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The Top Three 🏆

The industry’s most important stories today.

🥇 ADS ARE COMING TO THREADS

There it is: Meta's bringing ads to Threads. The company announced today that it's testing ads in the app with a select group of brands in the U.S. and Japan. more

• Ads will appear as images between posts in the home feed.

• The company will target users based on activity across Threads, Instagram, email, and even off-Meta tech.

• Users will be able to customize the ads they see from their account center and have the option to skip, hide, or report ads directly from their feed.

🥈 SOCIAL APPS STILL LEAD DOWNLOADS

A new report from Sensor Tower dives into key app trends, with social apps still dominating in downloads. Newcomers like Temu and ChatGPT are also gaining ground, but social apps still lead the way. more

• While overall time spent on social apps is still rising, growth has slowed.

• However, in-app spending is up, fueled by platform add-on services and shopping features.

• Short-form video is on the rise, with Meta seeing big gains by pushing Reels.

  • Facebook users spent 17% more time on Reels in December 2024 compared to January 2024.

• The report also looks at the growing competition for X, as rivals like Threads eat into its user base.

🥉 2024’S ADVERTISING TRENDS

A new report shows marketers are doubling down on social media and AI in 2025, with ad spend on social, digital display, video, and CTV set to increase. more

• All Hail AI: Generative AI is the biggest trend, with nearly two-thirds of marketers ranking it as a top priority, even surpassing CTV and streaming.

• Ad Spend Prioritization: 

  • More than two-thirds plan to up their spend on social and digital display/video.

  • More than half plan to raise CTV budgets.

  • Traditional channels like radio, TV, and print are falling out of favour.

Today’s Other News ☑︎

Everything else that matters.

Advertising 📣

• TikTok‘s 14-hour U.S. shutdown has led to a dip in ad performance, with decreased user engagement affecting campaign metrics. Data from Tinuiti shows that while 70% of paused campaigns have resumed, CPMs are down 30% compared to the previous week. more 

• Meanwhile, TikTok has launched “GMV Max” for UK retailers, which automatically creates ad campaigns for products and LIVE shopping sessions on TikTok Shop. Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) Max handles audience targeting, bidding, and ad creation, by identifying high-performing content for sellers on the platform. more

• Google Ads rolled out two updates to advertiser verification:

  1. Certification Changes: Starting February 5, some advertisers will no longer need certification to run ads for vignettes/e-vignettes in Europe. more

  2. Reorganized Documentation: Google has updated and reorganized its Advertiser Verification documentation to make the information easier to understand. more

Search 🔍

• Google's John Mueller says disavowing links is mostly a waste of time unless you’ve had a manual action or made bad links yourself. For negative SEO, links you didn’t build or pay for don’t need disavowing. more

Social Media 📱

• Threads now lets you schedule posts directly in the app. By tapping the three-dot menu, you can select a time and date, with scheduled posts appearing in drafts. more

  • It’s worth noting that post-scheduling via API has been available since March, but now it’s native.

• Threads is also rolling out post analytics in the mobile app, providing data on top-performing posts, follower growth, interaction rates, and more. You can also access these insights on the web version. more

• Even Tumblr is coming for TikTok: After a surge in new users when TikTok was banned, the platform reported a 35% spike in iOS installs and a 70% jump in Community joins. Now, it’s rolling out Tumblr TV—a swipeable, vertical feed for GIFs and videos. more

• TikTok and Facebook dominated U.S. apparel brand engagement in Q2 2024, each with more than 14% share of voice (SOV), showing where consumers are most engaged with apparel content. more

  • Instagram's SOV followed with 11.0%.

  • YouTube lagged behind at 3.5%.

Marketing Trends 📈

• Senior marketing execs are driving generative AI adoption, with 60% using it weekly. New research shows executives, not younger professionals, are fueling the trend, with only 40% of entry-level workers using AI weekly. While nearly two-thirds of execs have formal AI training, vs. a third of their subordinates. more

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Spotted on Social 🔍

The social web’s best posts in the last 24 hours.