🚀 30,000+ social media pros read Geekout
Geekout has a 60% open rate + 12% click rate 
— Double the industry average!
👉 Book your ad in Geekout

Hello, geeks!

Welcome to a loved-up edition of Geekout. 🥰

Happy Valentine’s Day, folks ❤️

Also… RIP Duo 🪦 More on that in a moment.

Before we dive in…

🔥 This AI-powered social listening tool is wild! Worth checking out!

💰 Want to earn extra income? Earn up to 60% commission with Surfshark’s affiliate program. Take a look! [ad]

__________

🚀 Just an Idea… Geekout School of Social

I'm toying with the idea of launching a series of virtual training workshops under the Geekout brand.

Think deep dives, hands-on sessions, and no-BS insights tailored for social media managers, marketers, and creators like you.

But before I go full throttle on this, I need your input. What topics or courses would you want me to cover?

Hit the poll below and help shape a social media virtual training course you’d actually enjoy being part of? Your votes = my blueprint. 👇

P.S. If you have any issues voting, or want to suggest different topics / workshops… Just hit REPLY to this email to send me your request!

__________ 

REVEALED: LG's Secret Weapon for Social Media Dominance 🤫

LG Electronics was drowning in social media noise. 

They needed actionable insights, fast. 

Enter Syncly's AI-powered social listening. 🤖 The results? Game-changing.

Here's how Syncly helped LG:

⚡️ 90% Faster Setup: Forget tedious keyword lists. Syncly's AI automatically filters irrelevant chatter.

🎯 Hyper-Targeted Insights: LG went beyond basic sentiment to identify specific product issues and opportunities.

😊 Nuanced Sentiment Analysis: Syncly pinpointed exactly which features customers loved (or hated) with aspect-based analysis.

🌎 Global brand tracking: LG were able to track brand mentions in different languages without needing to translate keywords.

This isn't just about listening; it's about understanding and taking strategic action.

Reveal LG’s social listening secrets now!👇 [AD]

.

🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

Geekout’s pick of the hottest headlines in social this week:

2. Elon Musk’s X to pay Donald Trump $10m to settle lawsuit over Capitol attack [APPEASING]

3. YouTube users watch on TVs more than mobile for first time ever [SCREEN-SHIFTING]

4. TikTok sued over deaths of children said to have attempted ‘blackout challenge’ [DISTURBING]

5. Meta opens Facebook Marketplace to rivals in the EU [UNSHACKLING]

Turn Your Online Influence into Recurring Revenue (60% Commission!)

Calling all creators, influencers, community managers…

Are you ready to level up your earnings? 🚀 

Partner with Surfshark's top-rated affiliate program and promote a product your audience needs: online privacy.

• 💰 Earn Big: Up to 60% Revenue Share!

• 🎨 Custom Creatives: Banners, landing pages, & more – all tailored for you.

• 🤝 Dedicated Support: Your own account manager to help you succeed.

• 📈 Flexible Promotion: Blogs, videos, social – your choice!

• 🔥 Exclusive deals: Just for your audience.

Turn your online influence into a reliable income stream.

Discover your earning potential… Sign up now!

.

🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

TikTok makes a surprise return to US app stores

While TikTok only stopped working entirely for a few hours in the US a few weekends back, it’s been missing from mobile and TV app stores in the country ever since.

That’s not a big problem in the short term, but it meant any bugs that might crop up would be unfixable for US users. And new users couldn’t get their hands on the app while a deal to keep the app active in the country was thrashed out ahead of the new early April deadline.

TikTok had a workaround for Android users, at least. More than 100,000 Americans used sideloading to directly download the app from TikTok itself, circumventing the ban.

But it was no dice on the app stores. Apple and Google’s lawyers very smartly realised that if they took Donald Trump at his word that they would be okay to offer it again, they could find themselves liable for enormous fines years into the future if he, or the next president, got other ideas.

So it was a massive surprise late on Thursday US time, when it emerged that a letter from new US attorney general Pam Bondi had changed Apple and Google’s minds. Her word that they wouldn’t later face prosecution was clearly more assuring than Trump’s, and the app is back.

But TikTok’s future in the US is just as uncertain as it has been for years. Trump has asked Vice President JD Vance to negotiate a sale of TikTok ahead of the new April deadline.

That deadline, it seems Trump believes, could be extended. That would appear to go against American law which allowed for one extension… but when has the law ever stopped Trump?

Seriously now though… can this whole TikTok saga just end? It’s the most long-running, slow-moving story I can remember in my long career in social media. Sort it out, guys.

.

.

🤖 SOCIAL A.I.

The newest social media A.I. features spotted this week:

Also spotted this week… 👀

• YouTube is going to let you put AI-generated video clips in Shorts

• YouTube has new AI updates including auto-dubbing expansion, age ID tech, and more

• Reddit plans to integrate its AI-powered Reddit Answers feature into its existing search

• TikTok LIVE now lets you add a label to disclose AI-generated content

• Threads now labels posts containing digitally created AI-generated content that appears real

• Meta is testing a new AI ‘Creator’s Assistant’ in Messenger 

• Meta now warns users that its AI systems will scan your DMs when prompted (covering their ass!)

• Elon Musk says xAI’s ‘scary smart’ next AI model chatbot Grok 3 is coming in weeks

• Telegram has added AI-powered sticker search

• Google Whisk, an image remixing tool, is now available in 100+ countries

• ByteDance has released an open-source generative model called VideoWorld

.

😆 LOL

OpenAI’s Sam Altman is in no mood to take Elon Musk’ bully-boy s**t 😀

You must know this feeling…

.

📈 MEMES

Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance instantly became a meme…

Get more Kendrick memes here!

.

🌡️ VIRAL

RIP DUO: Super hero comic writers have known this for decades… if you want to juice more interest in your character, kill them off.

The ‘death’ of the Duolingo owl was a viral success this week.

As the internet mourned, with memes:

And of course, the brands got involved:

Of course, it was all a stunt. The owl lives on. 🦉🙌

.

🪧 BRANDS

POPPI VENDING MACHINE DRAMA: Not all brands had as good a week on social media as Duolingo…

“It turns out people don’t want to see a bunch of influencers get vending machines in their houses.”

Also:

• BURGER KING: Oof! What was this all about? Burger King denied terminating Dentsu’s contract as a post on their Instagram account suggested

.

🏈 SUPER BOWL SOCIAL

Booking.com with the Muppets topped the list of most-watched Super Bowl ads on YouTube…

Also:

• Congratulations to Tubi, the most-talked-about brand on social media during Super Bowl last weekend…

• The NFL went after Gen Z fans by courting creators on YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat for Super Bowl content.

🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“I don’t have any plans for what would I do if I had TikTok”

– Elon Musk tries to scotch rumours he’s trying to buy TikTok

• "Leave or disagree and commit" – Meta CTO Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth says staff should quit if they don’t like the company’s new policies
  

• “Our brand and reputation and stock price may be harmed" if it goes overboard on DEI, Pinterest admits the reason so many companies have ben scared off DEI initiatives in the US recently
  

• Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes says that Trump and his allies will “handicap government.”

.

🦹 VILLAIN OF THE WEEK

Kanye West (AKA Ye) is no stranger to far-right outbursts, but he outdid himself this week.

First he said he was a Nazi and called on Donald Trump to free Sean Combs (WTF), then he deleted his account.

Now he’s back but with a content warning attached to his account

Friends star David Schwimmer called on Elon Musk to ban Kanye West from X once and for all:

“We can’t stop a deranged bigot from spewing hate filled, ignorant bile… but we CAN stop giving him a megaphone, Mr. Musk." 

Quite right, Ross from Friends, quite right.

Meanwhile…

• A weird deepfake AI ad starring Mark Zuckerberg, Drake and more wearing "f**k Kanye" t-shirts went viral in protest to Ye's anti-Semitic posts

• … But Scarlett Johansson was NOT happy about it.

.

👀 MY FAV READS

YOUTUBE SEES RED: Did you notice? YouTube switched to a new shade of red for its logo late last year.

Here are the fascinating reasons why….

.

😮 WTF?!

People sure seem to love AI slop…

Given a long enough time window - every possible thing you could do, no matter how weird, will become a TikTok trend.

Also this week:

• TikTok influencers are wearing Apple Watches on their ankles

• Instagram’s AI bots are often sexually suggestive—and sometimes underage

• Meta has an AI for brain typing, but it’s stuck in the lab

• Meta’s AI randomly tried to throw a weird party for a guy — that he never asked for

.

🤦 FAIL

“The bogus handle has since been deleted, but Myriam Spiteri Debono’s real account still doesn’t have a grey tick.”

Also failing this week:

• YouTube’s block feature made it easy to uncover any account’s email address

.

📲 NEW APPS

Buzzfeed is developing its own social media platform.

It’s being billed as a bold move to counter the current negativity on the internet.

Also in the news:

• WikiTok combines Wikipedia and TikTok to fight doomscrolling

• Pinksky (built on Bluesky) brings its Instagram-like app to Android

• Top new apps building Instagram alternatives on open protocols

.

👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

• Disney is looking for a Social Media Manager – TV & Titles (National Geographic) [Washington DC, USA]

• Ogilvy is hiring a Director, Social Strategy [New York City, NY, USA]

• Macmillan Cancer Support is recruiting a Senior Social Media Manager [London, UK]

• Heineken needs a Social & Digital Content Creator [London, UK]

.

👌 PRO TIPS

Also…

• Snapchat has shared marketing tips for Valentine’s Day (they might be useful if you hurry!)

.

📊 SOCIAL STATS

116,000

– The number of accounts Meta has already taken down in 2025 that are associated with romance scammers posing as celebrities or military. Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️

• TIKTOK: 84% of songs that entered the Billboard Global 200 in 2024 went viral on TikTok first

• THREADS: 57% of marketers currently post on Threads, with an additional 23% planning to establish a presence on the platform this year

• INSTAGRAM saw a 16% growth in creator content after the TikTok ban, while TikTok experienced a slight decrease

• REDDIT: AI licensing deals with Google and OpenAI make up 10% of Reddit's revenue

• REDDIT: Daily active unique visitors on Reddit rose 39% to 101.7 million in Q4, but missed analysts' average estimate of 103.3 million

• YOUTUBE: A Google lawyer says that less than 1% of views on YouTube come from Search links

• PERPLEXITY: AI search app Perplexity's Super Bowl post on X increased app installs by 50%

• SNAPCHAT: India’s AR Developer community has grown by over 50% in two years, now home to the highest number of Snapchat AR Lenses globally

.

📈 CHARTED

How the Instagram algorithm works: charted… ✨

• Meta’s 16-day stock rally set a Nasdaq record

• Meta’s predicted ad revenue growth: charted

• Hate speech dramatically increased on X under Elon Musk's watch, researchers say

• Reddit’s recent user and revenue growth: charted

• Meta’s depreciation expenses are soaring

• LinkedIn has become a $16 Billion business

• Most Downloaded Apps: The most downloaded apps in the world in January 2025

• AR shopping apps fail to get traction

.

• Senator Dick Durbin has pressed Meta to explain why it can’t stop sending traffic to nonconsensual AI image generators that violate its policy. [404 Media]

• US House Democrats have pressed Mark Zuckerberg on the timing of Meta’s recent policy changes. [Engadget]

• Federal workers say they increasingly distrust platforms like Facebook. [The Verge]

• Meta is reportedly in talks to buy a Korean AI chip startup founded by a former Samsung engineer. [Forbes $$$]

• Meta’s laid off 'low performers' have been defending themselves on LinkedIn and Reddit. [Fast Company]

New features and tests:

Instagram:

• Instagram has expanded teen accounts to India. [TechCrunch]

• Instagram has added two new chat themes, Flirt and American Football. [@oncescruadu]

• Instagram has added more fonts and text effects to Stories and Reels. [@oncescuradu]

Threads:

• Threads is testing a new floating comment box. [@theahmedghanem]

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

• Meta will soon move your saved payment information to Accounts Center and sync it across your other accounts. [@theahmedghanem]

• Meta has expanded support for third-party ad placement blocklists. [Social Media Today]

.

• Fake, viral conspiracies on X have overrun US politics. [Semafor]

• X must release information enabling researchers to track the spread of election-swaying information on the network, a German court has ruled. [Reuters $$$]

• Saudi Prince Alwaleed says he invested $3 billion in X and has never marked down his shares. [Semafor]

• Morgan Stanley has kicked off its $2.97 billion X loan sale. [Bloomberg $$$]

• …and demand is apparently high enough for them to increase the offering. [Bloomberg $$$]

.

• TikTok Shop is expanding into Mexico this month. [MediaPost]

New features and tests:

• TikTok has moved the ‘Translate comment’ button next to the “Reply” button. [@oncescuradu]

.

💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• Channel 4 will launch Instagram and TikTok social content channels on back of its YouTube success. [Campaign $$$]

• Former Facebook employees have launched a $60 million venture fund for influencers. [Bloomberg $$$]

• Yahoo News has signed up nearly 100 YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram creators to its ‘Stories From Creators’ ad revenue sharing program. [Bloomberg $$$]

• Trump and Musk have used social media posts to get journalists fired. [New York Times $$$]

• The Bop House is an OnlyFans paradise that pulls millions per month. [Vice]

• Reddit has announced a market insights partnership with Intercontinental Exchange. [Social Media Today]

New features and tests:

• Snapchat’s beta app now lets you to test out and purchase digital wardrobe Bitmoji fashion for free. [@jonahmanzano]

• Amazon has launched a Canva integration for creators to easily design and publish to storefronts. [Lindsey Gamble]

.

📰 WEEKEND READS

Geekout’s pick of the best longer reads to sink into over the weekend:

“Once reserved for romantic partners and other loved ones, the heart emoji can now mean anything—which means it has no meaning at all.”

• Zuckerberg’s swerve: how diversity went from being a Meta priority to getting cancelled

• What comes after OnlyFans?

• The far right’s war on content moderation comes to Europe

• Can AI save dating apps?

.

😳 AND FINALLY…

When old trends come back to bite you… 💀

.

📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

Time for me to love you and leave you, because you’ve reached the end of this week’s Geekout.

I hope the one you love the most turns up the romance dial for you this weekend. 🎚️💗

And if you’re single… Trump is here for you 😁

Goodbye, geeks!

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