Understanding the inner workings of social media is crucial to creating a successful strategy. Few are better placed to inform marketers about this than our guest for this episode of Social Minds. At the end of last year, Social Chain strategy director Mike Blake-Crawford came on the podcast to predict what 2019 would have in store for social. Now, half way through the year, we check back in with Mike to see which of his predictions have come to pass and what new trends have presented themselves. In this episode, we cover the ‘demetrification’ of social as Instagram moves to hide likes, noting what the impact will be for brands and influencers. We also discuss the rise in chatbots and ‘chatvertising’ amid a shift towards private messaging. Finally, Mike reveals Facebook’s motive behind encouraging long-form video posts, how YouTube and Facebook have reversed their stance on video length, and what our data says about the ongoing long-form versus short-form debate.