Features & insight
Features and insight
Expert analysis, reporting and long reads on the platforms, people and strategies shaping social media.
Meta's BlackRock Data Center Deal Shows Who Really Pays for AI (and What That Means for Marketers)
Meta announced a venture with BlackRock to finance a $14 billion data center in El Paso, Texas. The telling detail? Meta owns just 20%, meaning most of its AI infrastructure cost stays off its books, and the move signals how social platforms are now funding the compute power behind every feature marketers rely on.
Facebook's Marketplace unbundling reveals where social commerce value really lives
Meta is splitting Marketplace sellers into a dedicated app and launching free verification badges. The move says more about the future of social platforms than any anniversary celebration.
Fanfix's $300M Milestone Hides a Sharp Reality: Most Revenue Comes from Paid DMs, Not Subscriptions
The creator platform crossed $300 million in payouts and markets itself as a subscription business. Yet over 60% of creator earnings come from paid direct messages, revealing a very different monetisation model than advertised.
YouTube Shorts removes dislike button as platform shifts to hearts and menu-based feedback
The change, rolled out in July 2026, removes a visible negative signal from the interface and redirects creators toward watch time and swipe-away rates as their primary performance metrics.
Reddit blocks 25,000 AI spam posts daily as content licensing deals fuel manipulation epidemic
Reddit disclosed on 6 July that it now stops 25,000 daily AI-written posts designed to manipulate ChatGPT and Gemini responses. The irony is stark: brands exploit the platform's own OpenAI and Google licensing deals to poison the data those companies paid for.
Meta awards AI glasses grants to 30 organizations focused on accessibility and workplace safety
The recipients of Meta's AI Glasses Impact Grants have been announced, backing projects from agricultural monitoring to hands-free workplace training. For social media marketers, the move signals where wearable content creation is heading next.
Khaby Lame becomes Holafly brand ambassador as top creators shift from posts to partnerships
The world's most followed TikTok creator has joined travel tech company Holafly as global brand ambassador, a deal that shows how top-tier talent is moving beyond one-off sponsorships into longer-term commercial roles.
LinkedIn expands B2B ad tracking with SHA256 IP matching and predictive audience IDs
Mid-July API updates introduce hashed IP address matching for Conversions API and read-only predictive audience identifiers, as LinkedIn builds server-side infrastructure to bypass browser-based attribution loss.
TikTok Mini Series brings episodic ad format and Growth Max automation to brands chasing recurring viewers, not one-off clicks
TikTok has formalised long-form commerce storytelling with Mini Series, an in-app episodic feature now paired with Growth Max performance automation. Brands become publishers; audiences become recurring viewers before they become customers.
Meta AI now builds, plans and follows through without waiting for you
Powered by Muse Spark 1.1, Meta's AI assistant can connect to your calendar, generate daily briefings, create slides and execute multi-step tasks autonomously. The shift moves Meta from Q&A chatbot to productivity tool, and from thinking to acting.
YouTube finally lets creators upload custom Shorts thumbnails
After years of requests, YouTube Partner Program creators can now fully customise Shorts thumbnails, bringing the format in line with long-form videos and rival platforms. Plus, AI-generated thumbnails land in Ask Studio.
WhatsApp's Latest Features Are About Where You Work, Not Just Where You Chat
Meta's newest WhatsApp updates signal a strategic shift: the platform isn't chasing features, it's following the messy, multi-device reality of how professionals actually live. For social media marketers, that context changes everything.
Social Profiles & Google Search Console
Google Search Console now allows you to connect your social pages to it and see how your content is performing in search results. I've reviewed various articles on this topic, synthesised main points and provided some of my own opinions too.
Facebook Verified: Meta's free badge puts trust signals in everyone's hands
Meta is rolling out Facebook Verified, a free selfie-based badge confirming someone's a real person. It's separate from Meta Verified's paid subscription, targets AI-generated fakes, and changes what a checkmark means for brands and creators.
Meta's new Seller app hands Marketplace power sellers what eBay had for years
Facebook Marketplace now has a dedicated iOS app with AI listing tools, performance dashboards, and bulk inventory management. It's Meta's bet that keeping its most active sellers inside its ecosystem will stave off competition from TikTok Shop and live-selling platforms.
SocialDay's Social Media Marketing Awards shortlists drop next week
The 2026 Social Media Marketing Awards will reveal finalists across campaign, agency, and individual categories next week, with the UK ceremony set for October and US entries still open for the November event in New York.
Snapchat Creator Subscriptions launch globally: what the 60% revenue split actually means for creators
Snapchat rolled out paid creator subscriptions globally by April 2026, four years after Meta and with a worse revenue split than YouTube. The real question isn't whether the feature exists,it's whether creators will build a paying audience on a platform where they've never had to before.
Threads hits 500 million users and launches Your Algo, the private feed control that could end 'Dear Algo' posts
Meta's Twitter rival reached half a billion monthly users on 17 June while rolling out Your Algo, a private feed customisation tool that shifts algorithm negotiation from public performance to personal control. For brands, that changes what community managers should be posting.
EU gives platforms until autumn to prove they can police under-13s themselves
Von der Leyen confirmed phased age restrictions for under-13s on 13 July, but stopped short of a hard ban. Instead, the Commission is putting platforms on notice: build compliant age verification now, or face legislation after summer.
WhatsApp's Latest Device Push Shows Where Social Marketing Is Actually Heading
WhatsApp's new cross-device features (CarPlay overhaul, standalone iPad accounts, and in-app PDF tools) aren't just about convenience. They're building the infrastructure for wherever customer conversations actually happen, and that changes what brands should be building on the platform.
Threads finally gets parental controls as regulators tighten grip on teen access
Meta is rolling out Family Center supervision tools to Threads, three years after launch. The timing is pointed: Europe just announced age-based restrictions across the bloc, and Meta's own parental controls on Instagram and Facebook have been found wanting.