Monday, January 6

🌟 Today’s Highlights:

• TikTok’s Lemon8 is surging in popularity (despite potential US ban)

• Meta is doubling down on AI bot profiles

• Did you catch our 2024 Marketing Rewind?

• 📊 Stat of the Day: More than 1/3 of Spotify’s top podcasts in 2024 were published in a video format and more than 250M Spotify users have streamed a video podcast. (Source: Forbes & Spotify)

• 💡 Today’s Insight: What’s ahead for social platforms in 2025

💡 Today’s Insight 💡

What’s ahead for social platforms in 2025

🗞 TL;DR - As we’re easing into 2025, it’s a great time to recap what the major social platforms have unveiled in their upcoming plans and predictions for 2025. These trends, often geared toward consumers, provide brand marketers with a look into how to reach audiences on each platform in this new year.

💡 Insight - Across all social media platforms, many expect the apps to play a larger role in helping people foster IRL connections. Instead of being the place people swarm for connection and conversation, the digital platforms instead facilitate IRL plan organization and ideation for physical activities. Brands should lean into this and think about how to convert followers from the feed into real-life fans.

TikTok is still facing a potential US ban, which seems more and more unclear as we near the January 19 sell-off deadline. That said, people are still spending a major amount of time on the app and seem to continue to until it’s ripped out of their phones. Expect to see a major push for US support as we near the deadline – and potentially a mass exodus to another short-form video app if the ban follows through (IG Reels or YouTube Shorts are front-runners).

If you’re looking to target Gen Z and other younger consumers, Pinterest is where it’s at. Despite Millennials making up the app’s largest userbase in the US next year, 65% of the platform’s 2025 priorities are driven by Gen Z. Brands should take note from popular brands like Béis and Maybelline to see how the platform is boosting its shopping capabilities.

⚡️ Today’s Headlines ⚡️

🦾 TikTok is adding more generative AI features. The features include its “AI Group Shot” tool which allows users to add images of themselves and friends to an image template as well as AI-based suggestions for video captions.

🤖 Meta is doubling down on its generative AI bot profiles in 2025. According to Meta’s VP of product for gen AI, there will soon be a whole range of new AI profiles activated within its apps.

🍋 TikTok’s sister app Lemon8 is surging in popularity. The app surged to the #1 spot for free apps on Apple’s App Store in the new year. The platform, which is basically a combo of Pinterest and TikTok, uses TikTok’s algorithm and is also owned by ByteDance, which means it could also be banned in the US on January 19.

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