Prepare for fall with Pinterest's 2024 Fall Trends Report

Hello and welcome to this week’s Social Buddy newsletter, where we share the news from the world of social media, insights and tools for creators, and the latest social media marketing trends. 

Some highlights you’ll find this week: 

🍁 Pinterests Fall 2024 Trends report offers insights for the fall and into the holidays

🛍️ YouTube Shopping expands it’s Shopify partnership, a win for both brands and affiliates 

🎵 Customize your Instagram profile with a new musical feature

Check out the biggest headlines from this week in social media: 

Instagram added a new profile song feature that reminds us of Myspace

Instagram officially rolled out a new feature that allows users to add a song to their profiles - and it’s giving us 2000s Myspace nostalgia. To add a song you simply click “Edit Profile” and then search for a track from Instagram’s library. From there, you can choose a 30 second cut of your favorite song and it will appear in your Instagram bio. It won’t autoplay the way songs on Myspace used to, so visitors to your profile can choose to play or pause it. Instagram is launching this feature in collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter, who is teasing her new song “Taste” on her profile. It’s a fun new way to customize and add some personality to your Instagram profile. Read more.

YouTube Shopping expands its Shopify partnership 

As shopping on social media becomes more common, YouTube is continuing to grow its YouTube Shopping affiliate program and pushing for the platform to become more e-commerce friendly. YouTube has just expanded its partnership with Shopify, so now all Shopify Plus and Advanced merchants can sign up for the YouTube Shopping affiliate program. This expansion will help creators earn through more affiliate opportunities, and will help Shopify brands connect with creators to promote their products. Read more. 

Instagram is testing new profile cards with QR codes, and YouTube adds QR codes to all channels 

Instagram is testing another new feature on some creator accounts - a “profile card” with a QR code to link to their profile. The profile card is flippable, so one side shows the QR code while the other shows an overview with your profile picture, bio, category, and profile links. Instagram has pushed QR codes before with different formats, so this is just the latest in their efforts. YouTube is also rolling out a similar feature, with QR codes available to all channels. YouTube suggests, “You can then save it to your phone’s camera roll if you so choose, or pull it up to show someone nearby, so they can easily scan it to find your channel.” Read more. 

TikTok adds a new custom AI voiceover feature 

We’ve heard a lot about AI voiceovers, but TikTok has officially rolled out a new AI voiceover feature - of your own voice. Now, all users can “Create Your Own AI Voice” by speaking into the app. Once created, you can create videos with text-to-voice in your own personal voice, instead of the stock voices used before now. Users could always simply record a voiceover themselves, so this feature does not necessarily add much value in practice, but we’re interested to see if creators try it out. Read more. 

YouTube Creator Liaison answers creators’ questions in new Q&A series

YouTube’s Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie has started a new Q&A series on YouTube shorts where they answer common questions creators may have on the platform. So far, they’ve addressed questions about video file names, video categories, and keyword tags and how those factors may or may not affect visibility in the YouTube algorithm. The Q&A Series comes in the form of Shorts on this channel, and YouTube plans to continue to share tips in this format. For anyone looking to grow on YouTube, it might help to follow along to better optimize your videos performance. Read more. 

Meta officially launches cross-posting between Threads, Instagram, and Facebook

Meta has finally connected Threads to Instagram and Facebook, as all users can now cross-post to all three platforms at once. Facebook and Instagram have been connected for years, but as Meta continues to try to grow Threads, they’ve added it in as well after testing it out this spring. Users can set it up so that any post automatically posts on Threads as well, or you can share across platforms on a post-by-post basis. The benefit of this feature is that it makes it easier to share on all platforms, but some creators may prefer to tailor posts to better fit the formatting of each individual platform. Read more. 

Check out Pinterest’s Fall 2024 Trend Report 

Pinterest released their Fall 2024 Trend Report this week, so advertisers can learn what the platform is predicting for the upcoming season. Pinterest is one of the most popular social media sites for product discovery, so their reporting offers valuable insights. The report includes data about industries like fashion, beauty, home decor, food trends, and Gen Z hobbies and interests. If you’re marketing to Gen Z or in any of those fields, it’s worth checking out the report to learn what users are searching. Read more.

A new Facebook Ads Benchmark report offers new insights & data for advertisers 

WordStream released a report on Facebook Ads that spells good news for advertisers. The key takeaways, comparing 2023 to 2024, include a higher click-through rate, a higher conversion rate, and lower cost-per-click and cost-per-lead metrics. All of these suggest that Facebook ads are offering lower and more stable costs, while Google ad costs are trending up. While Google Ads are still essential to many marketing strategies, Facebook is becoming a more and more reliable complement to any paid media strategy. You can find the report and get industry-specific reporting here: Read more.

Also in the news this week: 

• YouTube is the first streaming platform to break 10% of total TV viewing, according to Nielsons.

• Threads is testing out posts that disappear after 24 hours.

• X is developing a more advanced business dashboard - but only for Verified Organizations with a premium price attached.

• Instagram is allowing users to sort content by metrics like number of shares.

• YouTube TV adds new NFL Sunday Ticket features, adding Fantasy View and improving Multi-view 

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Until next week,

Social Buddy