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Hello, geeks!

Buckle up, because this week's Geekout is hotter than a stolen credit card on the dark web.

Before we dive in… We may be about to get seven NEW emojis.

The first one will be used A LOT. » Reveal new emojis « 😍

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What’s been going down in social media land?

Well… There’s more drama from TikTok's U.S ban battle, messy tech breakups, political puppet shows, and enough AI intrigue to make your head spin faster than a social media manager trying to decipher the latest algorithm change..

First up, TikTok's throwing more legal tantrums over the U.S government’s ban bill. The U.S government is still singing "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," but with way more lawyers. And less Taylor. 🎤

Meta and LG's VR headset fling is going down faster than a LinkedIn bro’s dreams of becoming an influencer. 🏝️

TikTok is expanding its state-affiliated media policy right before a major election. Are they shielding democracy or simply dodging controversy? 🤔

Meta is flashing the cash to woo Hollywood into their AI love nest. Will this be a beautiful collaboration or a Frankenstein data monster of epic proportions? 💰🤖

And finally, in a plot twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan proud, Meta is trying to make nice with news publishers after years of, well, not being so nice…

…They want to use their news articles to train their AI, but I'm guessing publishers are gonna need more than a fruit basket and a "sorry I stole your ad revenue" card to forgive and forget. 🙏

So yeah, another wild week in the world of social. Grab your nearest caffeine intake device and lets get into it…

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DON’T MISS THIS…

The social media scientists at Dash Hudson have just published a NEW case study that is download-worthy.

It uncovers how United Airlines grew their Instagram engagement by 85%, and reveals their social media playbook with tactics you can steal today. 👇🔥

Go Viral: United's Social Playbook, Now Yours

United is one of the most entertaining brands on social media right now. And its engagement stats have rocketed. 🚀 

Dash Hudson’s latest case study uncovers how United creates culturally relevant content, while elevating the brand and achieving an 85% increase in engagements on Instagram.

The full report leaks United’s top tactics including… 🧠
- Strategy rooted in a “creator mindset”
- Commitment to making its followers feel seen
- Curated UGC + always-on influencer strategy
- Measuring organic content to maximize paid media performance
…And lots more

Steal their social media playbook. Check out the FULL case study

And sign up for Dash Hudson’s 100% FREE 14-day trial. Risk-free. [ad]

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

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

2. Meta + LG’s Headset Partnership is Reportedly on the Rocks [CRUMBLING]

3. TikTok Expands its State-Affiliated Media Policy in Key Election Year [SHIELDING]

4. Meta + Google Offer Millions to Partner with Hollywood Studios on AI [DEAL-MAKING]

5. Meta Considering Deals With News Publishers to Train its AI [RECONCILING]

Ditch the Stock Video: Grab UGC That Tells a Story

Hey social media marketers + creators! Tired of generic stock footage?

Newsflare is your UGC secret weapon.

Unlike other user-generated video suppliers, Newsflare have direct relationships with their 75k+ creators, which means an ever-green supply of real, authentic content for your campaigns. 

And Newsflare’s Trust Algorithm^TM makes sure ownership is always authenticated (and you're always cleared to use it).

Newsflare’s in the business of stories, not stock…

• Real stories: 75k+ global filmmakers, not actors 🌎

• Always fresh: Evergreen content, no stale clips ✨

• Verified: With Newsflare’s Trust algorithm™ + 24/7 research team ✅

• More than just clips: We're in the business of storytelling, not stockpiling 🔥

Boost engagement, build trust, and get your audience hooked. Newsflare is the UGC library your campaigns have been craving.

Trusted by AP, NBC News, Disney and adam&eveDDB, ITN, Daily Mail [ad]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

Could Meta and news publishers have a healthier partnership this time?

Run for the hills, news publishers! Meta might want to partner with you again.

How many times Meta has partnered with news outlets, given them traffic or revenue, and then changed its mind and turned off the tap? You have to hope media companies will be a little more wary this time.

As Business Insider reports:

News content can a good source of timely, original, and accurate information, so the idea makes sense for Meta. But letting tech companies suck up their content into AI is a risky game for publishers.

Will the money they receive make up for lost traffic in the long run, if Meta’s AI just gives users the answers they need? And is this sustainable ongoing revenue? What if Meta decides it doesn’t need to renew the deals in the future?

The news business is in a perilous state at the moment, so ‘any port in a storm’ might be the logic that wins through. But given the AI companies like Meta need ever more high quality data, the price had better be right.

Meta is also reportedly in talks with Hollywood to supply content for its video generation AI, showing how content producers and AI companies could develop a symbiotic relationship if both sides treat each other with more respect than the content-scraping AI companies have to date.

So, news has an opportunity for a better relationship with Meta than it’s had in the past… if Meta decides to pursue these partnerships at all.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

Everything else worth knowing about from the past seven days…

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😆 LOL

Elon Musk's Grok AI on X is going well 😳

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🪧 BRANDS

Still using viral songs in your brand TikTok’s…? Be very careful. Music copyright is worth taking seriously for brand posts, as Marriott has found out…

Also, don’t miss:

• 👌 The social media manager for Surreal Cereal keeping it real with some honest clickbait 😆

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📈 MEMES

This week, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak called a general election… in the pouring rain (GREAT optics, Rishi).

Someone at 10 Downing Street must have known the memes would quickly follow

Meanwhile, this baby provided high-quality meme fuel with an unusual level of enthusiasm for the Four Seasons Orlando:

@sobrizzle

If the @Four Seasons Hotels is looking for a baby ambassador my niece got you 😂🤣😂🤣😂

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🌡️ VIRAL

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

Viral ‘song of the summer’ on TikTok, ‘Looking for a Man in Finance’ got a fresh dose of attention this week, thanks to some new lyrics….

Also:

• No, Apple is not going to delete the Clown emoji from the iPhone

• What the viral fake bus hammock TikTok says about staged videos

• The dance like it's the 80s trend is showing moves on TikTok

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri had a surprising answer when asked about what drives reach on the platform these days:

“More important than watch time or like and comment counts is send rates, [and] generally, I think the rate is more important than the count.

“The number of sends per reach, the number of likes per reach, the number of comments per reach. But sends per reach correlate more, in my experience, with overall reach than anything else"

Also:

• Meta’s AI chief says large language models will not reach human intelligence, and that current AI methods are flawed

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🔥 HOT TOPIC

Sure, creators know they have to label their ads and paid partnerships in posts… But what if they’re talking about their own brands?

At least in the UK, that question has been answered as regulator the ASA made clear promoting your own brands from a personal creator account is still very much an ad.

Grace Beverley found out the hard way….

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🪦 RIP

Social media features heading for the graveyard:

Twitch had news this week that will please third-party streaming software developers…

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😮 WTF?!

Remember the creator who sold her own bathwater five years ago? She only just got the $90,000 revenue this week!

Turns out PayPal wouldn’t let her have it, until news outlets started asking them about it this week:

Also:

• Whip cream for the face? A very TikTok way of selling sunscreen

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🤦 FAIL

Now it’s a publicly traded company, Reddit has been making big pushes forward with its product this year. But not all of them have been well received.

In a rare example of admitting it screwed up, the company has brought back its old awards system:

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🤖 SOCIAL AI

All the ways AI is transforming social media:

Meta has added an Imagine with AI option on Instagram DMs, Facebook posts, and Messenger

• Facebook could be getting ready to launch its generative AI features in the UK around the 18th of June.

• TikTok has launched Symphony, a suite of generative AI tools for brands

• TikTok is launching a ‘Create with AI’ assistant and has invited some users to early testing

• YouTube AI Dream Tracks can now generate instrumentals from simple text prompts

• WhatsApp is working on an AI-generated profile image feature

• X is developing a ‘Grok, Analysis!’ button for AI fact checks

• xAI is working on making Grok multimodal, allowing you to input images as well as text

• Meta’s AI chatbot can now scan news outlets and summarise their latest stories and headlines for anyone who asks

• Meta is working on a paid version of its AI assistant

• Meta has introduced Chameleon, a state-of-the-art multimodal model

• Meta is adding generative AI features to its marketing API

• LinkedIn has added labels for AI generated content

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

600 million

– How many monthly active users Elon Musk claims X now has

• A new report highlights the best times to post to social platforms in 2024

• 62% of US TikTok creators don’t think a ban will happen

• Gen Z is Pinterest’s fastest growing audience, making up 40% of global monthly users

• Pinterest says that trends like “tomboy femme” have seen a 3,900% increase in search activity in the app lately

• On scientific topics, a study found X’s Community Notes were accurate 96% of the time, and that the sources cited were of high quality 87% of the time

• Users encounter more YouTube videos on external websites than on YouTube itself

• The stats on how TikTok is being used to sell e-cigarettes to children, according to new study

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📈 CHARTED

A TikTok ban is popular with voters in the US, a Bloomberg poll shows

• People spent 30% more on TikTok Shop in March than they did in February, according to Earnest Analytics

• TikTok parent ByteDance now has China’s most popular AI Chatbot

• Amazon closes in on Meta as duopoly with Google fades

• 67% of US social media users are at least somewhat likely to research products on social media platforms before making a purchase

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• TikTok says it has disrupted more than a dozen influence campaigns this year. [The Verge]

• TikTok is working to remove posts about weight loss drugs like Ozempic from the For You feed. [New York Times $$$]

• TikTok plans layoffs among operations and marketing employees. [The Information $$$]

• Canada’s security intelligence chief warned China can use TikTok to spy on users. [Reuters $$$]

• TikTok faces a lawsuit from Nebraska over allegations of deceptively targeting teens. [Tech Times]

• South Korea has banned a viral TikTok music video praising Kim Jong Un, calling it 'psychological warfare'. [TechTimes]

• TikTok is being used to sell e-cigarettes to children, according to a new Oxford study. [Tech Times]

• TikTok parent ByteDance has acquired earbud maker Oladance, with an eye on future hardware. [Bloomberg $$$]

Insights to give you an edge at work:

• TikTok has launched a new media buying certification. [Social Media Today]

New features and tests:

• TikTok has announced ‘TikTok One’, a new hub for marketers to access creators, agency partners, and creative tools. [TechCrunch]

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• YouTube still serves as host for extremist communities, according to new research. [TechTimes]

• Sony is suing Marriott hotels for copyright infringement for including unlicensed music in Instagram and TikTok posts. [@RobertFreundLaw]

• Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said he has shifted his focus to AI after improving the company’s ad business. [Bloomberg $$$]

• Snapchat has announced a new partnership with data management platform Tealium. [Social Media Today]

• Snap has its eyes on growth as TikTok faces uncertain future in the US. [DigiDay $$$]

• Reddit has banned r/GoonCaves has been banned for violating Reddit’s non-consensual intimate media rules. [404 Media]

• The UK’s data protection watchdog has ended a privacy probe of Snap's GenAI chatbot, but has warned the industry it’s keeping an eye on AI. [TechCrunch]

• A Russian rights group says YouTube has threatened to block its anti-war channel. [Reuters $$$]

• AI-generated kids are drawing predators on TikTok and Instagram. [Forbes $$$]

• Linktree now has more than 50 million users and has rolled out its social commerce program to more creators. [TechCrunch]

• Bumble has acquired community building app Geneva to expand further into friendships. [TechCrunch]

Insights to give you an edge at work:

• The ultimate guide to LinkedIn Carousels and PDFs. [Oktopost]

• Snap has published an overview of its evolving ad tools. [Social Media Today]

• Pinterest has shared a new report into Gen-Z user trends. [Social Media Today]

• Pinterest has shared insights into key summer trends. [Social Media Today]

New features and tests:

• Snapchat has redesigned and unified its ad formats. [AdWeek $$$]

• Twitch has introduced new filtering tools that let you exclude sexual and violent content. [Engadget]

• Twitch has launched new Discord servers for partners. [Twitch blog]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

Longer reads to get stuck into when you have the free time:

“Many creators bend over backward to optimise videos for the algorithm, but some are experimenting with another concept: trusting their audience.”

• Why social media is the most misunderstood job in corporate America

• Do managers have a right to fire workers for divisive personal social media posts?

• Like it or not, the age of the employee social ambassador is here

• “Instagram's desperate move: Gen Z is fleeing the social media platform. Meta has a dumb new plan to win them back”

• Can Australia make age verification work for social media?

• This Instagram star might soon be mayor of one of Mexico’s wealthiest cities

• When TikTok therapy is more lucrative than seeing clients

• Why every marketer should be on Reddit

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😳 AND FINALLY…

81-year-old Joe Biden isn’t exactly king of memes himself, but his campaign staff have seen the power of ‘Dark Brandon’ and they want more.

Are you the expert meme lord Biden’s team needs?

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

…And that’s pretty much everything you need to know this week. ✅

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Right… I’m heading off for a wild night out with friends in… Worcester. 👇

Yeah… I don’t think Worcester gets wild. But maybe we can change that.

Look out for drunken social posts by me at around 1am.

Goodbye, geeks!

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