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Hello, geeks!

Welcome to this week’s ‘very demure’ edition of Geekout. 💅

Kicking things off this week…

The new LinkedIn feature sending social media managers wild!

Can you guess what it is?👇🔥

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I’ve made a promise to a few people (and myself) this week that I won’t rant about the ‘business genius’ clown over at X.

…even though the news is, frustratingly, dominated by him and his new political love interest, Trump, with their cringe live X Spaces event earlier this week.

I have spent most of this week ranting giving interviews to BBC News, BBC Radio 5 Live, The Sun, Bloomberg UK, and more… about the bonkers billionaire.

I’m all Musk’ed out.

So, instead… Let’s dive straight into the biggest social media news headlines this week. 👇

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BUT DON’T MISS THIS…

This FREE newsletter is one of my ‘go-to’ news sources for Geekout.

It’s read by the world’s top marketers, and is written by media insiders Ben Smith (ex-BuzzFeed News) and Max Tani.

I highly recommend you check it out. 👇

The Media Insider Newsletter Top Marketers Swear By… And It’s Free!

Sick of getting your news secondhand via social media? 

Want the inside scoop on the media landscape, before anyone else?

This FREE newsletter is for YOU!

Semafor’s Media Newsletter takes you straight to the source, uncovering the political, cultural, and financial forces that shape the media landscape.

Penned by industry veterans Ben Smith (ex-BuzzFeed News) and Max Tani, who have a combined 20+ years reporting in the trenches,

Semafor Media isn't just news – it's the inside track on how news gets made. 

Expect sharp analysis, the occasional exclusive scoop, and insights you can leverage in your own social strategy.

It’s one of my must-read news sources for Geekout Newsletter.

Subscribe for FREE – and get ahead of latest media trends 🔥

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

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

2. xAI’s New Grok Image Generator Flooded X With Controversial AI Fakes [DISTURBING]

3. TikTok Resorts To Cash Incentives To Attract New Users As Growth Slow [INCENTIVISING]

4. Meta Shuts Down CrowdTangle Despite Pleas From Researchers And Journalists [WITHDRAWING]

5. President Biden Addressed Creators At First-Ever White House Creator Summit [INFLUENCING]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

The Elon and Donny Show didn’t go smoothly

Remember back when Donald Trump was kicked off Twitter?

The prospect of his return was seen as a source of drama. But now he’s back, it barely seems to matter. The wannabe second-time president is firmly in campaign ads mode on X, saving his trademark unhinged rants for Truth Social.

That said, where he did make an impact on X this week was in his live-streamed conversation with Elon Musk.

Predictably, it started off as a hot mess, with most listeners unable to join.

Musk blamed a DDoS attack, which anyone with any knowledge of such things thought was a hilarious excuse and highly unlikely. Some X staff even told the Verge there was no DDOS and Musk was making it up. The billionaire eventually admitted “unforced errors” were made on X’s side too.

Glitches ironed out, the interview went ahead, But what impact did all of this have?

Elon Musk claims it generated 1 billion views, even though on the X Space itself, only 1.3 million people were listening at its peak.

I think we all should have learned not to take Musk at his word by now. The web traffic watchers at Similarweb say it drove just 5% more web traffic to X than usual.

If that’s true, it’s worth considering how influential X truly is (or isn’t!) these days.

While the much-discussed exodus of UK users in the past couple of weeks hasn’t had a meaningful impact on overall usage, the journalists and other high-profile users choosing to make Threads or Bluesky their main platform means the quality and value of posts on X will continue to drift downwards, even if usage numbers stay pretty stable for the time being.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

Everything else worth knowing about from the past seven days…

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💬 YOU CAN QUOTE ME ON THAT

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

I gave a lengthy interview to The Sun ahead of Trump’s interview on X, and predicted the tech problems!

• I spoke to BBC News about why Meta, X and others have kept quiet whilst their platforms have been blamed for fuelling the recent UK riots

• I was invited on to the Bloomberg Politics podcast to give my take on the latest Elon X drama

• I spoke to BBC Radio 5 Live to give my thoughts on Elon’s addiction to shitposting about politics

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😆 LOL

Well, if it worked for Elon…

X is just pining for the fjords…

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📈 MEMES

I’m not sure who thought THIS was a good look for a movie promo image…

But the crazy horse bottom left certainly got 15 minutes of fame from it:

And let’s not forget the Australian breakdancer who captured everyone’s attention, if not a medal.

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🌡️ VIRAL

Everything went ‘demure’ this week on TikTok…

Posts tagged #demure spiked over the past week with more than 27,000 videos posted with the hashtag in the U.S., and 78,000 videos posted with the hashtag overall.

It hasn’t been confined to TikTok, either. According to Forbes, “demure” playlists have spiked on 2,500% Spotify over the past week

Oh and a Minion dying on a cross went viral too. 🤷‍♂️

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🪧 BRANDS

Speaking of the demure trend, brands were quick to get involved…

See more brands jumping on the ‘Demure’ trend… Including Netflix and Lionsgate.

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“I don’t think that it is a place of light, I think it is only a place of misery now.”

– UK government minister Jess Philips is no fan of X these days

• Former Twitter UK boss Bruce Daisley suggests Elon Musk should face arrest

• X CEO Linda Yaccarino called for an ad industry “reset”

• Elon Musk is super mad at Mark Cuban again, calling him “a 💩 in human form” 🙄🙄🙄

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👀 MY FAV READS

This is a fascinating read, looking at how the Kamala Harris campaign’s digital team are growing her social following with a savvy approach.

I also enjoyed reading…

• Your brand needs to eXit Musk’s binfire [The Drum]

• Elon Musk’s X reeks of failing social network syndrome [Bloomberg Opinion]

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😮 WTF?!

It’s what every wife wants… a seven-foot statue of themselves? Oh Zuck…

Also worth checking out this week:

• This cringe A.I. mock-up of Trump and Musk dancing is making people regret the invention of the internet
  

• YouTube channels are posting inappropriate content with child-focused thumbnails and titles, in an apparent attempt to attract a young audience
  

• Influencer marketing companies are using AI to analyse influencers and predict whether they will post political content

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🤦 FAIL

The new image generator from Elon Musk’s xAI might be incredibly impressive, but it’s also incredibly loose with brand safety… and lets people troll Musk with his own tool.

And there’s more…

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🪦 RIP

Social media features heading for the graveyard:

Bad news for social media managers, researchers, and journalists. Meta shut CrowdTangle down for good earlier this week:

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

• Apple is looking for a Fitness+ Experiences - Social Media Marketing Manager [Cupertino, CA, USA]

• X wants a Social & Community Manager [New York City, NY, USA]

• Channel 4 needs a Social Channels Lead [London, Leeds, or Manchester, UK]

• Snap is on the hunt for a Social Media Analyst [remote, UK - temporary]

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👌 PRO TIPS

Get more out of Google Trends in 2024 📈 

The tool has been updated to provide even more insights on emerging search trends:

Also worth a look…

• Your social media career path: How to get started in 2024

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🤖 SOCIAL A.I.

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

• WhatsApp has gone all in on stickers with an AI sticker maker and Giphy support

• WhatsApp is working on option to choose your Meta AI’s voice 

• xAI has released its Grok-2 model and added image generation on X

• YouTube has expanded AI topics in live streams and Super Chat likes

• CapCut is rolling out a feature to create videos with AI

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

385 MILLION

– The number of TikTok video views the Kamala Harris campaign clocked up in 20 days. More than DOUBLE what Biden’s campaign achieved in 5 months

• Elon Musk’s political tweets make up 17% of his feed, skyrocketing up from 2% in 2021

• Elon Musk claims the Trump interview on X generated 1 billion views

• Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s Live Spaces event drove just 5% more web traffic to X than normal

• There was no mass exodus from Elon Musk's X to Threads last week, although Threads boss Adam Mosseri told me it was false that Threads growth was flat

• X expects $2 billion in ad revenue this year, down from $2.5 billion in 2023

• X says that there were more than 238 million posts related to the Olympics, which drove a cumulative 103 billion impressions in the app

• Prominent progressive Instagram accounts have seen their reach decline by an average of 65% since Meta began suppressing politics on the platform

• More than 60% of new US voters oppose requiring kids under age 16 to seek parental consent to use social media

• 58% of all cryptocurrency ads on Facebook are either outright deep fake crypto scams, or at least break Meta’s advertising policies, a court has heard

• Instagram failed to act on 93% of abusive comments aimed at female politicians, a study says

• One publisher told AdWeek that it had its biggest month of Reddit referrals ever in July, up 132% YoY

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📈 CHARTED

Bluesky says UK traffic skyrocketed this week….

But this graph puts it in perspective….

• The impact of Duolingo’s offbeat TikTok content

• Elon Musk’s megaphone reach on X, charted

• Average views on TikTok per day for the BidenHQ and KamalaHQ accounts

• YouTube’s ever-growing ad empire, Charted

• The biggest news publishers on Instagram in August 2024

• Instagram is head and shoulders above Facebook in the eyes of brands

• LinkedIn reveals new insights into what drives B2B campaign success

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• Turkey has restored access to Instagram after blocking the app two weeks ago. [TechCrunch]

• A WhatsApp contact impersonation scam is targeting users, with over 636 victims reported in the UK this year. [ReadWrite]

• Meta has beaten a censorship lawsuit by Robert F Kennedy Jr's anti-vaccine group. [Reuters $$$]

• Russian propagandists are still targeting Americans in influence operations, Meta says. [NBC News]

New features and tests:

Facebook:

• Facebook now lets you share a broadcast channel message with your audience when creating a post on desktop. [@jonahmanzano]

• Facebook has added the ability to search on the Professional Dashboard. [@jonahmanzano]

Instagram:

• Instagram now shows draft previews for Reels. [@oncescuradu]

• Instagram now lets you check if you account is eligible for collaboration features. [@theahmedghanem]

• Instagram has added the option to receive or not receive messages from verified accounts. [@jonahmanzano]

• Instagram broadcast channels now support themes, and let you ask questions and share the answers. [@cmcalgary]

• Instagram is testing a new ‘More options’ button for the Reels creation process. [@onescruadu]

• Instagram has a new UI when editing a post, letting you add collaborators. [@oncescuradu]

Messenger:

• Messenger will soon allow us to use stickers as “conversation starters”. [@oncescuradu]

Threads:

• Threads posts shared via the Threads API will also be shared to the fediverse, starting from 28 August. [@theahmedghanem]

• Threads now lets you sort post activity by ‘default’ or ‘most recent’. [@oncescuradu]

WhatsApp:

• WhatsApp is working on a new default chat theme feature. [@WABetaInfo]

• WhatsApp is testing a duration feature for community group chat events. [@WABetaInfo]

• WhatsApp is rolling out a feature to prompt group descriptions for communities. [@WABetaInfo]

• WhatsApp is testing customisable bubble colours (again). [Android Police]

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

• You can now use the Meta Quest as a screen for HDMI devices. [The Verge]

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• X has been hit with Austrian data use complaint over AI training. [Reuters $$$]

• Twitter’s former EMEA boss says Elon Musk should face arrest if he incited UK riots. [The Guardian]

• Twitter’s former chairman is suing X for $20 million in shares. [Bloomberg $$$]

• Advertisers on Google are confused about their ads appearing on X, with whom Google has an ads partnership. [Marketing Brew]

• Politicians and the public should consider quitting X, says Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram. [The Guardian]

• A Texas judge in the lawsuit by Elon Musk's X against advertisers has stood down from the case following reports he owns Tesla stock. [Reuters $$$]

• An anti-terror tech group could remove X membership as it reportedly worries X threatens its credibility. [The Times $$$]

New features and tests:

• X has expanded the default set of reactions in DMs to include 🥰😭🤔💯🎉🙏. [@chris]

• X has added passkey logins for Android users. [Engadget]

• X is updating its API to let third-party apps create longform posts. [Social Media Today]

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• TikTok UK has has been running its first TikTok LIVE Careers Week. [TikTok Newsroom]

New features and tests:

• TikTok Live now has a lead generation feature. [@jonahmanzano]

• TikTok has added an account history feature under the Activity Center. [@jonahmanzano]

• TikTok has marked Post Malone’s new album with an interactive in-app experience. [TikTok Newsroom]

• TikTok Notes now lets you control your feed better by explaining why you’re not interested in certain content. [@jonahmanzano]

• TikTok Studio now lets you filter comments by date. [@jonahmanzano]

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and X failing to remove dangerous suicide and self-harm content, a study has found. [Sky News]

• Google’s AI overviews appear to favour YouTube and LinkedIn over Reddit. [Search Engine Journal]

• YouTube has shut a Portuguese extreme-right group's channel for violating its policy against hate speech. [Reuters $$$]

• Publishers are ramping up their presence on Reddit as it benefits from increased Google search visibility. [AdWeek $$$]

• TikTok and Snap are offering influencer agencies access to data and creators to gain competitive advantage. [Digiday $$$]

• The UK is considering forcing tech firms to remove ‘legal but harmful’ content after the recent riots. [Financial Times $$$]

• Linktree has acquired social media scheduler tool Plann. [TechCrunch]

• Reddit's increased reliance on Google traffic has Wall Street anxious. [CNBC]

• MrBeast’s ‘Beast Games’ show for Amazon has faced safety concerns and negative press. [Business Insider]

• …and a leaked memo from MrBeast to his team shows how he wants to make changes to his company. [Fast Company $$$]

• Reddit has launched new ‘agency partner’ badges as it tightens with the ad industry. [Social Media Today]

• Russia is suspected of having tested blocking Signal in parts of the country. [Reuters $$$]

New features and tests:

• YouTube is testing a new UI for the miniplayer on iOS. [@oncescuradu]

• Snapchat has simplified its ad campaign set-up process. [Social Media Today]

• Snapchat will now let US advertisers target ‘First Story’ campaigns at specific states. [Social Media Today]

• Flipboard users can now follow anyone in the fediverse. [TechCrunch]

• Substack now lets anyone publish posts, even if they don't have a newsletter. [TechCrunch]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

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

• LinkedIn is a mess. Here’s how to fix it

• The friendliest social network you’ve never heard of

• Elon Musk's battle with Mark Zuckerberg is looking like a lost cause

• How Gen Z athletes pulled the Olympics into the TikTok era

• How Islamic State supporters exploit TikTok's 'sounds' feature

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😳 AND FINALLY…

An Indian YouTuber has been jailed for allegedly cooking and eating a peacock, the country’s national bird.

“He later tried to claim he was just eating chicken” 🤥

The things people will do for YouTube views in 2024… 🙈

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

… And on that feathery ending, you’ve completed this week’s Geekout. 🙌🏻

I hope I didn’t spoil your appetite. 🍖

Time for me to head off and pour a glass of wine….

Just met my new girlfriend’s parents. I tried to act normal. Think it went ok.

But i’m not sure they know just how much of a nerd I really am.

Fingers crossed they don’t google me. 😬

Goodbye, geeks!

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