Today's Guide to the Marketing Jungle from Social Media Examiner...
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The weekend is almost here, Alluser! Here's a recap of the most important insights, trends, and updates from the week. Catch up in minutes and go into next week prepared.
In today's edition:
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Are you losing targeting power with Meta's Advantage+ Campaigns?
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An easier path to your next YouTube thumbnail
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About disabled Facebook ad accounts
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Turn your team into your strongest marketing channel
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Using AI to boost your EQ
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Facebook Updates: Ads changes, content quality, and more
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Creating video with Gemini's Veo2
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AEO's role in AI for marketers
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🗞️ Industry news from Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more
Meta's Advantage+ Campaign Setup: Has Your Targeting Control Vanished?
If you've recently switched to Meta's streamlined Advantage+ Campaign setup, you might have noticed things look... different. Especially when it comes to targeting.
Jon Loomer has been hearing from many advertisers convinced they've lost the granular audience control they once had with original audiences. But is the algorithm actually limiting your targeting options, or is it merely a redesign?
Jon investigated every audience type across both systems, from age ranges and gender to custom audiences, lookalikes, and detailed targeting. He also compared exactly what happens when you click that mysterious "further limit the reach of your ads" link versus the old "switch to original audiences" option.
What he discovered might surprise you, especially regarding how performance goals affect your targeting control in both setups. Read more here.
YouTube Thumbnails, Faster and Easier
Ever stared at a blank graphic canvas, struggling to create that perfect thumbnail?
What if you could skip that whole process?
Nick Nimmin just shared something that might change your content game forever. Drop in a video link, and watch what happens. No more prompting headaches, no more guesswork about what works, no more wrestling with design tools.
Your future self (and your click-through rates) will thank you. Read more here.
Disabled Facebook Ad Account?
One minute, you're running Facebook ads; the next, you're staring at a policy violation notice and wondering what just happened.
The team at SmartMarketer wants you to know that getting shut down doesn't have to stall your momentum.
They've put together a step-by-step game plan for responding, appealing, and (hopefully) getting your account reinstated without losing your mind or your data.
If you've ever had your account shut down…
If you're worried it might happen…
Or if you just want a backup plan ready to go…
This is the post you'll want bookmarked and saved. It covers exactly what they've done to bounce back fast, plus how to prep a new account the smart way, just in case. Read more here.
Are You Ahead of the Curve, or Falling Behind?
While others are still trying to figure out how to use AI in their marketing, you could be:
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Mastering cutting-edge AI tools that drive measurable results
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Implementing proven strategies from successful AI marketers
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Staying ahead of the curve instead of playing catch-up
Your membership in the AI Business Society includes:
✓ Expert-Led Training from top AI marketing innovators
✓ A Welcoming Community of forward-thinking marketers
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Being an AI-powered marketer won't be optional much longer. Now is the best time to get started.
Yes, count me in!
Employee-Generated Content: Creating a Video First Strategy
Employee-generated content, similar to user-generated content, has evolved to become an essential part of brand strategy.
Rather than relying solely on outsourced content creation, businesses can leverage their internal team's knowledge and enthusiasm to promote products and services more authentically.
Ready to get started with employee-generated content?
Remember that learning to create engaging videos is a skill that develops with practice. Support your team with clear guidelines, proper training, and positive reinforcement, and you'll soon have a library of authentic content that resonates with your audience in ways that traditional marketing cannot.
To implement an effective employee-generated content strategy, follow the Three P's Framework: Planning, Producing, and Promoting.
#1: Planning Your Employee-Generated Content Program
The planning phase lays the groundwork for successful employee-generated content. Without proper planning, you risk getting content that doesn't align with your brand or strategic objectives.
Define Pillar Themes
Melissa Laurie suggests focusing on these entry-level content themes to get you started:
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Showcase the personalities and daily experiences of your team members and company culture.
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Spotlight industry trends and analysis, product or service tutorials and explanations, and how-to content related to your field.
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Share case studies of successful projects, insights into your winning strategies, and your work process.
Create Content Guidelines
You don't need a twelve-page document. Instead, develop simple brand guidelines for employee-generated videos that give your internal creators some creative latitude.
Cover basics like guidance on text styling. For example, do you want a consistent black-and-white style, or are you comfortable with employees using more colorful and diverse text treatments?
Be sure to include acceptable and unacceptable Practices. For example, specify areas in the office that are off-limits for filming, set guidelines around language (e.g., no swearing), and outline any sensitive topics to avoid.
Set Up a Submission System
Establish a clear process for employees to submit their videos.
To standardize this process, use a project management platform to set up a specialized dashboard where your staff can upload videos. Then, you have a dedicated place to give direct feedback, request changes, and approve content for publishing. You can also have a section for setting captions and hashtags.
#2: Producing Employee-Generated Content
The production phase is where your planning transforms into actual content and is often the most substantial part of implementing an employee-generated content program.
Many people assume that because everyone has a camera on their phone, they already know how to create videos. However, filming for social media requires skills that most employees don't naturally possess.
You need to set your team up for success by dedicating at least a full day to training your team on video creation. This training should cover:
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Content Theme Education: Explain the pillar content themes you've established and why they matter. Then, let employees decide which themes they might be most comfortable with and allow them to focus on those areas.
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Elements of Engaging Videos: Train your team on what makes videos perform well, such as first-frame optimization, pacing and delivery, and pattern interruption.
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Script Development: Give employees a video template that breaks down the essential elements of a video: a compelling hook, 1 to 3 main content points, and a call to action when appropriate. Then, guide them in creating one or two simple scripts for their videos.
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Practical Experience: During the training session, have each participant create at least one or two training videos. This hands-on practice builds confidence and provides immediate feedback opportunities.
Choose a Video Editing Approach
Depending on your team's skills and your desired workflow, Melissa outlines two approaches to video editing:
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Clean Version Submission: Have employees perform basic editing (trimming beginnings and endings, removing obvious mistakes) but submit a clean version without text overlays or effects. Your content team can then add branding elements, captions, and any necessary polish.
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Complete Video Submission: Employees with more advanced editing skills can create fully edited videos with text overlays, captions, and effects. However, this approach may require more revisions on your side.
#3: Promoting Employee-Generated Content
The final phase focuses on getting your employee-generated content in front of your audience and maximizing its impact.
A common misconception about employee-generated content is that employees must post videos on their personal profiles. Melissa clarifies that publishing this content on your company's official channels is the most effective approach. This approach gives you editorial control over what represents your brand while still showcasing authentic employee voices.
To maximize your investment in employee-generated content, Melissa recommends putting a small advertising budget behind your videos to improve visibility while providing valuable data on performance.
Pro Tip: Rather than requiring employees to share company videos on their personal profiles or tagging them from your company channel, focus on spotlighting their contributions through internal channels.
Today's advice is provided with insights from Melissa Laurie, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.
Watch the full interview on YouTube
Feeling unsure how to stay emotionally connected in a world increasingly driven by AI? Wondering how to preserve your authenticity and human touch while embracing powerful new technologies?
As more marketers and entrepreneurs integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their daily work, we're increasingly competing with other humans using AI, making our emotional intelligence the key differentiator that sets us apart in an environment of AI sameness.
Without the emotional context that humans provide, AI's potential remains limited.
How to Combine AI's Intelligence With Emotional Intelligence to Improve Business Results
Emotional intelligence can be applied in many situations but must be used responsibly and ethically.
Alongside her extensive use of AI, Claire maintains personal boundaries and a list of activities for which she won't use AI based on her own ethical guardrails. She shared that she used AI to help her develop these guidelines, creating a thoughtful framework for responsible use.
Consider creating a set of guidelines to govern your own use of AI as you apply emotional intelligence to your work.
#1: Start With the Enneagram for Emotional Intelligence Insights
The Enneagram categorizes people into nine basic personality types with distinct motivations, fears, and behavior patterns.
Understanding your Enneagram type can provide valuable insights into your natural tendencies, strengths, and blind spots. The Enneagram can also be valuable when navigating workplace dynamics, customer relationships, and personal interactions.
If you don't know your type, several online tests exists to help you discover it.
#2: Use AI With Your Enneagram Type for Personalized Business Strategy Advice
Open your preferred AI tool and tell it about your business. Then, give it context about you using your Enneagram type. From there, you can have a back-and-forth conversation with the AI to learn how to approach various scenarios successfully.
The AI will ask a series of follow-up questions.
While many people use AI for surface-level help, like writing emails, Claire believes starting with your fundamental concerns allows AI to provide more meaningful assistance rather than just tactical help.
For example, Claire was previously chasing small clients and wasn't seeing much success in her business. When she combined her personality test results with her business and operations details, she received a new plan she had never considered before. This gave her a new perspective, leading her to try new approaches and previously untapped communication channels. Although initially uncomfortable, this new direction led to much larger contracts and work that better aligned with her strengths. Recognizing her limitations, she brought on an operations-focused project manager.
You are a business growth strategist who understands the Enneagram. I am an 8w7. I am struggling to acquire larger clients, which is making it difficult to scale. Based on my personality, why am I struggling to scale my business?
#3: Use AI With Your Team Member's Enneagram Type to Improve Role Satisfaction
When Claire hired for her project manager role, she chose someone with excellent attention to detail.
Through the Enneagram, Claire discovered this person was an Enneagram 2 whose primary motivation didn't mirror Claire's motivation of hitting scorecard metrics or making more money. Instead, the motivation was helping others, and this team member needed to understand why she was doing each task and how it helped deliver on the business's mission.
Based on this insight, Claire changed her approach to emphasize the purpose behind each task and how it contributed to their company mission of helping small and medium businesses with AI. This adjustment transformed their working relationship.
You are a business growth strategist who understands the Enneagram. I am an 8w7, and my operations manager is a 2w3. How can I best communicate tasks to my manager so that she is properly motivated to complete them?
#4: Use AI to Discern a Client's or Contact's Enneagram Type for Improved Communications
What if you don't know someone's Enneagram type? In these cases, Claire recommends observing behavioral patterns and taking notes. Then, you can ask AI to review your notes and indicate possible Enneagram types.
Alternatively, you can ask AI to analyze someone's LinkedIn profile or writing style.
While these approaches won't give you refined results, you can use them to craft more effective communications. For example:
You are a business growth strategist who understands the Enneagram. I am reaching out to a cold prospect. Assuming this person is a 5w6, how should I write a cold outreach email to introduce myself and my business to them?
Today's advice provided with insights from Claire Bouvier, a featured guest on the AI Explored podcast.
Watch the full interview YouTube
On this week's Social Media Marketing Talk Show, Jerry Potter explores the latest Facebook news and what it means for marketers like you.
Meta's Q1 2025 Earnings Insights
According to the report, Meta generated $41.4b in ad revenue in Q1 of 2025, $3b more than Q4 of 2024. This increase is particularly notable because Q4 typically sees higher ad spending due to holiday promotions and, in the U.S., election advertising. The fact that Q1 outperformed Q4 suggests strong growth in Meta's advertising business.
For marketers managing ad budgets, it's worth noting that the average price per ad increased by 6% worldwide. While Meta characterized this as "only" 6%, this can represent a significant cost increase for businesses with larger advertising budgets.
The report also stated that Meta's family of apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp) reached 3.4 billion daily active people in Q1, up from 3.29 billion. Additionally, Threads has reportedly grown to 350 million active users, making it an increasingly important platform to consider in your marketing strategy.
Time Spent on Facebook and Instagram Declining
Interestingly, while Meta's shareholder report paints a picture of continuous growth and engagement, Mark Zuckerberg's recent testimony in a U.S. antitrust lawsuit presented a somewhat different narrative.
During his testimony to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook and Instagram's share of time spent on social media apps "has gone down meaningfully" and that much of the interaction people have on these platforms is directly with their friends and has shifted to messaging apps.
This contradiction between what Meta tells its shareholders and what it acknowledges in court aligns with the company's stated goal of positioning Instagram as a platform where people connect and message their friends rather than a place primarily for content discovery.
New Anti-Spam Measures That Could Affect Your Content Strategy
Facebook is implementing new anti-spam initiatives that aim to reduce content that disrupts user experience and authentic creator visibility. What's concerning for marketers is that some common marketing practices are now being flagged as potentially spammy behavior.
These new anti-spam measures will limit reach and monetization opportunities for accounts that use tactics including:
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Excessive hashtags (likely more than 3-4 hashtags)
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Unrelated captions (where the text doesn't match the visual content)
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Content duplication (recycling the same posts repeatedly)
Facebook is also enhancing its comment moderation system to allow users to flag irrelevant responses and implementing tools that automatically hide comments from suspected fake identities.
For marketers who rely on content recycling tools or use multiple hashtags to increase visibility, these changes signal a need to adjust strategies to avoid being caught up in these new filters.
Meta Verification: Important Updates for Verified Accounts
If you use Meta Verified for yourself or clients, an important update could affect your verification status. Meta has formalized limitations on profile changes prior to verification applications.
Users cannot make "excessive changes" to their profiles within a certain timeframe before applying for verification. These changes include modifications to profile names, pictures, usernames, locations, or account types.
While Meta hasn't specified exactly how many changes constitute "excessive" or defined the exact timeframe that would trigger a rejection, this formalization means verification applications could be denied on these grounds.
Though Meta hasn't explicitly stated whether this applies to Meta Verified for businesses yet, it's reasonable to assume similar rules might extend to business verification in the future.
Meta Testing New Verification Features
Meta is testing new features related to verification. One test involves in-app education that more clearly tells users when a business account is not yet Meta Verified. This tactic is reminiscent of Apple's privacy prompts, which used fear-based language to encourage users to opt out of tracking rather than presenting neutral options.
This approach seems designed to create an additional incentive for businesses to pursue verification, as it essentially highlights which accounts haven't yet been verified—potentially creating a form of "verification shaming."
Original Content Protections
Meta is testing advanced original content protection features for verified accounts. These include allowing subscribers to request human review of original content on Instagram, and adding an "original by" label that links back to the creator on any reposts, helping maximize engagement for original content
These features address content theft concerns and provide more protection for creators who invest in developing original material.
Advertising Updates: Dynamic Overlays Replace Ads Info
Meta is changing its ads interface by renaming the "Ads Info" label to "Dynamic Overlays." This change appears primarily to declutter the ad creation page while making the feature sound more valuable.
As part of this update, Meta has relocated the information labels for catalog items to the Advantage Plus creative enhancement section. These Dynamic Overlays are the elements you can add to your ads that display information like price, discounted price, percentage off, or free shipping.
The functionality remains largely the same, but marketers will now have greater flexibility to toggle each label type on or off individually rather than being limited to selecting just one at a time. This should allow for more customized ad presentations.
Meta AI App Launches: Implications for Marketers
Meta has launched a stand-alone Meta AI app, which no longer requires users to access the AI assistant through Messenger or other Meta platforms. This new app includes a discover feed where users can share and explore how others are using AI, and it offers enhanced personalization by remembering specific user preferences.
For marketers, this development presents several opportunities. First, it provides a free AI tool option, though comparisons to the free versions of other AI assistants like ChatGPT remain to be seen.
More significantly, the additional data gathering through this AI app could potentially enhance ad targeting. As the app collects more information about user preferences and behaviors, it could lead to smarter advertising through features like Advantage Plus.
Watch it on YouTube
Discovered: Create Mind-Blowing Videos with Just Your Phone
Have you spotted that new icon in your Gemini phone app yet? After weeks of anticipation, Paul Roetzer finally got his hands on Veo 2 – Google's AI video generator.
Imagine conjuring an entire cyberpunk cityscape, complete with flying cars and rain-slicked streets reflecting neon lights... all from a text prompt. And the best part? These 8-second videos materialize in about a minute.
Paul shares how he used Gemini to help him craft a detailed prompt that pushed the system to its limits--testing everything from complex environments to realistic physics and specific camera movements.
If you've been curious about the future of AI video creation but haven't had time to experiment, this might be your easiest entry point yet. No complex software required, just your phone and imagination. Read more and watch the video here.
AEO for AI
Brooke Sellas recently discovered why her best-performing content isn't just ranking well—it's being featured directly in AI responses. The game has fundamentally changed, and if you're still writing primarily for Google's traditional algorithm, you're already behind.
In this post, she explains why Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is quickly becoming the new must-have skill for anyone creating digital content.
Then, she shares three straightforward techniques to transform how your content performs across ChatGPT, Google's SGE, and voice assistants. The approach requires zero technical skills—just a willingness to think differently about how you structure information.
Want to know if your content is AEO-ready? Read more here.
Instagram Spotlights Stories Enhancements: For marketers looking to refresh their content strategy, Instagram highlighted several enhanced Stories features worth implementing. The Draw and Text tools have received upgrades, including special symbol capabilities and font styling options. Instagram
LinkedIn Details Market Voice Metrics: The platform walks marketers through what the Share of Voice (SOV) and Extra Share of Voice (ESOV) metrics mean, how to calculate them, and why they matter in today's competitive digital environment. LinkedIn
Veo Technology Transforms Product Images into 360° Videos: Google has unveiled the third generation of its product visualization technology, built on its state-of-the-art Veo video generation system. This breakthrough enables the transformation of static product images into consistent 360° video spins. The technology leverages Veo's advanced diffusion-based architecture, which excels at capturing complex interactions between light, materials, textures, and geometry. While the technology can generate realistic 3D representations from just one image, it does need to hallucinate unseen details (such as the back of an object when only the front is visible). Google
TikTok AI Alive Feature Transforms Photos into Dynamic Videos for Stories: This first-of-its-kind AI-driven image-to-video creation tool allows creators to animate still images with motion, atmospheric effects, and ambient sounds, all without requiring advanced editing skills. The resulting animated stories appear in For You and Following feeds as well as on profile pages, increasing content visibility and engagement opportunities. For transparency, all AI Alive stories feature an "AI-generated" label and contain C2PA metadata that identifies the content as AI-generated even when shared across platforms. TikTok
YouTube Launches a Voting Feature for Collaborative Playlists: The feature enables viewers to upvote or downvote videos to influence playlist order. Voting is anonymous but requires users to be signed in, and playlist owners can disable vote-based sorting. This feature is now available globally across YouTube's main app, music apps, and web platforms. YouTube
More Edits App Features for Creators: Users can now access more inspiration by viewing content made with Edits or created by similar creators, allowing them to discover new audio options and save trending reels for later use. The update also introduces video effects, enabling users to apply preset animations and visual changes to their video clips. Perhaps most significantly for content timing, the app now includes beat marker functionality that automatically detects beats in audio tracks, helping users align their clips, text, and overlays with the rhythm of their chosen music. Instagram's Creators via Threads
X Experiments With Thumbs Up and Down in Posts: A new interface replaces the traditional heart-shaped Like icon with a thumbs-up symbol and rearranges engagement buttons beneath posts. Some users also see a thumbs-down option, suggesting a possible shift toward upvote and downvote functionality. This change could give users a more direct way to express approval or disapproval, potentially helping X refine its algorithm and personalize content more effectively. For marketers, these changes could affect how engagement is measured and how content resonates within X's evolving feed environment. Social Media Today
X Updates Link Previews and CTAs for Sales Objective Ads: The new website card display format features a text bar and a customizable call-to-action button positioned along the bottom of the main image, creating a more distinctive appearance compared to organic posts. The update applies exclusively to paid advertisements, while regular organic posts will maintain their traditional layout with headlines appearing over visual content. Social Media Today
YouTube Announces Ads Products: YouTube announced new advertising features at Brandcast 2025, including Cultural Moments Sponsorships for high-visibility brand integration during major events, and Peak Points powered by Gemini to identify optimal ad placement during peak engagement moments. For connected TV, they introduced an immersive Masthead design offering edge-to-edge advertising and Shoppable CTV functionality enabling direct product browsing from television screens. YouTube
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