Today’s Edition

• Zuckerberg & Mosseri speak to Instagram’s present and future

• Amazon & TikTok are preparing to join the chatbot race

• Threads passed 175M users

• Netflix is attempting to move customers to plans with ads

• Insight: Zero-click Google searches are growing

Feature

🔮 This week at Instagram HQ

Zuckerberg confirmed that Meta is close to launching the first stage of its “AI Studio” platform, enabling Instagram creators to build AI versions of themselves that can interact with their community with direct messages.

Zuck stressed that AI disclosure labels will be used and seems convinced that users will want to interact with AI celebrities and content creators.

Instagram lead, Adam Mosseri, reiterated that sends-per-reach is one of the most important signals Instagram uses. He suggested that Creators should therefore “think about making content that people would want to send to a friend”.

Separately, Mosseri also confirmed that Instagram is sticking to short videos, rather than going into long form. TikTok on the other hand might become a longer-form video destination - after it started testing 60-minute videos.

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More Headlines

🛡️ Cloudflare launches free tool to block AI bots scraping website data

Cloudflare has addressed customer concerns about unauthorized data use with a new bot detection tool. The new one-click option aims to offer more protection than the traditional robots.txt file, which can be ignored by bots from AI companies.

Cloudflare

📈 Meta's Threads surpasses 175 million users in first year

The direct integration between Threads & Instagram helped make Threads the leading alternative to Elon Musk’s X platform.  Threads, introduced on July 5, 2023, has shown steady growth despite not matching the explosive start it had at launch. 

Social Media Today

📰 LinkedIn rolls out sponsored newsletters

Company pages can now pay to promote their LinkedIn newsletter in order to increase subscribers.The move comes amidst a 47% rise in newsletter engagement on LinkedIn, with over 184,000 newsletters now active on the platform.

Social Media Today

📈 Meta claims a 22% increase in conversions with GA4 integration

Meta is encouraging advertisers to link their Google Analytics 4 (GA4) data with their ad accounts for enhanced campaign performance. The recommended approach is to apply ‘UTM’ tags to the URLs used as Meta ads landing pages.

Search Engine Journal

📺 Netflix pushes users towards ad-based (or higher cost subscriptions) plans

Netflix is starting to phase out its most affordable ad-free plan. Soon customers will either need to pay more ($15.59 instead of $11.99) to go ad-free or move to the ad-supported tier - as Netflix looks to expand its reach for advertisers.

The Verge

📱 Noplace, a new social app positioned as a Gen Z Twitter, is quickly becoming one of the App Store’s most popular downloads.

Founded by Tiffany Zhong, the platform blends elements of MySpace and Twitter and aims to reclaim a simpler, ad-free social experience. Noplace is designed to “foster a place where people can express themselves" says Zhong.

Tech Crunch

🤖 TikTok and Amazon join the AI chatbot race with “Genie” and “Metis”

TikTok filed a trademark for  "Genie," an AI chatbot designed to enhance user engagement by adding conversational and generative AI features to the app. While Amazon's “Metis”, could work as a smart home assistant.

Semafor

🛍️ TikTok launches "Deals For You Days" one week before Amazon’s Prime Day.

TikTok will offer discounts on big-name brands including L'Oréal Paris, Maybelline New York, and Our Place. Shoppers can also access exclusive deals through TikTok LIVE events. TikTok is seizing every opportunity to show U.S. lawmakers how it supports commerce in the face of the ban.

Tiktok

🛍️ Etsy shifts focus back to artisan roots amidst competition from Amazon and Temu

To “keep commerce human” Etsy is introducing new labels that clarify product origins and launched a marketing campaign highlighting the human element in its sellers' creations.

CNBC

Insights

58.5% of Google searches end without the user clicking

A study by SparkToro found that the percentage of searches that end without a click in the U.S. decreased from 65% in 2021 to 58.5%.

1% of searches end with a Google ad link click and 40.5% of searches result in an organic link click.

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