Here's What Happened: Ad-free Meta & Every Social Media Algorithm Revealed

This Week: Meta offering Ad Free IG & FB, SGE expanding & A list of links with social media algorithm insights for marketers.

Welcome back, This is The Social Juice, written every week with love and orange juice. This Edition is long and filled with data and change discovery. If you love reading the newsletter, You can support a single individuals work, by upgrading and joining the paid newsletter, get more insights and feel good about supporting an orange juice loving man.

Top 5 Updates of the Week

• Meta to offer Ad-free Subscriptions to European Users, I saw this coming. (NYT)

• Google Search Generative Experience (AI) Gets Links.  (SET)

• Follower Count Shake up, LinkedIn removing inactive followers from pages. (LI)

• X (twitter) to use Public data for AI model training. (Engadget)

• Youtube lightens strict Community Guidelines with an update. (YB)

TikTok 🎶

• TikTok expands “Effect House” AR Tool to everyone.  (MSL)

• TikTok Boosting Gen-Zs Back-to-school shopping. (TIME)

• Shopify Fires back, launches new TikTok Shop Integration after TikTok ended old Integration. (IN)

• TikTok announces new Initiatives for Digital Services Act Compliance in EU. (NR)

Instagram & Threads 🧻

• Instagram testing 10-minute reels. (FB)

• Instagram allowing “Comment sharing” to Stories for every users. (TC)

• Threads App to get Keyword Search. (ZK)

• Instagram pushing ‘threads posts’ on Instagram. (Matt)

Meta 💬

• Meta has new AI data usage form up for users, fill it. (Important)

• Canada Puts forward a new plan for publishers, but Facebook denies access again. (RR)

• Run Instagram Stories Ads via Marketing API.  (Devs)

• Meta launches FACET, new AI model for images. (launch)

• New WhatsApp App for Mac. (WB)

Twitter (X) 🦅

• X now allows Political Ads in US again. (reuters)

• New Feature to hide likes available for paid users.  (TC)

• Only Verified Users will have ability to use X polls. (IN)

• X to have Video and Voice calls. (QZ)

• Collect Email Addresses of your X followers soon. (SMT)

• New Swipe Reply feature in DMs. (XX)

YouTube & Creators 👁️

• Youtube Music adds comments to “now playing” screen.  (TC)

• Youtube lowers Partner Program requirements in Few more countries. (SEJ)

• YT celebrates GRWM Creators.(blog)

• Youtube launches “Shorts to Long Form” related links Feature early. (TB)

• MrBeast giving away Super Bowl Ticket subscriptions in partnership with Youtube. (DT)

• Youtube launches new analytics button tab. (CI)

Google 🔦

• Google launches new Ad Policy called “Limited Ad Serving”. (GN)

• Google tests “mentioned In” links showing PR links & other sources. (TT)

• Google Updates PageSpeed Insights with Lighthouse 11. (SR)

• A new Google Docs AI proofreading feature, but it’s paid. (Update)

• Google launches new chrome feature to copy a video frame. (See)

Agency News 👨‍💼

• Beiersdorf names OMD as its single media agency In North America & Europe. (AA)

• Buffalo Wild Wings launch new Creative Ad by Anomaly Agency. (Ashley)

• Duracell picks BBH As Creative Agency and VayznerMedia as Social AOR. (Read)

• Wunderman Thompson Launches new B2B offering ‘Inspired B2B’. (LB)

• Dentsu Creative EMEA CEO to leave the firm. (MB)

• American Advertising Foundation launches new charitable arm. (See)

• Principal Financial Group hires Dentsu Creative as AOR. (AA)

Brands & Ads 🧠

• Liquid Death is back with new anti-barbie campaign, Steve-o doll . (MS)

• Burger King in huge issues with new lawsuit against whooper. (MC)

• Chewy on 14% Sales increase after changes to Marketing Mix.  (MP)

• CBS Sports is 90% sold out of Super bowl Inventory.  (MB)

• Amazon launches new Ad Campaign for Home Insurance offerings. (MB)

• Mark Marshall named Ads Sales Chief at NBCU. (Variety)

• JCPenney Revamps their brands with ‘Make It Count’. (dV)

AI 🕹️

• OpenAI launches new guide for teachers.  (Blog)

• Official Launch of Open AI for enterprises. (OA)

• Google’s SGE AI search expands to India and Japan. (TC)

• Perplexity Adds Claude-2 To AI Model Selection. (SEJ)

• New AI-generated Image tool from Google with SynthID. (DM)

Microsoft 💾

• Microsoft pauses Bing Ads targeting chrome users on Windows. (TC)

• MS is killing WordPad in Windows (xda)

Pinterest & Snap 🧐

• Dolly Parton joins Pinterest, the new Gen-Z celebrity love (ASW)

• Pinterest announces new activations for Toronto film festival. (SMT)

• Snapchat gets new Dreams feature, GenAI Images. (Info)

Reddit 🔥

• Reddit launches new AI-powered Keyword Tool. (SEL)

LinkedIn 🔋

• X and LinkedIn working to support Passkey Access. (Announce)

Marketing 📣

• TikTok’s famous Voice Artists partners with Calm App. (TB)

• SubTember from Twitch comes back with discounted subscriptions. (TB)

• Spotify wants more Ad revenue from SMBs. (MLY)

• Twitch updates their partner program for small creators. (TS)

• Linktree launched new Theme in partnership with Olivia Rodrigo. (LNCH)

• Day One Agency with

  Casey Lewis
  launches ‘Back-to-school’ insights. (RD)

• Apple’s new ‘The Invincibles’ campaign for National Dog Day. (TV)

• Klaviyo going Public, Here is an IPO analysis for you. (Read)

• Streaming User Interfaces are bad with driving clicks from consumers. (VTY)

Content opportunities 🗂️

• 4th Sep: US labor day /  Mouthguard  Day / National Wildlife Day / National Eat an Extra Dessert Day /  National Guide Dog Month.

• 5th Sep: International Day of Charity / National Cheese Pizza Day / World Samosa Day / National Be Late for Something Day.

• 6th Sep: Global Talent Acquisition Day / Fight Procrastination Day / National Coffee Ice Cream Day / National Read a Book Day.

• 7th Sep: Superman Day / National Salami Day  / World Duchenne Awareness Day / National Beer lovers Day /  NFL kickoff / International Day of Clean Air and Blue Skies.

• 8th Sep : International literacy Day / Stand Up to Cancer Day / Actors’ Day /  Star Trek Day / World Physical Therapy day / Pardon Day.

• 9th Sep  : International Sudoku Day / National Teddy Bear Day / German Language Day / Steak Au Poivre Day / Wonderful Weirdos Day.

• 10th Sep : National Grandparents Day / World Suicide Prevention Day /  National Swap Ideas day / The US open Men’s Singles Final.

MarTech Finds & Releases 🏓

• Adelaide -Track your Digital Media, more smartly.

• Gummy Search - The Best Audience Research tool for Marketers.*

• Hivestack - One of the leading DOOH platform.

• AX Semantics - A Tool to automate your content conversion and distribution.

• Wave Vid - A Great alternative to Veed studio & Canva for video.

* Partnered resource.

Everything about Social Media Algorithms & Systems

I feel like exposing my knowledge of algorithms will change everything, guess what feelings aren’t true. Below, You will find all the technical, simple and important breakdowns of different social algorithms, shared by officials at these apps. Yes, most of these insights need more than marketing knowledge. In case, you don’t understand, I will be breaking these engineering insights in the paid newsletter next week. Stay tuned.

LinkedIn Algorithm

In the past, LinkedIn Engineering team has released 3 different posts about how their Post Search algorithm works and Content recommendation systems. Those 3 blogs are linked below. I much simpler announcement about recent algorithm changes can be found here: New Updates 2023. Here is blog about Post Search System and Curating Feed Content + my favourite: Viral & Spam Content Filtering.

Instagram Algorithm

I only have one thing to say, Read the engineering blogs about Instagram, compare them to what Adam Mosseri says in his post. Understand the differences and then create. This link explains Explore Page (new) and I love this blog on IG Content Selection (Evergreen).Then, the latest algorithm statement From Adam Mosseri (new). And these are engineer insights about New Content Discovery Algorithm & Recommendation (old).

Meta AI

Mainly people assume, Meta recently enrolled AI systems to recommend content. It was happening from last few years. This was First AI Algorithm (publicly info), then New AI system Cards & For Paid Social, AI system.

Pinterest

Well, Most of the Pinterest algorithm insights are very technical. This is most insightful latest read about their Home feed. And then, This Post focuses on Pinterest Advertising budgeting for better results. These are new changes to Algorithm, promoting diversity in content. And this is my favourite read on how Pinterest uses your feedback for new content recommendation.

TikTok

Surprisingly no Technical insights here, I am watching Bytedance’s Blog from years, only engineering interviews are there. But You can read TikTok’s official Insights here on their recommendation system. And a statement from their CEO about how their algorithm is different from others.

X aka Twitter

They have their algorithm open sourced on GitHub. Here is a simple explanation about their system from their team shared in March. But since then, a lot has changed. You can read an updated version here.

Youtube

Last week, We got insights about Shorts algorithm, nothing unique was found in it. The shorts algorithm is still developing and I can say it is nowhere near the quality of TikTok. Other than that, Youtube has been pretty vocal about their systems at Vidicon and google events. But here is a Youtube series from them about Content Discoverability on YT. A blog about their recommendation system.

Fun Fact: Snapchat Discover likely uses the same algorithm as it was cited in one of their engineering blogs.

Snapchat

You can read about Snapchat Discover ranking here. Now, I feel most brands reading the newsletter still don’t do much organic on snap. For Paid Social, This technical blog about snapchat Ads might help you.

Reddit

The algorithm reddit uses is very simple, you can read a breakdown of their algorithm done by a developer. The code of reddit is open sourced,I couldn’t find it on GitHub. But another developer posted the code on his gitHub. Understand value of different engagement metrics.

Data & Research Bites

New Study on Youtube Content Recommendation system moving viewers to extremis channels, Source / Youtube is winning GenZ viewership shows new Report about video consumption, source / Spotify’s new Advertising Academy teaches you about podcast data and Ads, source / Ogilvy’s Annual Behavioural Science Report is out, read / New TikTok Trending Audio: Relationship / UK Agencies are lacking diversity, source / Creator Economy Startup funding is changing, Influencers survived a bad wave, source /Product Placements are making a comeback, report.

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Peace out, Happy Labor Day weekend. - Jaskaran.