How is the Christmas holiday social media post scheduling hell going? I’m with you in spirit. We’ve all been there! 🥃

Kicking things off this week… Which BIG Hollywood movie star just listed me as a ‘Close Friend’ on Instagram? 👉 Reveal who 👈

This has to be a mistake 😆. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri is puzzled too.

Meanwhile, Is this Elon Musk’s most deluded tweet yet? 🥱

And a big thank you to BBC News presenter Maryam Moshiri, who gave the internet a great new meme template 💀 Watch video clip here if you missed it.

Coincidently, BBC News turned my lounge into a mini studio this week. They filmed an interview with me for a new documentary about the death of Twitter, airing on BBC iPlayer in January 2024.

Good news… I resisted my intrusive internal thoughts to also flip the bird 🖕

DON’T MISS THIS… This is a very personal project for me. ❤️  

If you work in social media or marketing, and like me, struggle with ADHD, or ADHD tendencies… I have created something just for YOU. 👇

Bonus: You might find this video useful to watch as well.

“ADHD: Reimagined” is a NEW twelve-week LIVE course that empowers talented social media managers, marketers, and content creators. 🆕

Based on science, philosophy, and mindfulness techniques, we have developed a course that will forever change your relationship with ADHD.

You’ll be learning from two of the best ADHD coaches in the business and me, Matt Navarra, as your geeky guest mentor. 🤓

Together, we'll create a personalized framework to help you...

✨ Clearly define your life / career purpose 
✨ Turn your busy ADHD mind into a super-power
✨ Harness practical tools and techniques to manage your ADHD 
✨ Reclaim time, focus and fulfillment at work and at home 

Let me help you end the 🔄 procrastination 🔄 paralysis burnout loop. ❤️

Join us this January and change your ADHD life forever.

The BEST bit…
If your company won't pay for this course (expense it as part of your professional development plan), or if you're a freelancer…

I will pay HALF your fees with a special Geekout deal just for you. 👊

*Max. 50 slots available. (10 slots filled already)

.

Geekout with our hottest picks of the week:

.

After a test in Australia over the past few weeks, Threads has rolled out its neat alternative to hashtags–topic tags–worldwide.

As a recap: you type a #, add a tag (which can include spaces) and then the # disappears and the tag becomes clickable, taking you to other discussion about that topic. To prevent ugly spam, you can only use one tag per post.

It’s an elegant solution and really well executed. It’s already being used by tech industry folk who are using the ‘Tech Threads’ tag as a way of finding interesting people to follow.

‘Father of the hashtag’ Chris Messina still wishes they were proper hashtags, though. He has previously made a good point that brands and events use hashtags as a visual way of signalling to audiences that they should use that tag.

But it turns out you can use hashtags with the feature if you know how.

And it’s worth remembering that hashtags, with a # at the start and no spaces between words, were a way to work around limitations on Twitter many years ago. They’re not necessarily the best way of doing searchable topics - we’re just used to them.

Will social media marketers simply evolve their approach to topics if Threads grows to become a major channel?

This has been a long time coming. Meta is finally gearing up to complete a process that began way back in 2016: making Messenger end-to-end encrypted.

Meta had to rebuild much of Messenger’s underlying tech to make it all work. That means the encryption supports features like disappearing messages and editing messages.

But while it’s good to see more privacy for more messages, Instagram is now the outlier for Meta, in not having its messaging encrypted. Perhaps not coincidentally, Meta also announced this week it was axing cross-platform messaging between Messenger and Instagram.

Here’s hoping Instagram encryption is next, especially as it seems likely that any DMs feature for Threads will use Instagram’s messaging backbone.

Of course, not everyone wants more privacy. The UK government was quick to accuse Meta of making life easier for child abusers.

With that logic, maybe it’s time to ban all knives from sale to stop knife crime? They’ll just be eating with forks in Westminster.

.

Everything else you need to know from the past seven days…

.

And don’t miss… 😆

.

When BBC newsreader Maryam Moshiri accidentally gave the middle finger live on air, it was a gift of a meme for reactive marketers.

Specsavers were quick off the mark

…as was the UK Conservative Party:

But that one backfired, with even some Conservative MPs calling for it to be taken down.

.

TikTok has a hit with its filter that lets you see what A.I. thinks you’ll look like in years to come.

But freaking people out over how they’ll age misses out all the fun they’ll hopefully have along the way, so many users just find it depressing.

Meanwhile, footballer Erling Haaland became a meme after his on-pitch rage went viral:

.

When I’m quoted in the news, you’ll find it here:

The Telegraph asked for my insights into click farms and why they are so profitable:

Also:

.

Hank Green had a great summary of the Elon Musk shitshow… over on Musk’s own platform. Read it in full here.

Also:

.

It’s that time of year when everyone likes to recap the year gone by. Here’s the best of what’s out there…

There was TikTok’s big trends report:

Also:

.

It’s also the time of year when all the ‘predictions for next year’ pieces come out. There’s a lot of good stuff to read through…

Instagram broke down the trends it thinks Gen Z will be driving on the platform in 2024: when all the ‘year in review’ and

Also:

.

Instagram has unexpectedly launched its own podcast. ‘Close Friends Only’ will interview celebrity users of the app.

.

For when you've had enough of Musk, this Chrome extension replaces mentions of "Elon Musk" with "Wannabe Stark” and hides images of Elon.

.

Meta has filed a patent application for a mind reader…Or as the company describes it, an in-ear “spectroscopy” for “cognitive load estimation.”

To put it simply, this uses an in-ear device to measure a user’s brain signals to better understand a user’s brain activity.

.

When your craving for YouTube views gets you send to prison…

Also:

.

This weird Instagram bug led to videos that have been on the platform for years losing their sound…

.

Social media features heading for the graveyard:

I doubt many people even knew Facebook did this, but now it’s on the way to the big social media cemetery in the sky…

Also:

.

All the ways A.I. is transforming social media:

The US-only Meta AI chatbot can now generate images and interact with Reels:

.

1.1 billion

The number of Instagram and Facebook photos Meta’s new standalone image generator was trained on

Also:

.

.

New features and tests:

Facebook:

Instagram:

Threads:

WhatsApp:

The rest: Creator Studio / Adtech / Quest and more:

.

Insights to give you an edge at work:

New features and tests:

.

Insights to give you an edge at work:

New features and tests:

.

Insights to give you an edge at work:

New features and tests:

.

.

Everyone's talking about boomers, millennials, and Gen Zers, but Gen X is often left out of the conversation. Many Gen Xers say they like it this way, and they just want to be left alone. 😆

…they're also warning other generations not to come at them because they can win any battle 😮

.

Your Geekout social media news download is completed. 💯 ✅

A quick reminder, Geekout will be taking its annual Christmas holiday break soon. 🎄🎅🏻

The last edition of Geekout for 2023 will be on Friday 22 December.

Geekout will return for a BUMPER New Year’s edition on Friday 12th January 2024.

Goodbye, Geeks! 🖕

(my intrusive thoughts got the better of me)

p.s. This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant