Social media updates and new features to know this week
Including Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram and more.
Good day, social pros! This week, we’re examining new tools to build a more effective ad campaign, like TikTok’s expanded Smart+ suite and Pinterest’s new Media Planner. There are also improved safety features for teens on Meta and Snapchat. Let’s take a closer look and see where these tools can be most impactful for you.
Pinterest has launched a new tool called Media Planner inside its Ads Manager. This tool makes it easier for advertisers to plan their campaigns without having to use spreadsheets or other outside planning tools.
Users can now find relevant audiences, estimate campaign results like impressions, reach, clicks and cost estimates, in one central place on the app.
The Media Planner also lets advertisers compare different campaign options for ad-spend, audiences and formats, so they can decide what strategy might work best before launching an ad.
Once a plan has been built, advertisers can save it, schedule it, share it for review with team members or export it to look over later.
TikTok
TikTok has new U.S. owners. The company’s Chinese parent company ByteDance will retain a minority stake while investors Oracle, Silver Lake and others will control the U.S. app’s moderation, content and safety.
The platform itself still looks and works like TikTok, but there are some behind-the-scenes changes, particularly to user privacy. It can now collect certain data differently, like more precise location information if you allow it, the company can track how people interact with AI tools in the app and use that info for things like ads and TikTok US may share on-platform data with outside advertisers for better ad targeting, similar to how other social apps do it.
The app has expanded Smart+, its AI-powered system for making ad campaigns easier and more effective.
Instead of setting up and managing every detail yourself, Smart+ uses machine learning to handle the brunt of the work, including choosing the best people to target, optimizing budgets and picking or generating creatives that are likely to perform well. It also now includes new tools:
- Auto-select creative: This feature looks at existing videos and creator content and suggests the best ones for your goals.
- Ad previews in TikTok Ads Manager: This lets users see exactly what combinations might run before you launch an ad. It also makes it easier to spot mistakes ahead of time.
- Upgraded efficiency tools: These include bulk editing tools for duplication as well as automated rules and a draft mode which should help simplify day-to-day work.
TikTok is also beginning to roll out new technology across Europe to check if people are really meeting the minimum age requirement of 13. This system combines profile info and behavior signals to spot accounts that might be underage.
If the tech flags a potential under-13 account, a “specialist moderator” (not an AI system) will review it and can remove the account if necessary. People can appeal decisions and prove their age using facial age estimation within the app, a credit card or government ID.
Meta
In the next few weeks, Meta says it will roll out tighter parental controls for teens using its AI chatbot.
Parents will soon be able to turn off one-on-one chats between their teens and AI characters entirely, block specific AI characters and see general insights about what topics their teens are chatting about with AI.
Meta will still let teens use its main AI assistant for things like educational help, but with more age-appropriate safety settings in place as a default setting. Meta says this means that AI responses will match something equivalent to a PG-13 movie, rather than more mature or inappropriate content.
Instagram is testing a new way of showing profile connections. Instead of showing the number of accounts someone follows, some users are now seeing a “Friends” count. That number only includes mutual follows.
The idea is to distinguish between two-way connections instead of one-way follows, Social Media Today reports. The outlet said Instagram confirmed this is a small test to see how people react as part of a bigger push to make personal connections more visible.
X
X is trying out a new feature that lets creators label sponsored content using paid promotion tags, according to app researcher Nima Owji.
Right now, if someone wants to show that a post is part of a paid partnership, they have to do it manually by writing “#ad” in their post. The new tags would make this easier and more standardized by letting creators add a built-in tag to show when a post is sponsored content.
Nikita Bier, head of product at X, also announced a new tool that compiles the platform’s top voices and shows users who they are and what their area of influence or expertise is in. This feature will help people find more relevant and noteworthy accounts based on their specific interest.
The company developed over the feature after looking globally at the top posters and creators in every niche and country on the platform.
Snapchat
Snapchat’s Family Center is getting new features that give parents more insight and context into their teen’s activity.
Parents can now see how much time their teens have spent on Snapchat each week, but also how that time is split across different parts of the app, like chatting with friends, creating Snaps with the camera, exploring the Snap Map or watching Stories and Spotlight content.
Snapchat says this should give parents more context about what their child is doing on the platform, rather than just showing that they’re on it.
Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at [email protected].
