it’s likely to improve performance.”

The updates include:

• Campaigns that are optimized for engagement, video views, reach, impressions or ad recall lift can choose to use Advantage detailed targeting.
• Campaigns optimized for leads, landing page views or link clicks automatically have detailed targeting automatically added, with the capability to opt-out.

Instagram

Social media strategist Matt Navarra posted on Threads that a user recently saw Instagram’s new Flipside feature. The new option lets users make a private profile version and post photos for certain groups of friends. “The feature essentially productizes ‘finstas,’” Navarra posted.

Also, users can now turn off Instagram DM read receipts, according to an official Instagram channel post on X. Users can go to the Privacy & Safety section and under “Read receipts,” press the off button to keep others guessing if you read their message or not.

TikTok

Social media expert Jonah Manzano posted on Threads that TikTok users can now cut out a foreground video subject and add a background to the clip. This option can be done during edit mode and one photo is allowed for the background, Manzano wrote. A photo can also be removed.

Navarra posted on Threads that TikTok is also testing out 30-minute-long video uploads. Stay tuned for that interesting update.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn announced recently that it’s doing away with its lookalike audience option by Feb. 29. Active campaigns with lookalike audiences will still operate, albeit with a static audience.

With lookalike audiences going away, LinkedIn recommends using predictive audiences for Lead Gen Form data sources, contact lists or conversion. LinkedIn also recommends using audience expansion for “Matched Audiences and LinkedIn attribute targeting, such as by skill or interest.”

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week  appeared first on PR Daily.

You’ve probably already seen the fuss. The shopping craze that has customers clamoring and falling over (quite literally) for the red and bright pink Stanley tumblers on social media.

What’s causing some of these customers to also wait hours in line for these tumblers when they probably already have multiple drinkware options at home? One word: FOMO or the fear of missing out. More on that later.

Stanley, the popular tumbler that keeps hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold, has gained some fan frenzy because it is not afraid to think outside of the (juice) box and customers appreciate it.

The brand, however, was not always known for being creative.

For decades, Stanley was known for its run-of-the-mill, ubiquitous army green thermos mainly marketed to blue-collar workers. Now the company has found major success connecting with a new demographic: women.

Stanley listened to what its newer female customer base had to say about improving its product, which changed everything.

Here’s what you can learn from their wins.

Connect with newer audiences

Three female co-owners operate The Buy Guide, a review site. They happen to love Stanley’s 40-oz Quencher. TBG posted about their Quencher fondness in 2017 on TBG’s Instagram page, made up of 178,000 mostly female followers between the ages of 25 and 45, according to a Retail Dive article. When the trio thought the product was being discontinued, they encouraged their followers to buy the Quencher and tell the company that they should keep it.

Stanley’s senior VP of Global Commerce Matt Navarro told Retail Dive that while the product wasn’t going away, “the tumbler wasn’t prioritized” then.

That quickly changed as the brand saw how much women liked the Quencher.

Now, Stanley’s social media platform and its website prominently display colorful Quenchers and heavily market to girlies, thanks to TBG.

The lesson? Listen to new audiences. The TBG team encouraged Stanley to expand its product offerings and appeal to more women. Stanley did that by revolutionizing its 40-oz Quencher, improving its visibility and adding a wide range of fun, popular colors. TBG also connected Stanley to affiliate marketing, which is an engagement win and opened the door to the brand working with more influencers and getting in front of their audiences. Stanley struck while the iron was hot. The brand took a chance on TBG’s savvy marketing suggestions to target women and get in on the affiliate marketing.

Prepare to Pivot

Not only did Stanley embrace their new audience segment but the brand took the ladies’ advice and changed how they marketed their products. Stanley went from describing its products as “occasional-use items” to positioning them across social media as everyday items that can complement customers’ aesthetics, according to Retail Dive. Don’t box yourself in with your product or messaging strategy. Try and experiment with new ways to angle what you say or what you sell, especially on social media.

Stanley did just that and took to social media to show fans how to use Stanley products beyond what it was originally known for in 1913.

The brand’s posts now encourage customers to use the Quenchers and its other drinkware to complement their style, lifestyle and even mood. They even give creative suggestions for how to use Stanley products like putting a mini carton of ice cream (mint for the win!) in a Stanley cup during the summer.

The brand’s decision to market itself to a newer customer base made the products more enticing and exciting. Now, buying a tumbler that fits one’s personality and style has become a big draw for the brand.

Beyond posting about the cool Quenchers, Stanley showed its heartfelt side when a customer’s vehicle was damaged in a fire last fall while a Stanley cup inside remained intact. Stanley’s President Terrence Reilly jumped into action and posted on TikTok about the brand wanting to buy a new vehicle for their customer and send her Stanley cups.

“We’ve never done this before and we’ll probably never do it again, but we’d love to replace your vehicle,” Reilly said adding that the customer should check her DMs for the details.

From the over 65,000 comments, one commenter in Ireland said that they didn’t know about Stanley until seeing the video and now they want to purchase one because of the brand’s generosity. Another said that they didn’t need or want a tumbler but they are buying one for others because of the video.

Reilly could have sent a bunch of Stanleys to the customer and called it a day. Or made a statement on their website about how Stanleys are reliable and nothing more. But Reilly put a human face to the brand and posted on social media how Stanley is there for its customers and its drinkware can take a beating. You may not be able to give a car away but find ways to connect with your consumers in unexpected ways where it fits.

Create some major FOMO 

CBS News reports that Stanley debuted two new Quencher products on Dec. 31 for its Galentine’s line, which is sold only at Target. On Jan. 3, Stanley also unveiled a Starbucks collab “Winter Pink” tumbler at Target, which is currently unavailable. This drinkware is sold in limited quantities to customers or households, which amplifies the FOMO feeling. Some products sold out online, which resulted in a mad dash for customers to snatch up their own Stanley before it’s too late. This led to “shopping mayhem,” according to CBS News.

Limited-edition products are serious FOMO bait and appeal to people’s innate desire to have the latest and greatest item before anyone else. Plus, who doesn’t love bragging rights?

“People want the scarcity and the exclusivity, but they want that because they like to show it off,” Clay Parnell, The Parker Avery Group president, told Modern Retail. “It kind of feeds off each other.”

No one wants to be left out. The product drop ahead of Valentine’s Day (forget the chocolate!) makes customers crave and want to have at least one of those popular colors in their hands before the holiday arrives.

To stay relevant, be willing to reinvent yourself or your product. Be open to audience feedback and look for opportunities to genuinely and creatively connect with customers. Dig deep and look for unique ways to surprise your audience, engage them and grow because of them too.

Hear more about connecting audiences on social media by joining us at Ragan’s Social Media Conference in Disney March 27-29!

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post Stanley shows why it pays to listen to new audiences appeared first on PR Daily.

Claire Nance, head of Global Industry Marketing and Communications at Activision Blizzard Media, has made it her mission to dispel the outdated and inaccurate stereotypic image of gamers as teens in basements.

“[I] help brand marketers and advertisers understand the opportunities to activate within the gaming space,” Nance explained. “My role is to help educate the industry on gaming and break down some of the misconceptions about it.”

There’s a lot to educate on: The industry delivered $249 billion in revenue in 2023 and is projected to reach $300 billion by 2026. Recent growth has been driven by mobile games, such as Activision’s Candy Crush. The average age of a gamer? Thirty-five, and 48% of gamers are women. All of that is great news for brands hoping to market to this growing audience.

Ahead of her panel at Ragan and PR Daily’s Social Media Conference, Nance shared how a player-first experience is crucial to authentic and immersive connections, the creative ways brands are incorporating marketing placements in VR and gaming experiences, and the breakthrough she’s hoping for in 2024.

Gaming has long been at the forefront of community building in virtual reality and in virtual spaces, especially in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. How do you nurture those communities?

Nance: Gaming is a very immersive experience. One of the things that we see especially at Activision Blizzard, is the power and the strength of gaming IP and the fandom [around] titles. [Players] develop a really strong emotional connection because playing makes them feel relaxed or it gives them a sense of achievement or adrenaline and excitement – and it also offers a way to connect.

Community within gaming exists both on the platform and off the platform. In [Call of Duty or World of Warcraft], you have it within the game itself where you jump on with your friends and you’re working together as a team. But you also have connections that happen off platform in communities on Reddit, Twitch, Discord, gaming forums and other places where people want to talk about this thing that they’re passionate about.

And this comes down to this idea around passion. We see that even with a game like Candy Crush, which for the most part is a solo player experience. But a community is still being built around it—it may just not be within the game platform itself.

Talking hypothetically for a moment, do you see Web3 and its potential for a decentralized structure affecting community governance in those spaces?

One of the things about games is that it is often the precursor for future technologies, the first entry point that sets the scene for the future technology. A lot of the examples that folks were giving when they were talking about the metaverse [already existed in] gaming. If you want to start to think about, ‘What will the metaverse look like?’ Or: ‘How should I activate in the metaverse in the future?’ Look at how brands and people are [already] interacting in gaming spaces or virtual worlds.

It’s often raised around e-sports in particular. You mentioned collaborations and partnerships, and in the gaming space there’s opportunities for brands and content creators to participate and interact within VR or virtual spaces.

Absolutely. For brands or anyone that’s interested in getting involved in the gaming space, one of the things we always say is to have a player-first mindset. Everything you do should be a positive experience for the player. What that means is no spammy popup ads or awkward product placement. Any kind of activation in that space needs to be authentic to the environment and ideally additive to the player experience. That can be in-game boosters or awards [in Candy Crush] or advertising opportunities within Call of Duty where there might be actual billboards with real life products that help create a sense of immersion. Having [the player] at the core of the experience is really going to help you guide you, whether it’s on mobile, console, or huge, beautiful, bespoke activations.

You called it player-first, but a positive user experience is global. On to one of the hottest topics: do you see any uses for AI, especially generative AI, in the gaming space?

The current opportunity is around optimization, and how [it can] free up more time, brainpower, thinking energy. Of course, anything that makes it easier, faster, better to create games, because making a popular video game is really difficult, both in terms of the actual development of it, but [also when] introducing new IP. It’s not easy to get folks to feel an attachment [to a new franchise] compared to games that have been around for 10 plus years. The other piece is looking at access, and how can we reduce some of those barriers to entry, whether it’s through access via device or access via gameplay, so that more people are playing.

What is something you’re hoping to see in the coming year?

What excites me most is less [about] the technological developments and enhancements. There’s always lots of exciting things happening in that space. [Instead] it’s what I hope will be a shift in the way we talk and think about gamers, the gaming industry and gaming in general. I think we’re ready [to] have a more sophisticated understanding of who the gaming audience is [and] how powerful and impactful the gaming landscape is.

Join Nance at Ragan and PR Daily’s Social Media Conference on March 27-29. Nance will speak alongside communications leaders from Dropbox, Alaska Airlines, Hyatt, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Wendy’s and more.

The post Breaking misconceptions: Immersive marketing within the $249 billion gaming industry appeared first on PR Daily.

It’s another beautiful Tuesday, PR and comms pros, despite what the weather might look like in your neck of the woods. Why? Because we have the latest social media news. While this info won’t keep you warm, it will keep you at the top of your game today. Now let’s get to the good stuff.

X

Last fall, X debuted video and audio calling options to iOS users. Now, Android users with an X Premium account get to join in, X Senior Software Engineer Enrique Barragan posted. Barragan noted that only X Premium members can make calls, but all X users can receive calls.

Meta

Meta recently debuted its Creator Management Tools in Meta Business Suite to better assist agencies and creators, according to a company announcement. “This centralized tool is designed to help agencies and creators manage their relationships on Facebook by connecting their accounts and granting access to assets and information,” the announcement noted. Agencies that oversee content creators can use Meta’s Creator Management Tools to assist them with things like:

• Creator management. Agencies can operate creator accounts on Facebook by requesting permission to manage creator pages.
• Send contractually agreed-upon payments to an agency account.
• Allows agencies and creators to link accounts, eliminating the need for credential sharing.

Threads

Social media strategist Matt Navarra posted on Threads that the platform now lets users hide the share count on their posts. “Previously, you could hide the Like count only,” Navarra wrote. To hide the share and like counts on a Threads post from your computer:

• Tap your profile picture located in the bottom right corner.
• Select the three dots (…) next to the post you plan to edit.
• Hit “Hide like and share counts.”

Find out more here on how to hide post like and share counts from an Android and iPhone.

Instagram

Instagram’s Help Center posted that users can now use Cutouts to add some flair to their posts. Cutouts can assist users in making more creative Stories and Reels from custom stickers from their camera roll photos or eligible IG images. You can also create Cutouts from another user’s images, if they have the option turned on.

If you made a sticker with Cutouts from another person’s post and they deleted their post, any content you made with the sticker will be removed, too.

Social Media Today posted that users can cancel a Stories upload when it is is “mid-process.” This option is for someone who wants to fix a mistake before it’s seen publicly. That’s great news for social media managers!

WhatsApp

The official WhatsApp page posted on Threads updates to Channels:

• Channel administrators can send polls out to their audience to learn people’s take on various topics.
• Voice notes are available in Channels.
• Users can share Channel updates on their status. To do so:
  • Long-press the update you would like to share and select forward and my status.

TikTok

TikTok is getting ready for upcoming worldwide elections by sharing its plans to ensure that its platform “continues to be a creative, safe, and civil place for our community in a historic elections year,” Head of USDS Trust and Safety Suzy Loftus posted in TikTok Newsroom.

“With more than 2 billion people in over 50 countries expected to go to the polls this year, we are deeply invested in protecting the integrity of elections on TikTok,” Loftus noted.

Some plans the platform has include partnering with electoral commissions and fact-checking orgs to create Election Centers that offer trustworthy voting information to users. The platform is also building out features that give more context to TikTok accounts and content, including clarifying that (unlike on X), blue checkmarks mean that people are who they say they are and that in the U.S., accounts from politicians, governmental agencies and political parties must be verified. In the AI space, the platform does not allow “manipulated content that could be misleading, including (AI generated content) of public figures if it depicts them endorsing a political view,” Loftus noted.  TikTok is making creators label realistic AI-generated content. As the platform continues to evolve in this arena, find updates and more information here.

Social media expert Jonah Manzano posted on Threads that TikTok added an AI Song feature, which allows users to enter a prompt to generate a song. In the example, some suggested prompts could be tunes about jealousy, seeing the Northern Lights or gardening. We’ll soon be listening to something about puppies!

LinkedIn

Sponsored articles are now available on LinkedIn for some, Baptiste Beauvisage, lead client solutions manager at LinkedIn, said. Currently, only company-authored articles can be sponsored.

Applicable, existing content on a LinkedIn page can be turned into sponsored content.

In other news, LinkedIn announced that job seekers can now search for jobs through Job Collections, which thematically groups jobs by industry, passion or expertise. Some collections include remote work, good parental leave or IT. To get started:

• Select the LinkedIn Jobs tab.
• Find “Explore with Job Collections.”
• Then click on the various collections and see which one fits your needs.

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week  appeared first on PR Daily.

Happy Wednesday, PR and comms pros! We have the latest social media news to keep you at the top of your game.

X

An X blog announced that starting Feb. 1, new brand safety guidelines will offer protections against ads appearing next to offensive content. These rules will conform with GARM (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) guidelines. Advertisers will be allowed “maximum control” on where they want to place their ads on vertical video feeds on the platform. Learn more here.

In other news, an X Business post announced a platform partnership with Shopify. Exec Joe Benarroch posted that the partnership will:

• “Bring awareness to X through the Shopify Sales Channel.”
• “Make it seamless to upload product catalogs onto X.”
• “Help merchants optimize their ad dollars to maximize their outcomes on X.”
• “Highlight the role X plays in a merchant’s marketing stack.”

Threads

Threads will allow users to follow Mastodon brands and people before the end of 2024, TechCrunch reported. TechCrunch noted that a blog post from Tom Coates. Coates co-founded Planetary, a decentralized app. Coates detailed the meeting with Threads, which discussed their plans.  First, Mastodon servers will be available in Threads. Later in the year, the following ability is set to come online. “The team also discussed how they would approach content moderation as they moved forward with fediverse integration, saying they would exclude content from the wider fediverse from being visible in the Threads app if it breaks their rules,” TechCrunch noted. Fediverse is an open social network with various third-party servers. Threads would connect with other people on fediverse platforms. Learn more here.

Find out more information here.

Facebook

Meta announced that it is sunsetting some of its targeting features due to a lack of use, overlapping features and sensitivity around topics like ethnicity, race and health. Meta will let people know if they have impacted campaigns. The company will give people a warning banner on Meta’s Ads Manager campaigns site and current ads under the impacted categories will run until March 18. Users have to update their targeting selections until the March 18^th cutoff date. Targeting products like custom audiences, broad targeting and Meta Advantage+ audience are still available.

Instagram

Jonah Manzano, social media enthusiast and singer-songwriter, posted on Threads that Instagram has a new Friend’s Story feature that lets users send a story to select people. To make this magic happen, Manzano said users can:

• Make a story for their friend.
• Share the story.
• After a friend approves the story, public accounts can see the story without replies or likes.

Lastly, the sender’s name is visible.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp posted on Threads that users can turn their pictures into stickers via iOS app instead of only via desktop. Users can pull a photo from their gallery, remove the photo’s background, add text and other interactive options and send their sticker in a WhatsApp chat.

TikTok

TikTokComms posted on X that people can view their fav TikTok videos on television. TikTok casting is available on Chromecast built-in devices, according to the post. Users should have an iPhone using iOS 12.0 or newer or an Android 6.0 or newer. To cast TikTok on a television from a mobile phone, simply:

• Ensure the TV and phone are linked to the same Wi-Fi network and select the TikTok app on the phone. Select the desired video.
• Hit the share button and select cast to TV at the bottom. Users casting for the first time might have to choose the option to allow access to their local network to cast their devices.
• Choose the TV for casting.
• Enjoy the show!
• To end casting, hit the casting device near the bottom and select tap to disconnect.

TikTok  also no longer lets people access its Creative Center, which provided trackable information on well-performing hashtags on the platform, the New York Times reported. The Creative Center gave information about videos connected to hashtags and the viewers who watched them. “The company’s critics had harnessed the tool to argue that TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, fails to adequately moderate content on the app and that Beijing influences the posts that appear on it,” according to the Times. In early January, the Creative Center’s search button was no longer available. TikTok noted that the tool is just for sharing data on the “top 100 hashtags” in industries like travel or pets.

YouTube

A YouTube blog post announced that YouTubers can turn their long-form video into a Short. To do so:

• Click on the chosen video.
• Hit the remix button.
• Select edit into a Short.
• Trim to where you want the video to be played.
• Hit layout and choose a video format like single or split screen.
• Pinch and drag in the preview frame to your liking.
• Then save the layout.

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week  appeared first on PR Daily.

Happy Tuesday, PR and comms pro! We have a fresh batch of the latest social media updates for you to get started on your busy work week. Let’s get to the good stuff!

X

X engineer Nate Esparza posted on the platform that advertisers can now advertise solely to premium subscribers. Esparza posted an example image showing that advertisers can select a “Target Premium Subscribers” option. Below that section is the “Custom audiences” search bar to add other audiences.

Remember when X, well, x-ed headlines from links? Headlines are now back on the web with a twist, according to 9to5Google. Posts with a link preview include the headline in tinier font on the lower left side.

Also, the X Verified account posted on the platform that a new basic verification tier is available for small businesses, clocking in at $200 a month or $2,000 a year.  Subscribers get access to features like:

• Ad credits.
• Priority support.
• Gold checkmark.
• Premium + benefits and more.

Facebook

Facebook users can now see the various websites they’ve visited via Facebook in the last 30 days, according to a Facebook announcement. Links visited from chats on Facebook Messenger are not added to link history. To access the feature:

• Tap your profile pic in the bottom right.
• Select settings and privacy.
• Hit link history.
• Scroll to see link history and select a link to see the page again or hit the X icon at the right of a link to delete it from your link history and select confirm.
• Hit clear all in the top-right section to remove all links from your link history.

Meta technologies could access users’ link history information for ads that are more aligned based on their link visits. Learn more here.

Instagram

Social media professional Alessandro Paluzzi posted on X that Instagram is building up its public collections. You know those posts you save for later only to probably never look at again? He shared an introductory screen image on collections that encourage people to show others what they are interested in.

“Now you can add collections to your profile so people can see what you’re into,” the image noted. “Just open a collection and choose who can see it.” Users who get that notice can select “OK” to make it viewable if they choose.

Prepare to be  intrigued or slightly horrified as these collections make their rounds.

Threads

Instagram Head Adam Mosseri posted on Threads that some users want answers about the “questionable stuff” they’ve seen recommended to them on Threads recently.

Mosseri said that the platform has seen issues in the last few weeks with low-quality recommendations that don’t technically violate Threads’ community guidelines “but kind of go right up to that line.”

“We’re working on improving it, a lot more work to do but expect it to get better over the next few weeks,” Mosseri said.

Snap

Snap Inc. tapped tech provider Samba TV to give measurement information to Snap advertisers in the entertainment space according to a press release.

“As a result of the partnership, media and entertainment brands advertising on Snapchat can measure conversion outcomes using Samba TV’s currency-grade VTR solution to gain a clear understanding of how their campaigns drive new viewers to linear and streaming programs, and measure lift across their media strategies,” according to the announcement.

Sherri Kolade is a writer and conference producer at Ragan Communications. She enjoys watching old films, reading and building an authentically curated life. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great PR/comms speaker in mind for one of Ragan’s events? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week  appeared first on PR Daily.

Gen Z, currently ages 13-26, are quickly becoming the most coveted target demographic in the United States. They’re trendsetters in high school, college and even in the workplace. And everyone wants to better understand how to reach these up-and-comers and what makes them tick. 

A new analyst report from Morning Consult polled 1,000 people from this generation and delivered insights that PR pros should know. From what they’re looking for on social media to how often they use generative AI tools, this information can help you form your campaigns and content in the year ahead. 

Here we are now, entertain us 

Gen Z is a generation raised on social media. Many have never known a world without social media; even the oldest were only seven years old when Facebook was launched. Morning Consult’s survey found that 53% of this cohort use these apps for four hours or more daily, while only 3% use them for less than an hour. It’s a staggering amount of time and means that social media is a nearly surefire way to reach Gen Z. 

But which networks? 

If you really want to get in touch with Gen Z, you need to be thinking video in a big way, as that content feeds their social platforms of choice: YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. The survey also found that 65% of Gen Z prefer to learn things via video, with only 19% leaning toward the written word. Only 45% of the adult population at large wants to learn via video, while 35% of them want to read an article, the survey found.  

If you seek to appeal to Gen Z and don’t have a video strategy, you’re already far, far behind. 

But interestingly, Gen Z isn’t necessarily interested in making their own videos — or social media content in general, for that matter. 

Only 6% see posting on social media as their primary purpose on the platforms. Sixty-eight percent use it as older generations might view TV: a way to tune in and tune out. And 19% use these tools as a means of interpersonal communication rather than broader content posting. This is a major shift and one that brands can take advantage of. Gone are the days when social media users were primarily looking to connect with friends and family. Now, if it’s interesting, the content can come from anywhere — including from you. 

From AI to Z 

As you might expect, more members of Gen Z used generative AI in the last month (58%). But as you might not expect, Millennials use AI more frequently, with 19% of this elder cohort using the tools daily compared to just 10% of Gen Z. Is this because Millennials are firmly in the workplace and are incorporating the tools into their workflow?  

More than 30% of Gen Z who are in the workplace do use AI as part of their employment, a strong number and a sign that we can expect more automation in the future as this generation rises and gains power. At the moment, however, Gen Z favors using generative AI to complete schoolwork, spur creativity, feed their hobbies or even help them find song recommendations. 

Look for innovative uses of AI both inside and outside the workplace. Talk to young people about how they’re making use of these tools, and you could find an application you’d never considered before. But also know that Gen Z will need training, guidance and ethics training to come up to speed on these tools as well. 

No matter what your generation is, be curious about how others are using the same tools you use, from social media to AI and beyond. More ideas are always better.  

The post By the numbers: How Gen Z uses AI, social media appeared first on PR Daily.