Features & insight
Features and insight
Expert analysis, reporting and long reads on the platforms, people and strategies shaping social media.
Meta's $17bn settlement forces two-hour limits and overnight lockouts for teen users
The social media giant has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion and implement the most restrictive usage controls yet across Facebook and Instagram, reshaping how brands can reach teen audiences and how the platforms themselves function for anyone under 18.
What Substack's new collaboration and segmentation tools mean for newsletter growth in 2026
Substack has shipped Creator Match, audience-specific content blocks, global reply rules, and advanced podcast editing. The real question is which of these features changes how creators grow their lists, and which are just nice-to-have noise.
Unilever puts half its €8bn marketing budget into creators and wants one in every postcode
The world's biggest consumer goods company now works with 300,000 creators, transforming the creator model from a niche tactic into a mass production system. What it means for the industry, and what breaks when you scale this fast.
Snapchat adds 100-hour threshold creators must maintain to keep earning from Spotlight
Snapchat introduced a rolling performance bar in May that can pause monetised creators' income if they drop below 100 hours of Spotlight view time in the prior 28 days. The change shifts the platform away from viral jackpots towards sustained, schedule-driven rewards.
Manifest launches creator debit card with Mastercard as financial infrastructure becomes a distinct vertical
The embedded banking platform's new business debit card bundles fraud protection, invoicing, and cash-flow tools into a single account. Traditional finance is now building for the creator economy, not just tolerating it.
TikTok Shop creator levels now visible to brands, changing how sellers vet partners
TikTok has made its creator badge system visible to sellers, letting brands see which tier a creator holds before opening collaboration talks. The shift turns previously hidden performance metrics into front-facing signals that could reshape how partnerships form.
ARCOS Labs launches to help creators enforce IP rights against AI systems
The company behind forensic tool VN and crowdsourced platform Lightbar has emerged from stealth with backing from studios and talent agencies. For social media professionals, it signals a shift from reacting to AI-generated lookalikes to actively measuring and enforcing them.
Mastodon 5.0 tackles the composer problem everyone else solved a decade ago
The decentralised platform is finally moving its post composer out of the sidebar after ten years. For social media professionals watching the fediverse, the question isn't what's changing but whether it's enough to matter.
Discord suspends screensharing and video in Brazil after child safety order
Brazil's data protection authority forced the platform to disable video features from 17 August following a teenager's death during a livestream. Discord is complying while working to restore access.
LeBron James launches YouTube golf channel, proving athlete-owned content beats rented reach
The NBA star debuted his official channel with a 90-minute Scotland reunion featuring 2016 Cavaliers teammates. For social media marketers, the move reveals why the smartest athletes are building direct audience relationships instead of relying on platforms they don't control.
What changed in Instagram Stories for 2026 and what it means for social marketers
Instagram quietly evolved Stories this year with features that fundamentally shift how the format works for brands. Here's what actually matters and what you should do about it.
Pinterest embeds AI campaign assistant inside Ads Manager, turning platform data into creative recommendations
Business Assistant, unveiled at Cannes Lions on 17 June and now in closed US beta, surfaces trending searches as visual graphs and recommends specific Pins to promote, giving advertisers trend intelligence without leaving the ad platform.
Snapchat Specs bring AR advertising to wearable glasses as Snap beats Meta and Apple to consumer launch
Snap's consumer AR glasses land in August 2026, putting sponsored lenses on faces months before Meta's Orion ships in 2027. At $2,195, Specs open the race to make wearable advertising mainstream, but privacy and reach will decide whether brands follow the hardware.
Instagram's New Logo: What Social Media Marketers Actually Need to Know
Instagram has updated its wordmark for the first time in a decade, and while users are debating whether it reads "Instagzam," the real story is what the rebrand signals about platform priorities and what marketers should do next.
Snapchat builds HubSpot pipeline sync and opens UK and France to independent agencies
Two announcements in 72 hours show Snapchat meeting brands where they work: leads flow straight into HubSpot CRM, while smaller agencies in Britain and France can now join a partner programme previously locked to the United States.
WhatsApp's Scam Alert shows how to build AI safety features without breaking encryption
Meta has begun rolling out Scam Alert, an on-device machine learning system that flags suspicious messages on WhatsApp while keeping encryption intact. The real story is in the technical guarantees built around it.
Meta's dual workforce strategy reveals the real AI infrastructure bottleneck
The social media giant is now partnering with both union and non-union construction groups to build its data centres. The hedged bet exposes how labour shortages, not capital or chips, could decide who wins the AI race.
Pinterest expands creator partner network with Influencer agency tie-up
The visual discovery platform has added creator marketing agency Influencer to its official global marketing partner roster, as it doubles down on creator-led commerce through evergreen content that compounds over time.
Meta's $1 billion data center fund is really buying consent
The Future is for Everyone Fund targets communities hosting AI infrastructure. It's not charity. It's the price of keeping the cranes moving when 71% of Americans oppose the builds and $130 billion in projects were blocked in Q1 alone.
TikTok One Creative Suite: what it actually changes for advertisers
TikTok has consolidated its creator discovery, AI production tools, and content amplification features into a single platform. The shift matters less for what's new and more for what it finally makes possible at scale.
Pinterest deepens WNBA presence at All-Star Week, six months after first sports deal
The platform joined 34 partners at Chicago's fan festival and participated in the league's inaugural Media & Innovation Summit, extending the New York Liberty partnership it announced in May 2025 into a broader league footprint.
The Social Media Career Ladder: What We Know So Far
Hardly anyone in social media can describe their career path as clear, and that doesn't improve with seniority. We asked the industry what progression actually looks like. The answers point to a value gap, a pay gap, a ceiling at Manager, and a bottom rung that AI is slowly removing.
EU forces platforms to hand over data within 8 hours from Monday
The EU's e-Evidence Regulation goes live 18 August, requiring social platforms to produce user data within 8 hours in emergencies. Most social teams don't know the obligation exists, let alone have a process to meet it.