Social Media Industry Round-Up #46: X Is Going Through Changes, Subscription Spotlight for TikTok, Pinterest Presents and AI-Generated Summaries for YouTube

Our Marketing team is back with a roundup of news & industry updates. This way, we keep our team, clients and interested marketers up to date with what's going on in the social media industry :)

Last week, Elon Musk announced that he would become the platform’s Product and Engineering Chief, making Linda Yaccarino X’s new CEO, overseeing all divisions.

To encourage advertisers to spend money on the platform, X has announced that companies that haven’t spent at least $1,000 on ads in the previous 30 days or $6,000 on ads in the previous 180 days, could lose their verification.

In order to improve the user experience on the platform, Instagram is currently testing adding the saved tab directly on the user’s profile, but it would still be private to them.

Users can now manage broadcast channels directly from their desktops, making interacting and engaging with communities easier.

Meta has just released AudioCraft, an AI tool for audio and music, now available for experimentation. They’re open-sourcing MusicGen (for music), AudioGen (for sound) and EnCodec to generate the audio tracks.

TikTok has added a subscription spotlight feature, allowing users to add up to 10 images to showcase community benefits to non-subscribers.

The quarterly Pinterest report is finally here, with some stats worth highlighting:

• Pinterest added 2 million more users in Q2

• U.S. user growth has stagnated, while European usage declined

• 6% year-over-year revenue increase

Pinterest has already advertised the date for this year’s Pinterest Presents virtual event: the 13th of September.

Google keep working on ways to use generative AI search to help users find what they’re looking for more effectively.

The latest update is how-to videos at the top of the results page, as Google confirms that users learn something faster by visualising it, not reading about it.

Similar to TikTok’s Duet feature, YouTube has launched ‘Collab’, which allows users to record a Short in a side-by-side format with another Short or long-form YouTube video.

YouTube has also launched a Q&A sticker for creators to prompt direct responses from viewers within Shorts.

YouTube is currently testing AI-generated summaries, so viewers can know if it’s right for them and decide if they want to watch it.