Independence Day will be a little different this year, as the United States celebrates its 250th birthday.

The first full month of summer also includes social media holidays celebrating video games, emojis, tequila, and parents. And WorldPride 2026 kicks off July 25.

Social Media Holidays to Mark on Your Calendar 

• July 4: Independence Day   
• July 8: National Video Game Day   
• July 17: World Emoji Day   
• July 24: National Tequila Day   
• July 25: First day of WorldPride 2026 
• July 26: Parents’ Day 

Social Media Platform Updates

TikTok

Opening a Cannes of New Features

TikTok made several announcements at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Artificial-intelligence-powered Symphony Agent was rolled out across several advertising solutions on the platform.

In Symphony Creative Studio, an AI-powered chat experience helps advertisers combine their brand goals with platform insights and performance signals to quickly create high-performing ads.

Content Suite AI Search lets brands input their creative needs and generate thousands of relevant videos aligning with those goals.

Within TikTok One, Symphony Agent enables advertisers to generate creator briefs, identify and invite creators at scale, and locate creators who speak specific languages for local market components of campaigns.

The company also announced the integration of TikTok Symphony capabilities into Zoyumi, Dentsu’s customizable, AI-powered, software-as-a-service platform designed to streamline media activation.

Finally, the platform is adding the ability to build Custom Creator Networks within Content Suite, giving advertisers the ability to build a curated pool of brand advocates, creators, employees, and/or partners who can receive campaign briefs or convert their existing brand-relevant videos into ads.

Fan Is Short for Fanatic

TikTok launched a U.S. pilot of TikTok Pro Events, a stand-alone application that fosters community involvement during major cultural happenings.

TikTok Pro Events—which debuted for FIFA World Cup 2026—lets users engage with global fan culture, explore trending videos, and access curated creator feeds.

Users 18 and older can earn stars for their activity on the app, redeemable for exclusive benefits such as official World Cup merchandise, TikTok Shop coupons, or contributions toward TikTok-funded charitable causes.

Other TikTok News

• TikTok teamed up with Sundance Institute on a new micro-series writing program through digital learning and community platform Sundance Collab.

Instagram

Your Algorithm

Instagram took steps to add transparency to and give users more control over its recommendation algorithm.

The platform’s new Your Algorithm feature surfaces the topics that the system believes each user is interested in and allows them to add and remove topics from that list,

Your Algorithm is available across Feed, Explore, and Reels.

Instagram Plus

New subscription option Instagram Plus allows users to pay $3.99 per month for “more control, deeper insights, and premium features.”

New features at launch include:

• Story Spotlight, which prioritizes subscribers’ Stories for their friends.
• Super Hearts, vibrant, animated hearts to celebrate friends’ Stories.
• Multiple Story Audiences, which enable subscribers to create as many audience lists as they wish and ensure that they share the right Stories with the right audiences.
• Story Extend, which lets subscribers make their Stories available for 48 hours.
• Story Preview, letting people preview Stories without feeling the need to react.
• Subscribers can see how many times their Stories were rewatched.
• Search Viewer List, which lets people see if a specific person viewed their Story.
• Custom App Icons from a curated selection designed by Instagram and creators on the platform.
• Custom Bio Font, which allows subscribers to customize the font of their profile bio.
• The ability to pin up to six posts to a subscriber’s profile.
• Subscribers can post directly to their profile or highlights without the content appearing in friends’ Feeds.

Edits Getting AI Assistant, Desktop App

Stand-alone app Edits will soon get an AI assistant aimed at helping creators analyze their insights and explore new ideas for future content based on metrics such as views and video retention.

Edits will also launch a desktop version, which allows creators to work on a larger screen, with more precise control, and sync workflows seamlessly between desktop and mobile.

A new Beta tab on the app will give creators early access to experimental features and ask them to provide feedback to Meta.

New metrics are on the way, including an audience demographic breakdown and the time of day when a creator’s audience is most engaged.

Finally, creators can now search specific topics within the Inspiration feed on Edits to see Reels and templates being used by other creators.

Other Instagram News

• Stand-alone app Threads reached 500 million monthly active users.
• A new Reorder Your Grid feature on Instagram gives users more control over how content is displayed on their profile.

YouTube

Clean Shorts

YouTube revealed several updates to the player for its Shorts short-form videos:

• A new Clear Screen mode temporarily hides icons and text from the playback view.
• The speed can now be doubled when watching Shorts, and audio can be muted.
• A new heart button replaced the thumbs-up icon.
• The Dislike button was replaced by two new controls: Not Interested and Don’t Recommend This Channel.

Other YouTube News

• YouTube commissioned research by Public First and Oxford Economics to learn more about the economic, social, and cultural impact of creators.
• A new partnership between Google’s Display & Video 360 and Walmart Connect will help advertisers reach high-intent shoppers through YouTube campaigns and measure their results with closed-loop measurement.

Meta

Bringing AI to the Beach at Cannes

Meta introduced several new AI-powered tools for creators and marketers at Cannes Lions.

The parent company of Instagram and Facebook unveiled a new end-to-end creative solution with elements including:

• A dedicated space for creative strategy and optimization, where brands can learn which ads are performing, and generate and test new ads based on that information.
• Analyzing a brand’s existing ads to learn more about its identity and tone, helping that brand scale creative production while ensuring consistency.
• Integration with agencies, starting with WPP and its WPP Open.

New generative AI updates to features in Ads Manager include:

• Expanding text generation beyond headlines and primary text to include text that appears directly in image creative.
• Adding translations to French, German, Indonesian, Italian, and Portuguese for text on media, and to Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Turkish for video VoiceOver.

A new built-in creative approval workflow is being tested with the aim of getting advertisers feedback and alignment on creative modifications in a more streamlined way.

Meta is also combining its Creator Marketplace and Partnership Ads Hub into the Meta Creator Marketing Hub, which will launch later this year, easing the process for marketers looking to discover creators and content related to their brand and activate it in the form of partnership ads.

Facebook creators were added to Creator Marketplace, joining the 5 million plus Instagram creators already eligible for discovery.

Brands using Partnership Ads Hub will begin seeing content from creators they don’t already work with, including product-tagged and user-generated posts.

New paid performance insights enable advertisers to analyze creator-driven ads.

Live Video Ads are coming to Instagram and being expanded globally on Facebook.

Advertisers on Facebook can use Live Shopping Tools with Live Video Ads.

Finally, a new shopping experience that uses virtual cards is coming to Facebook and Instagram this summer, letting customers use temporary, one-time card numbers generated from their existing accounts with Mastercard or Visa.

Serious About Series

Meta is testing a new Series feature for Reels on Facebook and Instagram with the aim of making it easier for users to keep up with serialized content on the platforms.

Select creators will be able to take new and existing Reels and create a Series, with each Reel becoming an episode.

Users who discover episodes while scrolling Feed or the Reels tab will see the option to view the full Series.

Facebook

Welcome Back, Facebook Creator Studio

Facebook Creator Studio is back in the form of an AI-powered companion app, and the creator tool experience was also refreshed on the Facebook app and on desktop.

The new Facebook Creator Studio taps AI to learn a user’s voice, audience, and goals, and when opened, daily priorities are immediately visible, such as assessing the performance of the most recent post, tracking progress toward goals, and comments awaiting replies.

An AI-powered comment tool surfaces the most important comments and instantly draft replies in the user’s voice, which are saved in draft and can be approved before posting.

Professional Dashboard in the Facebook app will be split into two versions: Creator Dashboard and Business Dashboard, and tools from Meta Business Suite will be consolidated into the web experience for Creator Dashboard.

Assistance, Please

Facebook introduced Creator Assistant, an AI-powered tool built into the dashboard that learns each creator’s audience, engagement trends, and performance, and steers them in the right direction toward growth.

Rather than attempting to analyze dashboards and charts, creators can ask Creator Assistant questions, such as why a particular Reel outperformed others, or how their audience has shifted over time. Responses tailored to the specific creator will help them learn what they can do differently to improve performance.

Creator Assistant can also use current trends on Facebook to suggest new ideas or content angles.

The platform also said AI-powered Reels translations will be extended to Arabic, Bahasa Indonesian, French, Thai, and Vietnamese.

Pinterest

Prime Opportunity

Creators on Pinterest can now connect their Amazon Storefront directly to their Pinterest account, giving them the opportunity for more revenue.

Affiliate links are automatically applied when eligible Amazon products are tagged.

Creators can feature their Amazon Storefront on their profile for easy discovery.

Pin These AI Tools

Pinterest introduced four new AI-powered tools for brands on its platform:

• Business Assistant, currently in closed beta in the U.S., combines its understanding of an advertiser’s business with platform insights from Pinterest to drive the best performance from campaigns.
• AI-native infrastructure Pinterest MCP (Model Context Protocol) connects Pinterest to the copilots and agentic tools used by advertisers, providing secure access to campaign, analytics, and keyword insights.
• Pinterest Performance+ uses dynamic creative selection to evaluate a broader set of creatives and identify the variant most likely to perform for each ad impression, moving optimization from the ad level to the asset level.
• Finally, new experimental app Ask Pinterest brings Pinterest’s Taste Graph and visual discovery experience beyond the core app, using the platform’s proprietary signals around taste, intent, and preferences to power more personalized recommendations and inspiration.

Other Pinterest News

• The company announced a major expansion of its agreement with Amazon Web Services to power AI at scale for the next generation of AI-driven visual search discovery.

LinkedIn

New Initiatives for Creators

LinkedIn introduced two initiatives aimed at helping brands and creators boost their business-to-business marketing efforts on its platform: Creator Marketplace and BrandWorks.

Creator Marketplace, available within Campaign Manager, enables brands to:

• Search for vetted creators by topic and content expertise, and assess their profiles for audience, performance, and fit.
• Identify organic and sponsored creator content featuring their brand and amplify it with Thought Leader Ads.
• Access creator contact information to connect directly with them on potential collaborations.

On the creator side, those who opt in to share their information with brands retain control over how they collaborate. Benefits include:

• Potential discovery by leading brands.
• The ability to showcase their best content.
• Choosing how brands reach them, such as by including their preferred email and information about their management.
• Evaluating incoming partnership requests and approving how their sponsored content is used.

BrandWorks is a team of experts across brand, creative, content, and events that delivers hands-on strategy and creative support to help B2B marketers create higher-performing campaigns. Services provided through collaboration with brands and agency partners include:

• Turning audience insights into smarter strategy.
• Creating content aimed at how buyers engage.
• Unlocking more value from existing creative.
• Connecting creative to high impact opportunities.

Prove It

The professional network introduced three new tools aimed at helping advertisers prove incremental marketing impact.

Campaign-Level Conversion Lift Testing lets advertisers assess incremental conversions at the campaign level, rather than the brand level.

Brand Lift Resting underwent a design refresh to make its reporting clearer to advertisers evaluating how campaigns impacted brand awareness, consideration, and intent.

Finally, LinkedIn addressed recent changes in iOS tracking that created gaps and affected measurement with iOS Member-Level Measurement, a privacy-preserving approach that matches iOS traffic while maintaining confidentiality.

Other LinkedIn News

• The platform is taking steps to crack down on automation tools, dial back on generic content, and strengthen authenticity in order to reduce “AI slop.”

Snapchat

AI-Powered Ad Tools in a Snap

Snapchat introduced several AI-powered tools across its ad stack.

Snap Smart Assistant enables advertisers to detail their goals and automatically recommends campaign objectives, audience strategy, and optimization settings.

Snapchat’s new Model Context Protocol server opens up its ads platform to third-party AI agents so that brands can connect the tools they are already using.

The platform’s Dynamic Product Ads are being revamped with new agentic recommendation models that mine user behavior, product affinity, full-funnel signals, and real-time intent to more accurately surface the most relevant products.

Smart Upscale lets advertisers automatically enhance assets for the full-screen vertical canvas, while Image-to-Video converts images to short-form videos, and Background Image Enhancement creates immersive product-focused ad experiences.

Finally, Snapchat is introducing Snap Creator Network, an AI-powered system that eases the process of creator discovery and campaign activation.

Brands can detail the type of creators they seek, such as by audience, tone, category, or campaign goals, and Snap Creator Network will generate potential matches.

Other Snapchat News

• Snapchat introduced its new SPECS augmented reality glasses, along with new tools for developers.

Open Influence’s team stays on top of the latest trends and is here to help you maximize your creator campaigns. Open Influence is a leading global creator marketing agency dedicated to creating engaging campaigns. 

Reach out to us today.