On this episode of Social in Six, Mil and our associate creator director Emma break down two updates from Instagram, including mythbusting on sponsored content and the news that the platform shows less popular videos in lower quality. Elsewhere, TikTok is tinkering with a new shopping integration, and LinkedIn has some tips to get you optimising for mobile. Plus, YouTube wants to make it easier for you to partner with Shorts creators, and finally, microblogging platforms Bluesky and Threads...

Only a decade ago, social platforms were purely that: social. But what started out as places for people to connect and catch up with family and friends has now become an altogether different space.   Nowhere is this transformation more evident than TikTok. From entertainment to discovery to search to sale, the explosion of social commerce means TikTok has effectively become a microcosm of the customer journey, launching its ecommerce platform TikTok Shop in 2021.   Hear more tips...

The creator economy is barely twenty years old,
but already, it’s dramatically changed the social landscape for brands and marketers. Audiences crave real life, not challenge videos; excessive gifting is seen as out of touch, not aspirational; and TikTok has levelled the playing field by making creators
out of everyday people sharing their stories. But if there’s one thing creators know how to do, it’s adapt. Creators are testing and learning, leaning into new content formats and features,...

This year marks 20 years since Facebook was founded. It's also the year SocialChain celebrated its tenth birthday and welcomed its new CEO Jacinta Faul. Talk about milestone moments. One month into her role, there was no better time for Jacinta to sit down with our CMO Hannah Baker to look back on the past ten years - and pull out some predictions for the future - than at SocialMinds LIVE. For our second Mini Cini session at SocialMinds LIVE: Future Casting Social’s Next 20, Jacinta...

Real people. Real stories. Real moments. Locally created social content can connect with your customers more than generic brand content ever could.    At least, that’s the thinking behind Greene King’s social strategy. Leveraging its local teams was a mammoth task for the pub chain, which owns over 2,000 pubs and multiple sub-brands across the country. But with over five million fans across its social channels, the UK’s biggest pub retailer and brewer is clearly doing something right.   ...

Social is no longer just about being social. It’s a place where people buy, are entertained, become influenced or even find their dream job. And it’s even poised to be a powerful search and discovery channel – look at Search Ads Campaign on TikTok.  With so much change on the horizon, how can marketers make sense of social’s evolving role in their broader marketing mix? There’s no one better placed to answer this question than the platforms themselves. At SocialMinds LIVE: Future Casting...

Video editing, images and even podcasts. With generative AI tools cropping up for almost every creative skill, there’s no doubt AI enables us to work faster.  But that could come at a cost. AI is already making it quick and easy for marketers to get answers, but is it also making us get complacent?   At SocialMinds LIVE, SocialChain strategist Chelsea Noronha and group strategy director Ric Hayes sat down with Brave Bison’s director of AI and creative Matt Garbutt to deep-dive on all the...

Only a decade ago, brands existed on the fringes of social. Now, entire businesses are built and marketed around it. Impressive, right? Even more so when you remember that two decades ago, most social apps we use today hadn’t even been invented.   Twenty years on, how are Monzo, Surreal and Lick – three brands who owe a lot of their success to their thriving social channels – integrating this into their wider marketing mix? And how are traditional publishers like ITV Studios adapting to a...

This time on Social in Six, Kieran and Mil cover two updates from TikTok, including a keyword search ad update and a new partnership that’ll help you get more people shopping in store. They also cover Facebook’s facelift to get Gen Z usership on the rise, two new updates from Snapchat, and a surprising update from Instagram. Finally, Pinterest’s Halloween report is here to give you inspo for your seasonal cotntent. Got a question or suggestion for the Social Minds podcast? Get in touch at...

As a global platform used by businesses, creatives, and entrepreneurs (and everybody in-between), Canva must create content that not only showcases its capabilities but also connects with diverse international markets, each using the platform for different reasons. Joining us today to discuss Canva's 'Truly Local' strategy is Lachlan Stewart, Social Lead at Canva. He shares insights into the challenges, investments, and successes that have come from the brand's commitment to localised social...

Join us at Ducie Street Warehouse in Manchester on Wednesday 16th October for a day filled to the brim with expert brand speakers, platform workshops, and live podcasts with some of social media’s brightest minds. Register for free at socialchain.com/event.

This time on Social in Six, we’re back with a very familiar update for YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn’s push for more vertical video content, and TikTok’s decision to let you edit videos after posting. Plus there are a few key updates to Ads on Facebook and Instagram including better API access for Reminder Ads, and Instagram changes the rules of play for its increasingly popular Broadcast Channels. We’re here to simply break it down for you. Got a question or suggestion for the Social Minds...

Liquid Death only launched in 2019 and has already cemented its place in consumer’s hearts and creatives’ bucket lists. It’s taken the simplest commodity - water - and built a rich universe of personality, creativity and credibility around it, that’s turned a product into an entertainment property. In this episode we’re joined by Liquid Death’s VP of creative, Andy Pearson, who shares with us the creative decisions, crazy brainstorms, and love for comedy which made Liquid Death the third...

On today’s episode of Social in Six, our associate creator director Emma Lyskava joins our content marketer Mil to break down X’s lawsuit against ad safety nonprofit Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and discuss Instagram’s analytics changes that put views front and centre. We also cover YouTube’s new ad type for livestreams, LinkedIn giving newsletters a boost with paid, a small but handy update from Instagram, and a much-requested TikTok feature. Download your copy of the...

“Authentic”. It’s one of marketing’s biggest buzzwords. Authenticity has become brands’ North Star on social, but what does that word actually mean? Our content marketer Melissa Harvey wants to find out. In this episode, Melissa’s diving into SocialChain’s brand-new white paper Forget Real: Why Brands Should Aim Higher Than Authentic on Social. Together with its contributors, senior creator Eve Young and midweight creator Georgia Hill, they uncover why brands should stop trying to be...

On this week’s Social in Six, we’re sharing the latest on TikTok’s answer to virtual influencers: Digital Avatars, and an expansion of its Out of Phone ad placement. We discuss Instagram’s exciting addition to Reels regarding audio and an update to its Collab Posts, plus X’s decision to introduce downvotes and Pinterest’s new AI image editing tool. Got a question or suggestion for the Social Minds podcast? Get in touch at [email protected].

If you saw Jeremy Allen White’s Calvin Klein ad, count yourself lucky. It was shared without ALT text, so blind and partially sighted people couldn’t join the fun. That was until RNIB schooled us all. Behind every sassy, creative, and inventive post from the Royal National Institute of Blind People is an important message: People with sight loss exist. Social media content manager and previous copywriter for Specsavers’ agency, Helen Dutson, and RNIB’s social media officer Holly Tuke, who’s...

This week on Social in Six, we’re joined by SocialChain senior strategist Gareth to break down the top stories circulating in social right now. On the agenda are two updates from Instagram – the first being a test for text overlays and different image ratios in Carousels, and the second being unskippable in-feed video ads. We also discuss TikTok replacing its Creator Centre with new TikTok Studio, X launching new analytics (with a catch), and LinkedIn implementing yet another AI ad tool....

Oatly’s punk reputation needs no introduction, but its new media plan does. The brand is scaling up and growing up. So how can Oatly’s provocative ads and content stay that way, while it steps into this next, more mature, phase? In this episode we’re joined by its Global Media Director, Sarah Sutton, to reveal when brands are over-strategising, why Oatly still won’t write TOV guidelines (I know, I know) and how they’re approaching social reactive and creator partnerships after watching the...

A good social strategy should be a lot of things. But the best ones are built around, and for, the fans. Go behind the curtain of a campaign that dominated the FYP page in 2023: SharkNinja’s fan-first approach promoting the Ninja Creami on TikTok. And discover how you too can build campaigns that outlast you. Hear from SharkNinja director of social media & influencers, and SocialChain’s head of influencer Amelia Wollaston, and senior strategist Gareth Harrison. Got a question or a...

Measuring social’s effectiveness can be a minefield. We all want to create more effective outcomes for our brands through social, but social media’s KPIs often seem disconnected to marketing effectiveness principles. That’s what we aim to clarify through this panel discussion – with Ric Hayes, SocialChain group strategy director; Hannah Kimuyu, Brave Bison MD of performance; and Angie French, founder of ALF Consulting. In this, they simplify what it means to know how hard your ads are working...

In this instalment of Social in Six, we’re joined by SocialChain strategist Kieran Hughes to break down the latest social updates. This time that includes collaboration posts from TikTok, an algorithm change from Instagram, and several new premium ad types from TikTok. We also talk about Meta and TikTok’s new crackdown on AI generated content, Instagram’s plan to grow Threads’ userbase further, and what Adam Mosseri had to say on Reels best practice. Got a question or suggestion for the...

What should we, as brands, be doing to make our campaigns more engaging and, ultimately, more effective? There’s no one better to ask than those who write the rules of engagement – the platforms themselves. At SocialMinds LIVE 2024 we put three of the major social players around the same table to find out – algorithm be damned - what formats, campaigns and ad solutions really drive engagement on their respective channels. Hear from Tobi Demuren, head of advocacy marketing at LinkedIn;...

Our first panel at SocialMinds LIVE in London asked one simple question: how can brands bin the buzzword and build a genuine community? Answering our question was Leah Silverlock, global director of social media at American Express GBT; Jake Gauntlett, head of content at MOB; and Tom Bellamy, SocialChain’s executive creator director. But here’s the catch: how we define community and how the wider industry defines it, is wildly disconnected. Through this discussion and the following Q&A,...