March belongs to the women, as International Women’s Day falls on March 8, and the entire month is Women’s History Month.
But don’t forget to share a toast on St. Patrick’s Day, pet a four-legged friend on National Puppy Day March 23, and end the month with International Transgender Day of Visibility.
Social Media Holidays to Mark on Your Calendar
- March 1: First day of Women’s History Month
- March 3: World Wildlife Day
- March 7: National Employee Appreciation Day
- March 8: International Women’s Day
- March 14: Pi Day
- March 17: St. Patrick’s Day
- March 20: First day of spring
- March 23: National Puppy Day
- March 31: International Transgender Day of Visibility
Social Media Platform Updates
TikTok
DeskTok
TikTok rolled out several updates to its web-based experience.
The For You feed and Explore tab were refreshed.
An optimized modular layout features a repositioned navigation bar and provides a more immersive viewing experience and seamless feed exploration by reducing distractions.
Users can now go live in portrait or landscape mode, giving desktop users a full-screen horizontal view, while mobile users can rotate their devices.
A new floating player, available exclusively on desktop via the Google Chrome browser, keeps TikTok visible above other windows so people can multitask.
Finally, a new Collections feature lets users organize their favorite videos into custom categories for quicker access.
Feeling the Music
TikTok teamed up with entertainment data and research provider Luminate on its second Music Impact Report, covering data from 2024.
The report analyzes the considerable impact TikTok and its users have on the music industry and its artists in terms of chart success, consumption, contribution to revenues, and discovery.
TikTok and Luminate also shared the success stories of artists including Alphaville, Sabrina Carpenter, Korn, and Chappell Roan.
Key findings from this edition of the Music Impact Report include:
- TikTok users in the U.S. are 74% more likely to discover and share new music on social and short-form video platforms than the average short-form video user.
- Music listeners in the U.S. who use TikTok are 68% more likely to use a paid-for music streaming subscription than the U.S. general population.
- The application’s Add to Music App feature has been used to save more than 1 billion tracks since rolling out at the end of 2023.
- TikTok users in the U.S spent 46% more money on music each month than the average U.S. music listener.
- TikTok-correlated artists see an average 11% week-over-week streaming growth rate, versus just 3% for other artists.
- A total of 84% of songs that cracked the Billboard Global 200 had a period of high engagement on TikTok beforehand.
A Look Back at TikTok Live in 2024
TikTok shared some highlights of the ways its TikTok Live offering was used in 2024.
The platform said more than 100 million creators went live in 2024, with over 46 million doing so for the first time, adding that billions of users watched live content, generating 269 billion chats.
As for creators, roughly 250,000 doubled their income year-over-year, and nearly 3,000 gifts were awarded by users, providing them with more monetization opportunities.
The company worked with its community and nonprofit organizations to donate more than $1 million to charitable causes.
The TikTok Live Fest 2024 event last October saw nearly 6 million creators worldwide participate, while 477 million people viewed the event page, and a related global celebration in London Jan. 16 was hosted by Jason Derulo and headlined by Zara Larsson.
Hitting the Gas on Automotive Ads
TikTok debuted Automotive Ads, describing them as a performance ad solution that lets advertisers target high-intent users with their available inventory of vehicles.
Automotive Ads are available in two creative formats. Video + Product Card lets advertisers combine video with personalized shoppable product recommendations from their catalog. And Multi-Link Carousel Card lets brands pull images from their catalog instead.
There are also two types of Automotive Ads. Inventory Ads are designed for use by dealers and marketplaces to promote individual vehicles, while Model Ads are typically used by original equipment manufacturers to promote models, offers, and trims.
When a TikTok user is served an Automotive Ad, they will see eligible items from the advertiser’s catalog. Clicking on an item takes them to its mapped URL destination. Should they continue swiping through items, they will eventually land on a TikTok Instant Page or URL, where they can browse the brand’s full catalog without leaving the TikTok app.
Restored to App Stores
The TikTok app was restored to the Apple App Store and Google Play in the U.S. Feb. 13, enabling users to download the latest version.
After the app went dark for 14 hours Jan. 18 through 19, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 20 giving parent company ByteDance 75 days to find a U.S.-based buyer, or until April 5.
And the Oscar Goes to …
TikTok marked the 97th Academy Awards March 2 by sharing some data about its community of movie lovers and #FilmTok.
The company said there were more than 2.6 million combined posts on #FilmTok and #MovieTok in the U.S. in 2024, up 50% from 2023, and its research has found that 87% of the app’s users go to the movies.
Best Picture nominee The Substance received a boost from #HorrorTok, which helped connect the film to a wider audience and push for critical recognition of the horror genre. And Wicked received a similar boost from #TheaterTok, with 1.5 million related posts.
TikTok said recent research it conducted found that 47% of U.S. users have discovered a new movie coming to theaters via TikTok, while 36% purchased tickets to those films via in-app landing pages in TikTok Spotlight.
Other TikTok News
- TikTok marked the release of So Close to What, the new album from Tate McRae, with an exclusive in-app experience and a global livestream. Fans were able to purchase exclusive CDs, picture discs, and vinyl during the livestream via TikTok Shop. And the in-app experience allowed them to see the track list, share content inspired by McRae, and complete tasks to earn an exclusive star profile frame.
- The company provided a detailed look at its TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. subsidiary and how it protects the data of its U.S. users. TikTok U.S. Data Security Head of Trust and Safety Suzy Loftus also revealed the new in-app Digital Safety & Privacy Guide.
- TikTok shared The Discover List 2025, a look at creators to watch on its platform this year.
- Finally, Ad Age introduced Top of the Feed, which highlights current trends for marketers, and Viral Vault, which compiles older trends that have faded.
Partnership Ads
Creators gained a new way to monetize on Instagram following the platform’s introduction of partnership ads.
Partnership ads are made up of content that a brand posts in collaboration with a creator, with the aim of promoting a product or service, and they can be original ad content or organic content that the brand chooses to boost.
A new type of partnership ad is on the way, testimonials, or quick, text-only written endorsements that appear on ads.
Creators gain the option of charging more when brands back their content with ad spend, and the two parties can experiment with different formats to learn what works best.
Influencers also get the benefit of being exposed to a brand’s follower base and audience, giving them more exposure than organic branded content.
For a long-term partnership between a creator and a brand, the creator can grant the brand account-level permissions, enabling them to create ads from content that is provided to them or posts where the brand is tagged.
For one-off partnerships, influencers can generate an ad code to give a brand content-level permissions.
Behind the Algorithm
Instagram shared some updates on the algorithm changes it began implementing last April and the goal of giving creators of all sizes the chance to be discovered.
The platform said that since the changes began taking effect, the ways people engage with content and behave on the app have evolved, as well.
People are resharing Reels across Facebook and Instagram more than 4.5 billion times per day, and time spent viewing videos on Instagram grew by double-digit percentages globally in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared with the previous year.
Instagram shared some best practices to help creators best position themselves and capitalize on the changes:
- Post consistently, as every Reel has the potential to reach a sizable new audience.
- Create content that stands on its own, starting with a compelling hook in the first three seconds, Monitor View Rate within Insights to see the percentage of people who continue to watch after the first three seconds.
- Incorporate audio in Reels, as well as in photos and carousels.
- Use Trial Reels and other ways to experiment and see the types of content that work and those that don’t.
- Rather than stressing over the unpredictability of the updated recommendations engine, embrace it and explore different ideas.
DM Updates
Instagram detailed updates to its direct message capabilities.
Users can now translate messages into different languages directly within DMs.
Songs can now be shared via DM by opening the sticker tray and tapping Music, which will create a 30-second preview of the track.
Scheduling has come to DMs, allowing people to do things like wish family and friends a happy birthday at 12:01 a.m., or send themselves reminders.
People can now pin specific messages to the top of one-on-one or group chats.
Finally, users can share personalized QR codes to invite others to group chats.
Other Instagram News
- Users of the stand-alone Threads app can now share custom public feeds that they created on Threads.
- Instagram began testing a way for users to indicate that they don’t like a comment or don’t believe it is relevant, across Feed posts and Reels. Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri stressed, “I want to be clear: This is a test, there is no dislike count, nor will anyone know if you tap the button.”
YouTube
YouTube Shorts Get Veo 2
Google DeepMind’s newest video generation model, Veo 2, is being integrated into the Dream Screen artificial intelligence background generator for YouTube Shorts.
And a newly introduced capability lets users generate stand-alone video clips via Veo 2 that can be added to Shorts.
YouTube said Veo 2 understands real-world physics and human movement better, making its output more detailed and realistic.
Creators can specify a style, lens, or cinematic effect.
These features are currently available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S., with more countries to be added.
Middle of the Roll
YouTube alerted creators to changes coming to its mid-roll ads May 12.
The Google-owned video platform said the goal is to show more mid-roll ads at natural break points, such as pauses and transitions, and fewer in moments during videos when they may interrupt the experience and spur viewers to stop watching, such as the middle of sentences or actions.
YouTube will also manually update videos uploaded before Feb. 24 with manual mid-rolls.
Creators who wish to manage their ads manually can do so by adjusting their settings in YouTube Studio.
Speaking of YouTube Studio, a new feature will alert creators when mid-roll ads appear in potentially interruptive spots and automatically suggest alternatives.
1 Billion Monthly Podcast Users
YouTube Vice President, Partnerships, Podcasts Tim Katz said in a blog post that the platform is now the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S., with 1 billion monthly active podcast users.
He added that viewers watched more than 400 million hours of podcasts monthly on living room devices during 2024.
“Podcasts with video are more than just a trend—they meet audiences where they are: on YouTube,” Katz wrote. “We’ve specifically developed our podcast product experience to make it easier for fans to find podcasts they love, discover new ones, and watch (or listen!) wherever they want. We’ve also added more and more podcasters into our revenue sharing program, the YouTube Partner Program.”
CEO Neal Mohan’s Vision for 2025
YouTube turns 20 this year, and its CEO, Neal Mohan, shared his four big bets for 2025.
- YouTube will remain the epicenter of culture: Mohan cited the platform’s role in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, saying more than 45 million viewers in the U.S. watched related content on YouTube on Election Day alone. He also noted the rise of podcasts on the platform, mentioned above, and the ability for content to transcend borders, noting as an example that more than 95% of French creator Sarah Lezito’s watch time in 2024 came from outside of France.
- YouTubers are becoming the startups of Hollywood: He credited creators with innovations such as “leaning into new models of production, building studios to elevate their production quality, and exploring new creative avenue,” adding that the platform remains committed to meeting creators where they are with tools and features that power their businesses and communities. Mohan noted that more than 50% of channels earning five figures or more (in U.S. dollars) on YouTube made money from sources other than ads and YouTube Premium.
- YouTube is the new television: Mohan said people are watching more than 1 billion hours of YouTube content on TVs daily, and TVs are now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. The platform is responding with updates such as a second-screen experience that lets people use their phones to interact with videos they are watching on TV, testing a Watch With feature that lets creators provide live commentary and real time reactions during games and events, and introducing new ad formats tailored to larger screens, such as QR codes and pause ads.
- AI will make it easier to create and enhance the YouTube experience for everyone: Mohan said YouTube will continue to invest in AI-powered features, such as integrating Veo 2 into Dream Screen (mentioned above), as well as tools that help creators with everyday tasks like coming up with new ideas, thumbnails, and titles. Auto-dubbing is being rolled out to all creators in the YouTube Partner Program. New tools are being developed to help people detect and control how AI is used to depict them on YouTube. And the platform will begin using machine learning to better estimate users’ ages and provide them with more age-appropriate experiences.
Other YouTube News
- YouTube plans to roll out Premium Lite, a lower-priced version of its paid video service that will bring its library of how-to clips and podcasts to Australia, Germany, Thailand, and the U.S., without advertising.
Snapchat
Brand Suitability Update
Snapchat introduced its new Brand Suitability Suite with the aim of giving advertisers more control over the content and publishers that their ads may appear adjacent to.
The company said it uses advanced machine-learning technology to match content to inventory tiers by sensitivity or risk, allowing advertisers to benefit from real-time content adjacency placement for their ads aligned with their selected tier.
Brand Suitability Suite offers Full, Standard, and Limited tier options with additional placement coverage, as well as third-party brand safety integration for post campaign reporting with the platform’s third-party measurement partners.
DoubleVerify and Zefr became Snapchat measurement partners, joining media measurement and optimization platform Integral Ad Science.
New Features
Snapchat detailed a handful of new features it is rolling out to users.
Subscribers to premium option Snapchat+ gained access to Snap Modes, enabling them to add more customization, fun, and tone to their Snaps with family and friends, such as sending self-destructing Snaps.
Snapchat+ subscribers can also use special stickers created via generative AI to match the text in their messages.
Bitmoji can be outfitted with new looks, such as long skirts and dresses.
And a new AI lens lets Snapchatters see themselves and friends on a movie poster.
Text-to-Image
Snapchat debuted an AI text-to-image model for mobile devices that can produce high-resolution images in roughly 1.4 seconds on an iPhone 16 Pro Max, running entirely on the device to reduce computational costs.
The platform plans to bring the technology into production this year for use in its AI Bitmoji backgrounds and AI Snaps.
The Big Game
Snapchat teamed up with the National Football League on the NFL x Snapchat Creator Program, bringing Snap Stars creators such as Katie Austin, Jack Mancuso, Ross Smith, and Treasure Wilson to New Orleans to share their Super Bowl LIX experiences to Stories and Spotlight.
Those influencers also used augmented reality lenses created in partnership with the league to give their fans a new way to follow their exploits.
Snapchat Cam was integrated into the Caesars Superdome to help enhance fan engagement on the platform via immersive AR. Lenses included a custom New Orleans Super Bowl themed helmet, as well as the helmets of the champion Philadelphia Eagles and runners-up Kansas City Chiefs.
Other Snapchat News
- Snapchat created the Department of Angels, a grassroots, community-driven network to help victims of the Los Angeles County wildfires.
- New research from Snapchat, VaynerMedia, and Realeyes provides a best practices guide for creators looking to generate “scroll-stopping content.”
- Snapchat teamed up with Tinuiti to study how social media content and AR naturally fit into online conversations, creating a more modern word-of-mouth effect.
Meta
Putting the Plus in Advantage+
Meta introduced several updates to its Advantage+ suite of AI-powered automated ad products.
The company is testing a streamlined Advantage+ campaign setup that combines its separate ad flows, manual campaign setup, and Advantage+ to extend AI optimization to more campaigns and give advertisers more control.
Advertisers had previously been able to set up a manual campaign or an Advantage+ sales campaign at the same time, but they would be separate campaigns.
Advertisers in the test group will see an on/off label for Advantage+ in this new setup, which will let them know when their campaign is set up to use its AI optimization, but use of Advantage+ is not mandatory.
Meta also introduced Advantage+ leads campaigns, which uses AI optimization to help brands find the highest quality leads.
Finally, the Opportunity Score tool in Ads Manager, which provides advertisers with experimentally proven recommendations—including via AI optimization—that can be adopted in a few clicks, is being made more widely available.
Tapping TikTok
Shadi Nayyer, who had been leading global creator programs at TikTok, joined Meta to lead a team that will build relationships and creators and developers for its Reality Labs metaverse unit.
Nayyer told Business Insider her focus to start will be on creators who develop inside Meta’s Horizon Worlds VR game and other metaverse apps, adding that she intends to hire a team of community leaders, developer advocates, and program managers to host hackathons, attend third-party events, and run competitions and other community programs.
Other Meta News
- People can sign up via Facebook, Instagram, and Threads to be among the first contributors to Community Notes, the X-like system Meta is implementing in place of third-party fact-checking.
- Mixed reality and VR education offering Meta for Education was made available to the general public.
- Meta teamed up with Childhelp on a first-of-its-kind education curriculum to help protect young people from online exploitation, such as sextortion and grooming.
- The company shared its Frontier AI Framework, which outlines its consideration of risk in its model-release decisions.
- Meta introduced its Language Technology Partner Program, through which it will seek partners to collaborate on advancing and broadening its open-source language technologies, including AI translation technologies.
- Finally, the company’s Meta AI assistant is now available across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp in Middle East countries Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
No More Live Video Storage
Facebook Live videos can now only be downloaded, replayed, or shared from pages or profiles for 30 days, at which point they will automatically be removed from the platform.
Live videos older than 30 days will be removed from Facebook, but users will receive email and in-app notifications giving them 90 days to download or transfer their content via new tools. The deletion process will take place over several months.
Users will have the options of downloading individual videos, downloading videos in bulk, transferring videos to cloud storage providers, or clipping shorter moments and converting them to Reels.
Repurposing for Pinterest
Pinterest shared best practices for repurposing content for use on its platform.
- Plan your outcome: Remember that people on Pinterest are actively looking for new ideas and new products. As you think about your campaign assets, consider the actions you want people to take next.
- Gather your assets: Pinterest content can be crafted from print and out-of-home materials, product imagery, social posts, video ads, and web content.
- Choose your formats: “A clothing brand could take an image from a social post and easily create a standard image ad,” the company wrote. “Or, a furniture brand could transform a handful of product photos into an interactive Quiz Ad that helps people discover their decor style. Videos can be repurposed, too. For example, a food brand could take a recipe video from their website and transform it into an awareness-driving video takeover with Premiere Spotlight.”
- Add simple enhancements: Keep in mind that Pinterest is a visual platform where people see multiple pieces of content at once, so be sure to add branding and logo, include a clear call to action, and fill out the Pin title and description.
Video Boom
LinkedIn said video uploads to its platform rose 36% year-over-year in 2024, while video creation doubled.
The professional network began testing a full-screen vertical video display for all surfaces, not just mobile, enabling users to choose single videos and then swipe or click to see more content.
LinkedIn is also adding a profile preview feature to videos, enabling members to see the profile without exiting the video, and including a more prominent follow button.
And a video carousel joined other links in the platform’s search results.
The Business of B2B
LinkedIn added two features to better inform business-to-business marketers on its platform.
The Conversions API (application-programming interface) enables marketers to connect their first-party data from both online and offline customer interactions to LinkedIn so that they can target the audiences that are most likely to take action.
And LinkedIn’s Revenue Attribution Report helps marketers tie their efforts to real business outcomes via metrics such as revenue influenced, return on ad spend, and pipeline. The professional network said it added a 365-day lookback window so marketers can demonstrate how long-term campaigns impact their return on investment.
Other LInkedIn News
- Advertisers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. can now tap into LinkedIn’s professional targeting data, including company, industry, and job function signals. This is in addition to in-market audiences by job title and company size.
- LinkedIn shared a new guide, The Future of B2B Marketing Measurement.
X
Grok Those Ads
X introduced two advertising tools powered by its Grok AI model.
Prefill With Grok enables brands to input their website URL and have Grok generate ad copy, imagery, and a call-to-action headline tailored to the brand. Copy can be edited and images can be swapped out.
And Analyze Campaign With Grok gives advertisers a way to quickly analyze campaigns and optimize their efforts based on the insights it provides, such as highlighting opportunities and spotting trends.
Other X News
- Adtech company and supply-side platform Magnite is now an X partner, joining Google and PubMatic as official third-party sellers of the platform’s ad inventory.
- Following the introduction of Grok 3, Premium+ plan prices were hiked to $50 per month or $350 per year.
Reddit Search + Reddit Answers
Reddit plans to add AI to its search experience at some point in 2025 by integrating its Reddit Answers AI-powered conversational interface into its existing search interface.
Reddit Answers lets users ask questions and receive curated summaries of relevant conversations and details across Reddit, including links to related communities and posts.
CEO Steve Huffman said during the company’s fourth-quarter-2024 earnings call, “I think helping the user be able to search directly on Reddit, refine their queries on Reddit, eventually come directly to Reddit for those types of queries, and even integrating search into something like onboarding over time—I think (these are) really interesting things. It’s amazing for us to pick up on that signal … and of course, that signal (has) incredible monetization potential.”
Other Reddit News
- Reddit is teaming up with Intercontinental Exchange to create new data and analytics products for the financial industry.
Tumblr
The Fediverse Beckons
Parent company Automattic said that once the migration of Tumblr to the infrastructure of sister platform WordPress is complete, Tumblr will integrate with the fediverse, the open social web powered by the ActivityPub protocol.
Platforms including Flipboard, Mastodon, and Threads are already on the fediverse.
Automattic would not share a time frame.
The Chat
Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp is teaming up with sports-culture publisher OffBall on The Chat, an extension of WhatsApp’s Communities feature.
The Chat will feature a text thread between a small group of high-profile users such as athletes, celebrities, and creators, but the group chat can be viewed by fans, who can engage via emojis and reactions, but not comments.
The feature debuted during the National Basketball Association’s All-Star Weekend.
Other WhatsApp News
WhatsApp rolled out chat themes that enable users to customize the background and bubbles of their chats, as well as 30 new wallpaper options.
Brands That Stay on Trend
Maytag’s look-alike filter helped canine creator @tuesdayswmorrie see how much he looked like his human mom.
@tuesdayswmorrie #MaytagPartner Thanks to the @Maytag Look-alike filter I learned the hard way my “mom” and I look nothing alike 😬 You can learn more about conquering pet hair like a pro with a Maytag Pet Pro System at maytag.com/pets #Maytag #petlife #petparent #MaytagPets ♬ original sound – tuesdayswmorrie
Adelaine Morin unboxed her new hot pink Razr from Motorola.
@adelainemorin #MotorolaPartner Unboxing my new hot pink razr+ 💗 @Motorola US #FlipTheScript #razr ♬ original sound – Adelaine Morin
@lizziebakesco teamed up with Bath & Body Works on a Disney Princess collection.
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