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Hello, geeks!

This week’s Geekout is brought to you by a man running on three hours’ sleep due to airport delay hell.

Sorry for any typos as I struggle to keep my eyes open! 🥱 🛫

Before we get started…

This 2.5 hours AI course for social media marketers is seriously good. 🔥

The practical tips, tricks, and tools are already saving me hours every week.

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“I Can’t Get No Sleep… 🎶🎶 “

Hope your week’s been less manic (and exhausting) than mine!

I was in Frankfurt, Germany, to speak at a corporate event for a major pharmaceutical company, covering content strategies and future social trends.

Big shoutout to my new German social media friends—amazing hosts and super talented!

My flight from Bristol, scheduled for 1:30pm to Amsterdam for a 4pm connection to Frankfurt, was a rollercoaster of delays: first 2 hours, then 5, then 7, nearly missing the last AMS > FRA flight.

Picture me sprinting through the airport —a sweaty mess—but I made it!

I finally got to my hotel in Frankfurt at midnight. Spoke at the Pharma company event the following day (Thursday)…

…Then headed back to the airport last to do it all again. I got to bed at 3am last night (after needing to stay up to write this week’s Geekout).

Next week: London > Istanbul > Macedonia > Kosovo > Frankfurt > London.

Five countries in 48 hours. Pray for me again! 🙏

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DON’T MISS THIS…

700+ people have now signed up for the ‘What’s Next in Global Social Media 2025’ event on November 13.

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2025 Social Media Trends You Can’t Afford to Miss — LIVE Expert Panel Predictions! 🔮

I’ve teamed up with VeraContent to host ‘What’s Next in Global Social Media’ LIVE event to reveal expert predictions you’ll want to know about for 2025.

This FREE live webinar will feature 3 top industry experts dishing out seriously valuable predictions and strategies for the year ahead!

Why You’ll ❤️ Love This Webinar:

• 🗣️ Insider Knowledge: Find out how algorithms and AI will change the social media game in 2025

• ✨ Actionable Insights: Walk away with fresh tactics you can use immediately in your own strategy.

• 📈 Data-Driven Trends: Real-world examples and the latest industry stats from Sprout Social that’ll help you look like a genius in front of your boss.

• 🔴 Live Q&A: Get your questions answered by the experts. Pick our brains on anything social!

Featuring:

• Matt Navarra: OG social geek (my skin is not the smooth in real-life 😆)

• Cat Anderson: Director of International Marketing at Sprout Social

• Shaheen Samavati: CEO of global content marketing agency VeraContent

🎟️ Grab your ticket for this ASAP… 700+ people already registered. Limited spaces.

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

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

2. Instagram suffers creator backlash after admitting lowering video quality of less popular videos [DEGRADING]

3. Threads hits 275 million users and on track to overtake X by June 2025 [SURGING]

4. Meta is developing an AI search engine to lessen reliance on Google, Microsoft [SAFE-GUARDING]

5. Apple told TikTok it’s unfit for children and young teens, lawsuit says [CONDEMNING]

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Scott Galloway is headlining. He’ll be sharing his predictions on AI in 2025. RSVP for free. [AD]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

Gearing up for a dramatic ele-X-ion

You can’t have missed how Elon Musk has turned X into a pro-Trump echo chamber. Even if you have no interest in Donald Trump or Musk himself, users frequently complain about seeing their posts, and posts about them, shoved into their feeds.

It’s easy to think of X as Musk’s own political weapon. The impact he can make was seen in the UK this year when Musk himself, coupled with the platform’s, er, lightweight moderation, helped fuel riots on the streets.

And now it’s gearing up to have a similar impact just days before the US election. X keeps pushing election misinformation to users, and Community Notes is failing to publish fact checks. The X algorithm feeds users political content, whether they want it or not, while X has almost halved its content moderation head count in the past year.

And it’s not just an X problem. Facebook took more than $1 million for ads sowing election lies, and it’s auto-generating militia group pages for extremists who might seek to cause trouble in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, YouTube has been accused of ‘looking the other way’ over election lies.

It’s all a far cry from the election integrity ‘war rooms’ and trust and safety action teams we saw in 2020. Since then, Trump’s allies have successfully positioned that kind of activity as ‘censorship’, while seemingly being okay with Elon Musk being clearly biased to a specific candidate - theirs.

Whatever the result on Tuesday, the platforms are all set up for helping chaos reign right up until inauguration day. And in X’s case, that might even be the deliberate plan.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

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

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🤖 SOCIAL A.I.

More of the newest social media A.I. features spotted this week:

• Google has launched a Gemini AI extension for WhatsApp that lets you make calls and send messages “in a way that’s natural and conversational”

• YouTube is expanding AI-generated video summaries globally for English content.

• xAI’s Grok can try to explain Elon Musk's terrible jokes

• LinkedIn's new AI assistant can help recruiters match with top candidates

• LinkedIn has launched thee free AI certification courses

• Meta has made its MobileLLM open for researchers, posting full weights
  

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💬 YOU CAN QUOTE ME ON THAT

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

Instagram has revealed that it lowers quality of less popular videos.

I spoke to BBC News about why creators are frustrated by this revelation from Instagram’s boss:

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😆 LOL

File this under ‘oldie but goodie’.

This influencer’s attempt to get a free stay at a Dublin hotel in 2018 has quickly become one of my most commented-on Threads posts ever (1,500+ comments), and has been viewed 550,000 times so far…

Tap through and read on 👇

You’ve got to tap through for this one for the full effect 😀😳😭👇

My social media health score would be ‘dead’:

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🌡️ VIRAL

Restaurant chain Chili’s Triple Dipper appetiser is enjoying viral success…

Also:

• It's an analog horror Halloween on YouTube

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📈 MEMES

Yesterday was Halloween, so of course Halloween costumes have been all the rage this week…

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🪧 BRAND SOCIAL

When caterpillar cakes meet Grimace…

Also:

• How L’Oréal’s bigger Pinterest bets are winning over Gen Z

📲 NEW APP

The fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor called Loops… which, confusingly, is also the name Threads (which is also on the fediverse) appears to be using for a new feature coming soon…

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

"I have a lot more anger for the people who lied in a way that ruined my entire life and that saw my own company ripped out from under me that I'd spent my entire adult life building”

– Oculus founder Palmer Luckey still holds a grudge for his ousting from Meta, but not against Zuck

• Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says the site is increasingly a primary destination for search

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👀 MY FAV READS

Forget OpenA,I Meta is well-positioned to the biggest beneficiary of AI and the largest company in the world, Ben Thompson argues.

Also worth checking out…

• How social media video clippers have become some of the most powerful outlets of the 2024 campaign
  

• “I created a chatbot of myself and had it answer my Instagram DMs. Boy, was I annoying.”

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😮 WTF?!

Lily Allen says her OnlyFans feet pictures make her more money than her Spotify streams.

But also read this useful take from Drowned In Sound about why this isn’t the whole picture and it could make perfect sense.

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🤦‍♂️ FAIL

Well this is the opposite of good….

“Ahead of the election, anti-government militias are using Facebook to recruit, coordinate training, and promote ballot box stakeouts. Meta isn’t shutting their groups down and is even auto-generating pages.”

Also in WTF news this week…

• X repeatedly allowed ads for Lego-style Hitler figurines to be targeted to German users

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🪦 RIP

Social media features heading for the graveyard:

Aw, these animations were quite charming… but now they’re disappearing from your LinkedIn feed.

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👌 PRO TIPS

When is the best time to post your content on each platform? Here’s Hootsuite with 2024 data:

• How brands can navigate the murky world of online streaming

• 7 ways to use Facebook's ad library to improve your ads

• The ultimate guide to Facebook Marketing and Ads 2024

• Infographic: An handy overview of YouTube ad formats

• TikTok launched an updated TikTok Academy marketing education platform

• LinkedIn has shared research into the effectiveness of CTV campaigns

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❌ YOUTUBE FAKE NEWS

No, YouTube isn't hiding video view counts or upload date

A homepage layout that hides video view counts and upload dates was doing the rounds this week. Was it a new test? No. YouTube has explained that someone probably just had a browser extension switched on.

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

• ITV is recruiting a Social Media Manager [hybrid, London, UK]

• E.ON needs a Social & Content Manager [Nottingham, UK]

• Muck Rack is looking for a Social Media Manager [remote, USA]

• Code.org is hiring a Social Media Strategist & Community Manager [remote, USA]

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

$20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

– The hilarious, insane amount of money Russia has fined YouTube ($20 decillion)
That’s more money than exists in the world. Good luck getting that, Vladimir!

• 6% of Americans aged 16-54 are full-time Creators or influencers, earning an average of $179k per year

• Forbes’ Top Creators list for 2024 earned almost $720 million over the last 12 months—a jump of $20 million from 2023

• LinkedIn has verified 55 million users to combat AI misinformation. But that’s only 5.5% of its of 1 billion members.

• 26% of marketers are planning to reduce ad spend on X in 2025

• Trump’s Truth Social Media Company is generating less revenue than one McDonald's franchise.

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.📈 CHARTED

How Snap’s share price has plummeted since its pandemic boom

• …and Snap has only once made a quarterly profit since going public

• How X is becoming more right-wing in the US

• …And the White House’s posts on X are garnering declining view numbers

• LinkedIn’s monthly active user numbers in Europe, country by country

• Meta’s Reality Labs losses charted

• Reddit’s revenue growth charted

• YouTube is the most used social platform across generations to read, watch and listen to creator content

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• People are putting stolen credit card details up for grabs on Threads. [The Register]

• Mark Zuckerberg says the next LlamaAI models are being trained on a GPU cluster “bigger than anything” from rival companies. [Wired $$$]

• Liv, a pioneer in mixed reality capture, has partnered with Meta to become the official capture solution for Meta Quest wireless virtual reality headsets. [VentureBeat]

• Meta’s Llama does not fit OSI’s new definition of Open Source AI. [The Verge]

New features and tests:

Facebook:

• Facebook has added a shortcut for creating a note on Android devices. [@jonahmanzano]

Instagram:

• Instagram has been spotted showing Suggested Reels with a new design featuring rounded corners and more space. [@lindseygamble_]

• Instagram has added a new ‘Story replies’ message filter in the ‘Requests’ section [@oncescuradu]

• Instagram has added some filters for notifications on Android. [@oncescuradu]

• Meta Pay being centralised in Instagram’s Accounts Center. [@chris]

• Instagram has moved the “Facebook profile” link from the “Links” section to the main profile page. [@oncescuradu]

• Instagram has added a new “See how far your reach can go” ad tool in the Professional Dashboard. [@oncescuradu]

WhatsApp:

• WhatsApp is testing a Status updates widget on iOS. [@oncescuradu]

• WhatsApp is testing a menu bar icon on Mac. [@theahmedghanem]

• WhatsApp is rolling out a new phone call dialer feature on iPad. [@wabetainfo]

.

• X has blocked Iran’s supreme leader. [Fast Company]

• X’s payments feature seems to be delayed after the company withdrew its application for a licence in New York. [Ars Technics]

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• TikTok is marking Cybersecurity Awareness Month with a #BeCyberSmart campaign. [TikTok Newsroom]

• TikTok’s parent ByteDance is to set up AI research centre in Europe. [Tech in Asia]

New features and tests:

• TikTok’s Studio app now has an Inspiration feed. [@jonahmanzano]

• TikTok DMs currently have a Halloween animation. [@jonahmanzano]

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• Snapchat is the most-used app for online grooming, says charity the NSPCC [BBC News]

• 'Sickening' Molly Russell chatbots were found on Character.ai. [BBC News]

• Election deniers are using Telegram to rally poll watchers in swing states. [Bloomberg $$$]

• LinkedIn has launched a Gen-Z focused campaign to raise awareness of its TikTok-like video feed. [Mobile Marketing]

• The name YouTube Shorts isn't a trademark infringement, a UK court has ruled. [Engadget]

• Snap has expanded developer access to its new Spectacles outside the US for the first time, to Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. [Snap newsroom]

• Trump’s first Snapchat ad shows him giving thumbs-up at the 9/11 memorial. [The Daily Beast]

• Crypto sleuths allege that MrBeast has a complex web of 50 cryptocurrency wallets and made has $23 million through various shady crypto schemes. [Gizmodo]

• Google has applied for a patent for a system to enhance the quality of user-generated content. [@mattnavarra]

Insights to give you an edge at work:

• LinkedIn has launched a new report on evolving professional trends. [Social Media Today]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

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

“Part of Morgan McGuire’s calculation as she’s deciding where to go to college is what will look good on TikTok. She wants to make sure the campus is pretty and that there are fun events like football games to document in bite-sized videos.

“It’s a factor she didn’t expect to consider as a high school senior, but now she has 750,000 followers to think about.”

• What happens to your TikTok account when you die? Here’s how to prepare your data for the afterlife

• Would you pay someone to teach you how to be an influencer?

• When does Instagram decide a nipple becomes female?

• The new dark money: How influencers get paid big bucks to court your vote

• How to use Instagram to date when your coworkers are following you

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😳 AND FINALLY…

What Zuck did for Halloween. "When your house full of girls decides to be ballerinas, be John Wick”. 🥸 🎃

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

… I’m not got to keep you a moment longer. My eyes are barely opening at this point!

I hope I didn’t miss too many typos this week!

Right… I’m heading off to get a spray tan for the first time. Long story. Don’t ask. 🫣

Goodbye, geeks!

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

(Trump image in this week’s cover image via @esqueer_)