Lucy Hall
Author archive
Latest articles by Lucy Hall
- YouTube puts five creator shows through Venice and Toronto to prove a point advertisers are supposed to notice17 Sept 2026The platform debuted creator-led films and series at two prestigious film festivals to convince brands that YouTube's programming deserves television budgets. Whether that works depends on what happens after the premiere.
Mainstream culture hasn't disappeared. It just stopped waiting for Hollywood's permission.15 Sept 2026New research from YouTube and NRG reveals creators and memes now rival Hollywood celebrities for cultural influence, while The Backrooms franchise shows how digital lore can build a $394 million box office hit from the bottom up.
Snapchat launches event planning to capture what's already happening in DMs15 Sept 2026Snapchat Plans landed on 10 September with RSVP tracking for up to 200 guests, turning the platform where a third of young US users already organise plans into a structured event tool built to challenge Partiful and Apple Invites.
Snapchat brings Dynamic Product Ads into Chat as platform tests how far commerce can push into private messaging14 Sept 2026Catalog ads are now live in the inbox used by 85% of Snapchatters. The move turns private messaging into a commerce surface and raises the question every platform will have to answer: where does helpful cross into intrusive?
Disney opens El Capitan red carpet to creators as entertainment's power centre shifts14 Sept 2026Created in LA runs 17 to 18 September at the El Capitan Theatre and Walt Disney Studios lot, marking Disney's first formal recognition that creators are now storytellers on equal footing with traditional Hollywood.
Six Series A rounds in a single month show creator economy tooling still hunting for repeatable revenue14 Sept 2026Creator economy funding hit $1.39bn across 12 deals in September, but half were first institutional rounds. That points to an industry still figuring out which infrastructure layers brands will actually pay for at scale.
Pinterest tells advertisers to launch Q4 campaigns now, not November, as 55% of weekly users still shop post-Christmas14 Sept 2026The platform's latest guidance pushes brands to go live between September and November, citing Performance+ testing that showed 28% ROAS improvement for SMB advertisers. With festive activity spiking as early as September and post-Christmas shopping remaining strong, Pinterest is reframing Q4 as a months-long testing window, not a November sprint.
"Just Because Your Output Is a Lot Doesn't Mean Internally There's a Lot of You": Livi Arnold on Skipping Rungs and Buying Her Own Skills11 Sept 2026Livi Arnold on doing two rungs of the career ladder at once as an intern, paying to close her own commercial skills gap, and the gap between how big a social operation looks and how big it actually is.
Instagram pushes into the living room as TV app tests horizontal video and episodic series10 Sept 2026Samsung TV launch extends reach to most US connected devices, while casting, Stories on TV, and plans for longer creator formats signal Instagram's bet on shared, lean-back viewing rather than mobile scrolling.
Pinterest's luxury audience spends 87% more than shoppers on other platforms, now growing three times faster than its user base10 Sept 2026New research positions Pinterest as the single most effective platform for reaching high-intent luxury buyers, but the real story isn't reach. It's what happens before the purchase decision is made.
Meta's Muse agent sits between your audience and your brand. That changes how social marketing works.10 Sept 2026Muse doesn't just answer questions or schedule posts. It books tickets, makes purchases, and decides which brand wins the sale, all without a human clicking through to your landing page.
Social Media Has a Career Ladder Problem, and We Have the Receipts9 Sept 2026Our midway report on the Social Media Career Ladder is out today. One in ten practitioners can see a clear path, the entry rung has quietly stopped being an entry rung, and the top of the ladder is emptying at the same time as the bottom.
Pinterest turns its phone-free brand campaign into a couture front row stunt, making offline marketing part of the product9 Sept 2026The platform's partnership with designer Claudia Smith London at Fashion Week isn't content marketing. It's a proof-of-concept for brands that need to justify presence over reach.
Social Media Career Ladder: Why Social Is Still Priced as an Admin Job7 Sept 2026"If We Don't Fix the Root, It's Never Going to Grow a Proper Tree": Omobolaji Ajibare on Why Social Is Still Priced as an Admin Job
TikTok's Flip Stories hands early adopters an algorithmic boost as platform pushes photo-first content7 Sept 2026TikTok is actively promoting Flip Stories and other photo formats with extra reach, creating a window for creators to gain visibility before the format saturates. The pattern mirrors every new feature launch, but this time the reward is built into how the algorithm weights photo engagement.
YouTube's TV companion mode turns second-screen browsing into an engagement tool creators can finally measure7 Sept 2026YouTube has shipped a major control upgrade that lets viewers browse Shorts, comment and subscribe on their phones without interrupting what's playing on TV. For creators, it solves the retention paradox that's been killing long-form watch time since the living room became YouTube's biggest screen.
LinkedIn launches invite-only Next Gen Community to lower the barrier for early-career creators7 Sept 2026The 12-week cohort targets creators talking about work, culture, and navigating early career life, as LinkedIn bets on building creator infrastructure for younger professionals who fear showing up authentically.
Pinterest bets search intent beats ad expertise with Promote a Pin launch7 Sept 2026The platform is letting anyone boost a Pin in a few taps, but the real story is not the simplicity. It is where Pinterest is placing its competitive edge: on 40 billion monthly commercial searches that convert differently from social feeds.
Snapchat hands campaign bidding to advertiser measurement partners as Unified Attribution cuts app acquisition costs 26%7 Sept 2026Snapchat is now letting AppsFlyer and Adjust control how campaigns are optimised, not just how they're measured. The global rollout closes a gap that has cost app marketers millions in misaligned data and wasted spend.
California passes sweeping AI and social media restrictions as tech's home state tightens grip on platforms and automation3 Sept 2026Twenty-six bills now sit on Governor Newsom's desk, targeting everything from addictive feeds for under-16s to robo-boss firings and data center energy costs. The state's response to AI and platform harm just became the most comprehensive in the US.
Creator economy hits $323bn but 56% of full-time creators still earn below living wage as subscriptions replace sponsorships3 Sept 2026The creator economy grew 26.5% to $323.48bn in 2026, yet more than half of full-time creators earn under $44,000. The gap exposes a fundamental shift from brand deals to recurring revenue models, rewriting what sustainable creator income actually looks like.
Snapchat's Harry Potter activation shows what pre-launch marketing looks like when you own the platform, not just the ad space2 Sept 2026HBO and Snapchat are rolling out 12 AR lenses, Bitmoji fashion and physical mirrors months ahead of the HBO series premiere. The real lesson isn't the partnership. It's the timing, the surface area, and what it says about where TV budgets are moving.
Reddit's 15-second video ad goal is built for messages that take longer to land2 Sept 2026The new optimisation option rewards watch time over raw views. Brands running trailers, demos and testimonials now have a billing structure that reflects the full message, not just the opening seconds.
Instagram cuts reach for undisclosed AI profiles as deception undermines trust2 Sept 2026The platform will restrict unlabelled AI-generated accounts from Reels and Explore, moving from voluntary disclosure to algorithmic enforcement.
ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox face the EU's toughest platform rules. Here's what that changes for social marketers.2 Sept 2026The European Commission has designated ChatGPT as a search engine and Reddit and Roblox as very large platforms under the Digital Services Act. For social media marketers, that means stricter content moderation, new transparency requirements for ads, and fresh uncertainty around organic reach on platforms already under regulatory pressure.
LinkedIn ramps up fight against AI slop as EU user growth stalls2 Sept 2026The platform is blocking billions of automation attempts while its latest transparency reports show active user numbers in the EU have flatlined, exposing the tension between growth ambitions and content quality.
TikTok Shop hits $23.4bn in US sales, with creators driving three-quarters of revenue1 Sept 2026The platform now exceeds Target's online business as the fastest-growing US retailer for the second consecutive year, rewriting the rules of how products reach buyers and who controls the transaction.
WhatsApp's Writing Help does not write your messages. That is the point.28 Aug 2026The platform's new AI tone adjustment tool positions itself as an editor, not an author, and Meta is betting that distinction will keep businesses from turning to ChatGPT instead.
Ken Burns brings classroom courses to YouTube as educational content stakes rise28 Aug 2026The documentary filmmaker and PBS LearningMedia are putting curriculum-aligned courses on the Ken Burns YouTube channel, starting with The American Revolution. It's a signal of how seriously YouTube now treats educational credibility.
WhatsApp's new security upgrade targets the account takeover risk that's haunting brand teams28 Aug 2026Meta just replaced WhatsApp's six-digit PIN with full passwords and added caller context on Android. The changes are quietly solving one of the biggest blind spots in social and customer service workflows: who actually controls the account talking to your customers.