Social Media

As feature parity becomes strategy, Meta chases engagement and relevance.

Spotify will offer Partner Program in nine new markets: The platform hopes to attract more creators by expanding monetization opportunities—and draw attention from YouTube.

YouTube Shorts views get redefined: Starting March 31, every play counts as a view—but only “engaged views” will determine monetization and deeper insight.

Efforts to keep TikTok in the US grow, but confidence is low: While Democratic senators and Trump float ideas to extend the April deadline, key players are stepping back.

Younger consumers increasingly prefer creator content over TV, film: A Deloitte study indicates that advertisers need to rethink their strategies to remain competitive.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the unofficial list of the most interesting retailers for the month of March. Each month, our analysts Arielle Feger, Becky Schilling, and Sara Lebow (aka The Committee) put together a very unofficial list of the top eight retailers they're watching based on which are making the most interesting moves: Who's launching new initiatives? Which partnerships are moving the needle? Which standout marketing campaigns are being created? In this month's episode, Committee members Senior Director of Content Becky Schilling and Analyst Sara Lebow will defend their list against Principal Analyst Sky Canaves and Analyst Rachel Wolff, who will dispute the power rankings by attempting to move retailers up, down, on, or off the list.

Social media success was once defined by public stamps of approval, but now brands are recognizing that in-feed engagement is both an inaccurate and incomplete approach to measuring impact. Reaching consumers within their DMs has emerged as a growing strategy for many marketers.

Nine in 10 consumers worldwide use social media to keep up with trends and cultural moments, according to a January report from Sprout Social.

Brands are shifting away from traditional influencer marketing to tap into the power of everyday consumers sharing authentic content about products they genuinely use and love.

Why creator monetization matters: As influencer marketing spending grows, platforms that offer consistent payouts will retain creators who provide valuable ad space.

NIL fuels March Madness ad boom: College athletes are reshaping brand strategy as ad inventory sells out and real-time deals surge.

TikTok videos over 60 seconds perform best, study finds: The shift requires advertisers to rethink their short-form video strategy to meet consumers where they are.

Meta may consider ad-free subscription offer for the UK: While the company settled a suit with a UK citizen, a similar offering in the EU has faced pushback.

Internet liability law faces expiration threat: Lawmakers propose ending Section 230 protections to pressure tech firms on reform talks.

The failed buyout shows chipmakers may prefer autonomy over acquisition, even as demand for AI hardware keeps climbing.

While handy for creators and multilingual users, bot-written comments might alienate users in Meta’s already delicate social ecosystem.

Last week, Best Buy Ads launched Social+, an offering that allows brands and agencies to leverage Best Buy’s first-party data for social media campaigns. The tool is currently only available for Meta campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, but will expand to other social media networks in the future, per a press release.

OOH surges past $9B in ad spend: Programmatic DOOH and social amplification make OOH a performance-driven tool for modern advertisers.

This week, beauty buyers take action on texts, influencers have indirect influence, and podcast fandoms benefit brands.