Features & insight
Features and insight
Expert analysis, reporting and long reads on the platforms, people and strategies shaping social media.
WhatsApp's guest calling shifts the bar for brand accessibility, not just convenience
Anyone can now join a WhatsApp call without an account, removing the last friction point for brands running customer service through the platform. The wider question is who gets left outside the waiting room.
YouTube now edges TV for US political news, forcing brands to rethink issue-led content distribution
Syracuse University research finds YouTube has narrowly overtaken television as Americans' primary source for political news, a shift that requires social teams to reconsider where they place advocacy and values-based content in the final weeks before an election.
The Ultimate Resource Stack: Navigating the Modern Social Media Intelligence Landscape
A practical guide to the resources social media marketers can use to stay informed, plan stronger campaigns and measure results. Explore SocialDay's The Sauce, official platform training, social listening tools and audience research, with a weekly workflow to put them to use.
Reddit's Developer Platform adds wiki access, closing the last gap forcing moderation bots to stay on the old API
Reddit is adding wiki pages capability to its Developer Platform, removing a constraint that had kept moderation tools tethered to the public Data API ahead of its March 2027 shutdown.
Facebook's natural language algorithm controls will make topic consistency matter more than engagement bait
Meta is rolling out Your Algorithm on Facebook, letting users type what they want to see. For creators and brands, it means reach will increasingly depend on whether content matches topics people have explicitly asked for, not just whether it gets likes.
WhatsApp's in-app browser for iPhone kills the last link-tracking signal brands could see
The move from business-only to all links closes the attribution gap that third-party tools were built to fill. For brands sending WhatsApp campaigns, the change removes the one remaining path to match clicks to conversions.
Pinterest turns its Barbie DreamHouse activation into a commerce test for Restyle, the AI tool that makes saved pins shoppable in your own room
The Barbie experience inside Restyle is Pinterest's first brand collaboration for a tool that exists to close the gap between saving a pin and buying what's in it. For home decor and furniture brands, it's the earliest signal of what the platform's AI shopping future actually looks like.
LinkedIn creators securing brand deals while keeping day jobs as 60% growth reshapes B2B monetisation
The platform's 60 per cent creator surge since 2024 signals a fundamental shift: professionals posting about their actual work are now landing sponsorships worth tens of thousands of dollars, turning LinkedIn from career network into viable income stream without quitting the office.
LinkedIn Advice Sessions turns profiles into storefronts as platform monetises expert consultation
LinkedIn now handles booking, payment and video calls for paid consultations inside a single platform, collapsing the Calendly-Stripe-Zoom workflow that has defined professional services infrastructure since 2020.
YouTube's October Demand Gen update shifts performance from creative to data infrastructure
Google's latest Demand Gen Drop makes first-party data the performance variable, not the ad itself. Advertisers using Google Tag Gateway now see over 20% conversion uplift in Demand Gen campaigns, but the metric measures signal recovery, not new demand.
WhatsApp's scheduled messages arrive seven years after Telegram, closing the automation gap brands were filling with workarounds
WhatsApp is rolling out native message scheduling to Android beta users, matching a feature Telegram launched in 2019. For brands already stretched across time zones and API templates, it signals the end of shortcuts and the start of a long-overdue automation layer.
Substack gives readers the dial: what the platform's new feed controls mean for creators
Substack has handed readers direct control over video, longform, keywords and AI labels in their feeds. It's the latest platform to crack open the algorithm, and the implications run far beyond email newsletters.
BBC News launches 24/7 YouTube stream as legacy broadcasters test whether platform distribution can recapture younger audiences
The trial, live since October 15 in the UK and US, follows YouTube reporting 18 billion hours of news viewing in the first half of 2026. The question is whether simulcasting solves an audience problem or simply moves it to someone else's infrastructure.
One-off brand deals still dominate influencer marketing despite industry's long-term partnership talk
New US data shows 69% of Instagram, 72% of TikTok and 49% of YouTube collaborations remain single-activation despite marketers insisting they want retention. The gap between what brands say and how they structure budgets reveals where influencer marketing is actually failing.
FOX wires creator content straight into ad sales with two SVP hires, signalling how legacy media now values creator IP
Bryan Thoensen and Kirsten McAuliffe join FOX Creator Studios in newly created SVP roles, but it's McAuliffe's reporting line direct to entertainment ad sales that reveals legacy broadcasters now treat creator-led programming as premium inventory, not a digital experiment.
What Farah Khan's spontaneity principle tells creators about proving tool adoption beyond the obvious
Meta closed its Edits Film Festival with a filmmaker who earns more from Instagram than cinema. The platform angle everyone ran is already old. The real story is what creators are now expected to prove when a platform asks them to switch tools.
YouTube raises Partner Program entry bar to 8,000 watch hours from February 2027
The first change to creator monetisation requirements since 2018 doubles the entry threshold for new applicants and introduces a rolling 10 million view floor for Shorts revenue, forcing smaller creators to rethink YouTube as an early-stage income platform.
Meta's GEM now runs every ad auction with one model trained across Facebook, Instagram and Reels
The 2026 generation replaces separate prediction systems with a single foundation model that Meta says delivered 18.9% more conversions and 12% higher click-through rates. What changes for advertisers is the limit on manual control, not the performance ceiling.
Universities launch creator economy degrees as brands now compete with institutional credentials for talent
Arizona State, Stanford and Syracuse have formalised the creator economy into academic programmes, creating a credentialled talent pipeline for an industry where most social media professionals report unclear career paths.
TikTok's 48-hour follower test kills broad reach for creators with disengaged audiences
New videos now spend two days with existing followers before the algorithm decides whether they deserve non-follower distribution. For creators who built audiences in the viral era, that changes the job.
Audiences no longer distinguish between creators and journalists, forcing brands to rethink credibility partnerships
A Syracuse University study finds 60% of Americans trust independent news creators as much as professional journalists on political topics, collapsing the distinction brands have used to justify traditional media partnerships over creator deals.
Business Women, Not Girls: Carolina Barbosa on the Skipped Rung and Where Burnout Actually Peaks
Why does burnout peak at social media manager level? Carolina Barbosa connects missing junior roles, unclear strategy and overloaded teams in our Career Ladder research.
YouTube's 20,000 creator survey reveals Europe's €8.4 billion economy is locked out of policy and funding
Two-thirds of European creators receive no government support, despite contributing more to GDP than many legacy sectors. YouTube's Creative Capital report exposes the structural barriers holding back an export economy built by entrepreneurs regulators don't officially recognise.