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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Which type of Instagram Stories engagement works best for marketers?
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Improve your Shorts performance
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A marketer's guide to using TikTok Shop in your funnel
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Discover the elements that make short-form content shareable
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Creating multimedia video with Udio and Midjourney
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Instagram Updates: Reels Tools, Insights, Content Reach, and More
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Tips to optimize ChatGPT agents
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ChatGPT agents for beginners
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🗞️ Industry news from Instagram, TikTok, and more
Instagram Stories Engagement Targets
Ever wonder which type of engagement your Instagram Stories should aim for? The Stories algorithm has a clear engagement hierarchy, and understanding it could be your secret weapon for getting seen more often.
From DMs to tap-backs, every swipe, tap, and exit sends a signal to the algorithm. But not all engagement is created equal—and some actions can actually work against you.
Brock Johnson ranks all 9 engagement types, from best to worst, so you know what to ask for. Read more
Why Your YouTube Shorts Flatline and What You Can Do About It
Ever post a YouTube Short, see a quick spike in views, and then…nothing? It's not bad luck—it's a missed signal. YouTube is testing your Shorts during the crucial trial phase, and if you don't know what metrics it's watching, your content will quietly die on the vine.
This breakdown from Think Media explores the two performance indicators that matter most if you want your Shorts to go viral.
You'll walk away with a better grasp of why swipe-away rate and average percentage viewed make or break your video, and how to tweak your opening seconds, story pacing, and formatting to trigger that algorithmic green light. Watch more here.
The 3 Phases of Marketing With TikTok Shop
TikTok Shop isn't just another sales channel; it's a fast-moving ecosystem built on authenticity, momentum, and creator-led discovery.
A clear 3-stage roadmap is emerging for digital marketers ready to tap into TikTok's commerce engine. Whether you're just launching or already seeing traction, knowing which stage you're in is the difference between spinning your wheels and scaling with purpose.
Smart Marketer dives into what you need to do during the Cold Start, Traction, and Scale phases to build visibility and drive sales (on and off TikTok).
You'll come away with a clearer sense of where your brand fits in the TikTok Shop lifecycle—and what levers to pull next. Read more here.
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Shareable Short-Form Video Content: Get More Views and Engagement
It's getting harder and harder for social posts to be seen on all the major social platforms, explains Britney Crossan, founder of Fun Love Media, a creative agency that specializes in organic video content.
When you create short-form video that people want to share, you generate valuable free exposure that's seen as more trustworthy because it's shared person to person, not by an algorithm. Because people share videos with others who are like them, you also start getting in front of audiences that you might not have been able to reach any other way.
As more people share your video, platforms show it to even more people, creating a snowball effect. This pattern makes shareable short-form video ideally suited for building awareness.
The concept of shareable content and its efficacy in supporting word-of-mouth marketing has been around for years, but marketers have to figure out new ways to implement it. They have to be flexible and learn how to go with what's currently working. Today, people are scrolling on social media, so that's where you need to be.
How to Create Short-Form Video People Will Share
When someone really enjoys content, they want someone else to see it, so you want to create content that helps humans connect by telling a relatable story quickly.
Crosson's own orthodontics jam example uses nostalgic music from the eighties and nineties to accomplish this connection with people her age who share her memories of listening to music during long appointments. The video features Crosson, but it's about the experience of the people watching it.
A grocery store could easily model this example by pairing songs customers will hear as they shop with footage of someone choosing groceries.
Crosson's process centers on three main video elements: the viewer, the hook, and a relatable story.
Pro Tip: The percentage of shareable content in your overall strategy depends on your goals. For example, if you're really focusing on growing your brand and getting people to see your business, at least fifty percent of your content should be shareable.
How to Craft a Short-Form Video Hook That Pulls Viewers In
You only have about two seconds to get someone's attention. If you start with "Hey guys, I'm here to..." you'll lose them immediately, and they'll continue scrolling.
Words, sound, and movement help you to retain attention in those first two seconds.
When you're speaking in the video, you might deliver the punchline or highlight the end result first to grab attention the way a news headline does, then go into a deeper explanation later in the storytelling portion of the video. You can also use text overlays to help highlight this element of your video during the hook.
Using movement can be as simple as walking through a space that relates to your business. If you don't have a professional space, consider whether nature is more on-brand for you. Maybe you can shoot in a park. Regardless of where you shoot, pay attention to what's in the frame and make sure faces are shown, because people naturally want to see other people.
Pro Tip: If you want to use trending audio for your video, begin with a strong beat from the audio.
How to Tell Shareable Short-Form Video Stories
Storytelling for social media, especially short-form video, doesn't have to be lengthy because it is short-form content.
First, don't worry about introducing yourself in every single short-form video. Viewers will go to your bio if they want to learn more about you.
Instead, focus on describing a relatable experience you can communicate in 15 seconds or less. Use B-roll with background music and text-on-screen to deliver your story quickly and efficiently.
For example, a hair salon owner who wants to position herself as a leader in her industry crafted a hook using on-brand music and text on screen to feature a bold, unusual, intriguing headline statement to communicate that she's run a successful salon for twenty-plus years, yet she's never been a stylist. Anyone intrigued by this statement will continue to watch to learn more.
The video shows her walking through her hair salon and stopping to check on a salon client in a chair. We see her face from the side so that we can recognize her in future videos. The video uses very natural B-roll footage that quickly establishes context for the viewer.
The video continues past the hook with storytelling to describe what the salon has accomplished over twenty years, further substantiating the owner's positioning as an industry leader.
Other topics discussed include:
Today's advice is provided with insights from Britney Crosson, a featured guest on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.
Watch the full interview on YouTube
Unlocking AI Creativity: How to Quickly Create Quality Music and Video
For many creatives, the digital landscape has fundamentally shifted the playing field. Traditional barriers to entry—expensive equipment, studio time, and professional teams—no longer dictate who can produce high-quality content.
King WIllonius, a stand-up comedian and screenwriter with no traditional ties to the music industry, was able to create a song that not only went viral but became the first AI sample in music history.
His experience illustrates how AI tools function as master-level instruments that can amplify creative potential regardless of traditional industry connections or formal training.
These tools offer unprecedented creative freedom. With AI, there's virtually no story you cannot tell or concept you cannot visualize. The moment you imagine something, you can begin ideating and creating dynamic content around that vision, without budget constraints and technical limitations.
How to Organize Your Workflow for Multimedia Content Generation With AI
Effective organization of your assets and files is crucial when working with AI tools that can generate large volumes of content quickly. Developing systems for managing your assets and maintaining creative momentum requires intentional workflow design.
Willonius admits his approach is relatively unstructured: "I wish I were a little more organized in that respect. They just all exist in my downloads folder." While this works for his creative process, developing more systematic approaches to asset management could benefit marketers and creators working on larger or more complex projects.
Willonious's creative workflow generally follows this sequence:
You'll need to find your own balance between organization and creative spontaneity. Too much structure can slow down the creative process, while too little organization can make it difficult to locate and manage the assets needed for complex projects.
Tips for Creating Video Animations With Midjourney
Midjourney serves as a crucial tool for establishing the visual style and aesthetic direction of Willonius's AI-generated video content. He recommends getting unlimited credits for Midjourney because the creative process requires extensive experimentation. Trying to work within limited credit constraints can restrict your ability to fully explore visual possibilities and achieve the best results.
Begin by generating your initial concept images. These should be simple images created with no more than three simple prompts rather than complex, detailed descriptions. Starting with no more than three simple prompts allows you to establish a baseline direction, then gradually add more specific details as you refine the visual concept to get more images.
Use the initial images as basic concepts as inspiration for visual exploration to guide your creative direction, treating them as an extensive mood board to see what's aesthetically possible. Sometimes an unexpected image will take your project in an entirely new direction that's more interesting than your original concept.
Then select the most compelling visual style as the foundation for development of all the static images you'll animate in your project.
Tools like Runway or Midjourney's video features can animate the static images, though this requires additional prompting to specify the type of movement desired.
Simple animations might require only pressing a button, while more specific movements need detailed prompts like:
Character walks towards camera.
or
Character turns around.
The rendering time for animations is generally manageable, typically taking thirty seconds to a minute per clip. This makes it practical to generate multiple animation options and select the best results.
Pro Tip: Quality control becomes important when working with multiple AI-generated elements. Since each tool may produce variations in style or quality, maintaining visual and auditory coherence across the final product requires careful selection and sometimes additional iteration to achieve consistency.
Other topics discussed include:
Today's advice provided with insights from King Willonius, a featured guest on the AI Explored podcast.
Watch the full interview on YouTube
On this week's Social Media Marketing Talk Show, host Jerry Potter and Chelsea Peitz break down the latest Instagram news and what it means for marketers like you.
Content Reposting Feature
Instagram has finally introduced native reposting functionality, bringing a feature that has been available on other platforms since 2015. This development eliminates the need for third-party applications and provides users with an official way to share content from other accounts.
The repost feature works with reels, carousels, and any public posts that appear in the main feed. When users encounter content they want to share, they can tap a circular arrow icon to initiate the repost process.
Understanding where reposts appear is crucial for marketers planning their content strategy. Reposts exist in two primary locations within the Instagram ecosystem. First, they populate a dedicated tab on the user's profile, similar to the existing tags tab where content featuring the user appears. This creates a curated space where users can showcase collaborative content, events, or other relevant material from their network.
Second, reposts integrate into followers' home feeds as suggested content. When someone reposts content, it appears in their community's feed with the reposter's profile picture overlaid on the original content, along with a small arrow icon indicating the repost status.
The repost feature functions differently from platforms like LinkedIn, where users can add commentary to shared content. Currently, Instagram's repost feature simply shares the original content without additional context or commentary options. However, this limitation may change as the feature evolves.
The strategic implications for marketers are significant. Businesses can now more easily amplify collaborative content, customer testimonials, or event coverage without requiring followers to take additional steps. The feature also creates new opportunities for building community engagement and showcasing user-generated content.
For content creators, reposts offer a pathway to expanded reach through their network's audiences. When followers repost content, it exposes the original material to entirely new audience segments that may not have encountered it otherwise.
The feature's integration into the home feed rather than specialized sections means reposts have genuine potential for organic discovery. This represents a departure from more isolated sharing mechanisms and suggests Instagram views reposts as legitimate content worthy of algorithmic distribution.
Instagram Edits App Content Increases Reach
In an unprecedented move, Instagram has openly acknowledged that content edited using their Edits app receives algorithmic preference, representing a rare instance of the platform directly revealing reach optimization tactics.
The announcement came directly from Instagram's leadership, who stated that users editing content with the Edits app "might get a little bit more reach for a time." The platform didn't specify the duration of this advantage, describing it only as temporary.
This transparent approach to algorithmic preference serves multiple purposes for Instagram. First, it drives adoption of their proprietary editing tool, reducing reliance on competing applications like CapCut. Second, it demonstrates Instagram's commitment to supporting creators who embrace its ecosystem of tools and services.
From a strategic perspective, the reach boost makes business sense for Instagram. By incentivizing users to edit within their platform, Instagram gains more control over content quality, maintains users within their ecosystem longer, and reduces dependence on external applications that might not align with Instagram's long-term goals.
Peitz has fully embraced this strategy, transitioning entirely from CapCut to Instagram's Edits app. Her decision was based on both the announced reach benefits and practical considerations about content quality and integration.
"Well, it really was like, hey, if I were Facebook, Instagram, whoever, and I had my own editing system, why wouldn't I want people to use it?" Peitz explains. "So I just thought from day one, before they even announced something, I thought, well, maybe this is a way for them to say, oh, you're using our tools."
The quality improvements available through Edits provide additional motivation for the switch. Peitz notes that videos edited through Edits appear noticeably crisper and maintain better resolution compared to content processed through external applications.
This quality difference may result from Instagram's ability to optimize compression and processing when content remains within its ecosystem throughout the creation process. External editing applications require additional encoding and re-encoding steps that can degrade final video quality.
The user experience within Edits has also improved significantly. While CapCut offers robust functionality, its extensive feature set can overwhelm users who simply need basic editing capabilities. Instagram's Edits provides a more streamlined interface that reduces the learning curve for creators focused on content production rather than advanced video editing techniques.
For marketers evaluating their content creation workflows, the temporary reach boost combined with quality improvements makes Edits a compelling option. However, the temporary nature of the algorithmic advantage suggests that users should view this as a strategic opportunity rather than a permanent solution.
More Features, Tools, Changes, and Updates Discussed Include:
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Reels Linking Feature Launch
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Enhanced Edits App Features for Content Creators
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New Instagram Content Insights
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Live Streaming Access Restrictions
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Instagram's Debunking of Common Marketing Myths
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Privacy Considerations Due to Map Sharing and the Friends Tab
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Auto Scroll Testing for Hands-Free Content Consumption
Watch it on YouTube
Fixes for ChatGPT Agents
ChatGPT agents are live, but many early users are calling them clunky and unreliable.
What if agents aren't broken… just misunderstood?
In this episode of The AI-Driven Marketer, Dan Sanchez reveals how a few simple tweaks—like using clear SOPs or controlled login credentials—helps these agents run tasks, schedule content, and automate workflows more intelligently than you'd expect.
He also explores a new way to sidestep agent limitations entirely by using form fills to trigger advanced automations. Watch more here.
Using ChatGPT Agents
You've finally coaxed a killer idea from ChatGPT—only to spend the next two hours formatting it, editing it, and manually moving it into your workflow. Sound familiar?
There's a smarter way, and it doesn't involve better prompts.
ChatGPT agents are an overlooked feature that transforms ChatGPT from a helpful chatbot into a hands-on assistant that can actually get things done.
From competitor research to automating social media posts, agents go far beyond back-and-forth chats. They can access your tools, fill out forms, trigger workflows, and turn a single idea into a week's worth of content, no babysitting required.
We're showing you real-world examples and explaining the security guardrails you should use before handing off tasks to an AI assistant. Watch more here.
Instagram Adds Inbox Tools for Creators: Instagram has introduced a set of updates aimed at improving message management for creators. The new tools include multi-select filters, custom inbox folders, and shortcuts to simplify sorting and accessing key messages. Creators can now prioritize conversations based on criteria like follower count and verification status, while a new folder separates Story replies from other DMs. These changes are designed to enhance performance, organization, and user control over direct messages. Instagram via Threads
Threads Experiments with Long-Form Text Attachments: Threads is testing a new feature that enables users to attach long-form text blocks to their posts. These text attachments appear as expandable gray boxes within the feed and support basic formatting like bold and italics. Multimedia content such as images or videos is not yet supported within the attachments. TechCrunch
TikTok Expands DM Features with Voice and Media Sharing: TikTok is enhancing its direct messaging experience by introducing voice notes and the ability to share up to nine images or videos in chats. These updates allow users to record 60-second audio messages and either capture or upload photos and videos with optional editing. To maintain user safety, new protections prevent unsolicited media from unknown contacts and automatically block nude images for users aged 16–18. Adults can customize these protections in their settings. The rollout, which brings TikTok's messaging features closer to those of other social platforms, will occur over the coming weeks. TechCrunch
Instagram Launches Native iPad App: Instagram has finally rolled out an iPad‑native app, satisfying a long-standing user demand and offering a tailored experience optimized for larger screens. The app opens directly to Reels, reinforcing Meta's strategic focus on short‑form video, while keeping familiar features like Stories and messaging easily accessible. A new "Following" tab allows users to toggle between recommended, mutual‑follow, and chronological views, with customizable ordering. Enhanced multitasking layouts enable comment expansion on Reels and side‑by‑side viewing of messages and notifications—all designed to reduce taps and maximize immersion. Reels now account for over 20% of time spent on Instagram, underscoring its central role in Meta's content strategy. Instagram
Threads Introduces 10,000‑Character Posts: Meta has launched a new Threads feature allowing users to include up to 10,000 characters in a post—significantly extending beyond the former 500‑character limit. Accessible through a new rounded‑rectangle icon in the post composer, the tool opens a formatting‑friendly editor where creators can craft longer narratives with bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough styling. In the feed, the preview appears as a compressed block beneath the original post; tapping it expands the full text and displays any embedded links in a prominent way. Aimed at writers and creators who previously shared long excerpts via screenshots, the feature is available to all users for free, distinguishing Threads from X's pay‑gated Articles offering. Meta
Threads Adds Support for Videos, Stickers, and GIFs in DMs: Threads has expanded its direct messaging capabilities to include videos, stickers, and GIFs. Users can now tap the ➕ icon within a conversation to send media from their camera roll, take new photos, or browse and share animated stickers and GIFs. The update brings more expressive communication tools to the platform, though messaging remains restricted to mutual followers on Instagram or Threads. Threads
YouTube Adds Shareable Link for Community Tab: YouTube has introduced a new feature that allows creators to generate a direct link to their Community tab. This addition aims to simplify sharing Community posts on external platforms like social media, helping creators drive more engagement. The feature is available to all users with Community post access, and YouTube is inviting feedback from those who have already activated it. YouTube
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