A number of opportunities and challenges lie ahead for those looking to stay on top of social media marketing trends in 2024.

Change is in store for social media in 2024. One of the bigger impacts is likely to come from artificial intelligence, which is poised to further transform the biggest social media platforms and the marketing space more broadly. At a tactical level, generative AI will be an important consideration for marketers because of its impact on how systems operate.

Privacy demands are likely to become an even bigger industry issue in the months ahead, which will be partially driven by AI, tech that is already amplifying ongoing concerns in this area. The death of the cookie could see marketers taking a closer look at Facebook, TikTok and other platforms to bolster their media strategies, helping drive revenue gains for social apps.

As platforms continue to evolve and multiply, establishing a core message that can be used across channels will be key. With new platforms like Threads making waves and more platforms integrating short-form videos, there are a lot of social media marketing trends to keep up with. Knowing how to reach consumers on each platform is an imperative.

Staying ahead of innovation, and knowing when and how to jump on the latest social media marketing trends will be another skill to master in 2024. With all these changes in mind, we have compiled this playbook to help marketers plan their social media strategies going forward.

The post What Social Media Marketers Can Expect in 2024 first appeared on Media Group Online.

But with CBS controlling the game production this year, virtually every streamer lagged worse than it did in 2023, according to Phenix’s annual study

Paramount Plus delivered the least lag time between the what was happening on the field Sunday in Las Vegas during Super Bowl LVIII and what streamers actually saw on their screen, with latency averaging 42.73 seconds, according to research company Phenix, which annually tracks streaming performance for the big game.

Fubo TV, which was working off CBS’ exclusive live feed of the game, registered the worst score, averaging 86.75 seconds.

Notably, every streamer that also presented the game last year saw an increase in lag time. Here’s how last year’s performances stacked up.

“This is the fifth year we’ve conducted our Super Bowl latency study, and unfortunately nothing has changed — the industry has yet to catch up with consumer demand to provide a real-time experience,” said Roy Reichbach, CEO of Phenix, in a statement.

Phenix didn’t go into specifics as to why scores deteriorated this year. The company did say that broadcast delays were worse Sunday relative to other recent Super Bowls.

“For today’s consumers, live sporting events are riddled with spoilers, especially as we continue to see this new ‘scroll and watch’ habit, getting notifications straight to our phones via apps and social media,” Reichbach added. “For one of the most highly anticipated sporting and cultural moments, and in a world where artificial intelligence is taking reign, there should be no excuse as to why broadcasters aren’t able to stream the game as it is happening on the field in real-time. A solution exists, and the people want it.” –

Daniel Frankel

The post Paramount Plus Wins the ‘Latency Bowl,’ Experiences Only a 42.73-Second Lag Behind the Big Game first appeared on Media Group Online.

Google on Thursday moved into the “Gemini Era” — rebranding its Bard technology to Gemini, a reflection of the company’s advancements in generative artificial intelligence (GAI).

The GAI technology becomes available on the web, in a new Gemini app for Android, and in the Google app on Apple iOS in English in the U.S. There was no mention of whether the technology would become available on TV, smart displays, and speakers.

Sissie Hsiao, vice president and general manager of Gemini experiences and Google Assistant, said the company believes in making AI helpful for everyone, and “this will be one of the most profound ways we will advance our company’s mission.”

The post Google Bard Becomes Gemini With Paid, Free Services first appeared on Media Group Online.

With the use of generative AI on the rise, Meta’s working to establish new rules around AI disclosure in its apps, which will not only put more onus on users to declare the use of AI in their content, but also, ideally, implement new systems to detect AI usage, via technical means.

Which is not always going to be possible, as most digital watermarking options are easily subverted. But ideally, Meta’s hoping to enact new industry standards around AI detection, by working in partnership with other providers to improve AI transparency, and establish new working rules to highlight such in-stream.

As explained by Meta:

“We’re building industry-leading tools that can identify invisible markers at scale – specifically, the “AI generated” information in the C2PA and IPTC technical standards – so we can label images from Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney, and Shutterstock as they implement their plans for adding metadata to images created by their tools.”

These technical detection measures will ideally enable Meta, and other platforms, to label content created with generative AI wherever it appears, so that all users are better informed about synthetic content.

That’ll help to reduce the spread of misinformation as a result of AI, though there are limitations on this capacity within the current AI landscape.

“While companies are starting to include signals in their image generators, they haven’t started including them in AI tools that generate audio and video at the same scale, so we can’t yet detect those signals and label this content from other companies. While the industry works towards this capability, we’re adding a feature for people to disclose when they share AI-generated video or audio so we can add a label to it. We’ll require people to use this disclosure and label tool when they post organic content with a photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so.”

Which is a key concern within AI development more broadly, and something that Google, in particular, has repeatedly sounded the alarm about.

While the development of new generative AI tools like ChatGPT are a major leap for the technology, Google’s view is that we should be taking a more cautious approach in releasing such to the public, due to the risk of harm associated with misuse.

Already, we’ve seen generative AI images cause confusion, from more innocent examples like The Pope in a puffer jacket, to more serious, like the aftermath of a fake explosion outside The Pentagon. Unlabeled and unconfirmed, it’s very hard to tell what’s true and what’s not, and while the broader internet has debunked these examples fairly rapidly, you can see how, in certain contexts, like, say, elections, the incentives of both sides could make this more problematic.

Image labeling will improve this, and again, Meta says that it is developing digital watermarking options that will be harder to side-step. But as it also notes, audio and video AI is not detectable as yet.

And we’ve already seen this in use by political campaigns:

Which is why some AI experts have repeatedly raised concerns, and it does seem somewhat problematic that we’re implementing safeguards for such in retrospect, after they’ve been put in the hands of the public.

Surely, as Google suggests, we should be developing these tools and systems first, then looking at deployment.

But as with all technological shifts, most regulation will come in retrospect. Indeed, the U.S. Government has started convening working groups on AI regulation, which has set the wheels in motion on an eventual framework for improved management.

Which will take years, and with a range of important elections being held around the world in 2024, it does seem like the chicken and egg of this situation has been confused.

But we can’t stop progress, because if the U.S. slows down, China won’t, and Western nations could end up falling behind. So we need to push ahead, which will open up all kinds of security loopholes in the coming election period.

And you can bet that AI is going to play a part in the U.S. Presidential race.

Maybe, in future, Meta’s efforts, combined with other tech giants and lawmakers, will facilitate more safeguards, and it is good that critical work is now being done on this front.

But it’s also concerning that we’re trying to re-cork a genie that’s already long been unleashed.

The post Meta Outlines New Approaches to Generative AI Transparency first appeared on Media Group Online.

Does advertising make everything worse? One of the mini-blinds in my living room is starting to show age.

I Googled something, or maybe Amazon heard me mention blinds.

But now there’s an endless stream of ads for blinds. They are all the same. They show me pretty pictures and ask for my email address so a salesperson can reach out to me. Literally the same — no prices, no advice, no unique selling proposition. Just pictures of blinds.

Spending a few days in Washington this week, I couldn’t help but think about how painfully dangerous the impact of social media on children has become. For social media platforms, children — in some cases, very young ones — are little more than the product.

Attending the hearing were two dozen 19- to 23-year-olds wearing shirts reading, “I’m worth more than $270.” The statistic comes from a lawsuit against Meta filed by representatives of 33 states in November, citing a 2018 email from a Facebook employee that put that number on the future profits the company could expect from a young user: “The lifetime value of a 13 y/o teen is roughly $270 per teen.” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) brought up the statistic and the T-shirts while she chastised Zuckerberg during the hearing.

The advocates were from Design it for Us and Young People’s Alliance. “We put the number on the shirts so that he could see that valuing one person’s life at 270 dollars,” YPA’s Ava Smithing told SFGATE.

“Facebook’s products routinely garnered higher growth rates at the expense of content quality and user safety. Features that produced marginal usage increases were disproportionately responsible for spam on WhatsApp, the explosive growth of hate groups, and the spread of false news stories via reshares,” wrote Jeff Horwitz in his new book “Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets.”

“Despite launching a Child Safety Task Force in June, the company hasn’t fixed the problems underlying the issues we identified, such as the pedophilic ‘accounts you should follow’ recommendations to autocomplete suggestions that users look for ‘child pornography links’ in search,” Horwitz continued.

One of Horwitz’s most passionate subjects profiled is Arturo Bejar, who worked for Facebook on two different occasions.

When I talked with Bejar in Washington before the Senate hearing, he was already expecting Mark Zuckerberg to lie on the stand.

After the hearing, I found Bejar standing on the lawn of the Capitol as part of a rally organized by Accountable Tech and Design It For Us.

Said Bejar,  “First and foremost, these deaths are preventable. They have the technology to do it. They have the means to do it. They have the infrastructure. They just don’t have the will.”

When his teenage daughter was sexually harassed on Instagram, Bejar brought his deeply researched concerns to Zuckerberg. Bejar led the Compassion Project inside Facebook, which looked at ways that technology could help support teens in emotional distress and alleviate suicide and bullying.

“It is very straightforward and not difficult for them to reduce the amount of harmful content that teens get exposed to. It is not difficult for them to provide tools to say, ‘hey, I just got something that harassed me, made me uncomfortable,’” Bejar explained.  Zuckerberg “dares to stand today and say, our job is to make the best tools that we can. That was a lie. We don’t allow under-13-year-olds on Instagram. That is a lie.”

Zamaan Qureshi, co-founder of the Design it For Us coalition said, with the Capitol Dome in the background:  “We know that [$270] is what Meta thinks of you and me, as young products out to be exploited — as young products to be squeezed out of every dollar we have to offer. There is a growing, powerful movement of young people demanding a better online future.”

Back on Facebook, I’m watching a steady flow of window blinds fill my newsfeed and thinking of Qureshi and Bejar. Facebook is literally blinding me with ads and selling the privacy and innocence of its young users to people dedicated to doing them harm. Once you see what the company is willing to do, it’s hard to look away.

The post Blinded by The Ads first appeared on Media Group Online.

X is expanding access to its new vertical video ads, which are displayed within its dedicated video feed, that’s activated when a user taps through on a specific video clip in-stream.

Which is not how you would assume that many people are watching video in the app, given that the majority of X’s usage is in the main feed. But apparently, that assumption would be incorrect, because X says that 100 million users now engage with vertical video in the app every day.

As per X:

“X is becoming a video-first experience, with video now part of more than four out of five user sessions, and video views growing at an average rate of 35% year over year. Today, we’re expanding Vertical Video Ads to all advertisers globally, enabling a full-screen, sound-on advertising experience on X’s fastest-growing video surface.”

Now, how, exactly, X can call itself a “video-first” platform when it doesn’t open to a video feed is another question. But maybe that’s coming too.

X says that, based on testing, Vertical Video Ads are the most engaging ad format that it’s ever released, though whether that incorporates the history of X and Twitter, or just X, is unclear.

“We’ve observed that X users are 7X more likely to engage with an ad in vertical video compared to the same ad on the Home Timeline, while early adopters have seen -14% lower CPMs on average compared to ads in the Home Timeline.”

In theory, based on video consumption trends, this should offer more value. Previous insights from Twitter showed that tweets with video generate 10x more engagement than non video posts, while X claims that, on any given day, vertical video now accounts for more than 20% of total platform usage.

That feels like a lot, but if that’s correct, then there should be a level of opportunity in this new placement.

It’ll be interesting to see whether X actually does lean further into full-screen video, and make it a key focus of engagement, by opening to a video feed, or presenting it as an alternative UI option at some stage.

But based on these stats, its vertical video ad option could be worth testing.

X says that all U.S.-based advertisers will be able to launch vertical video ad campaigns from today.

The post X Makes Its Vertical Video Feed Ads Available to All Advertisers first appeared on Media Group Online.

With its ad business apparently back on track, the narrative around Meta is more positive than a year ago.

Meta has shared another solid performance report, with the company posting a 25% year-over-year increase in revenue, and a massive 201% jump in net income year-over-year for the three month period.

Despite many questions around its Metaverse vision, as well as the apparent decline in popularity of Facebook, and its somewhat questionable early efforts to tap into the evolving AI race, Meta is still the powerhouse of the social media sector, and remains in a strong position to capitalize on emerging opportunities.

First off, on users, Facebook’s daily active user count rose to 2.11 billion on average for December, up 6% year-over-year.

Honestly, the fact that Facebook’s still adding users is amazing, as it has to be reaching saturation point in many markets. That’s especially true in North America, where Facebook still added 2 million more users.

The death of Facebook has been greatly exaggerated, and while I would also like to see time spent stats, in order to understand exactly how these 2 billion+ users are engaging in the app, Meta did report last year that user time on Facebook is also rising, as a result of more AI recommended content being injected into user feeds.

The platform remains a critical connector, and it’s also still growing at solid rates in emerging markets, which is also reflected in its monthly user stats.

The chart above shows that almost all of Facebook’s user growth is coming in the Asia Pacific and “Rest of World” segments. That’ll help to position the platform for further success as these markets evolve.

This could be the last time that we get Facebook-specific usage stats, with Meta CFO Susan Li confirming the company will only be sharing its collective Family user stats from now on. Meta’s Family user counts incorporate unique user data across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

It’s easy to lose sight of just how significant that figure is. The population of the entire world is around 8 billion, and with 1.4 billion people in China, where Meta’s apps are not available, that means that the majority of people who can access a Meta app are doing so on a regular basis.

Facebook remains a key ad consideration for this reason, because so many people check into the app every day to catch up on the latest news from friends and family. Sure, TikTok now takes up a lot of attention, but Meta’s platforms remain dominant in the overall market.

In terms of revenue, Meta bought in $40 billion for the quarter, bringing its total to $134 billion for the year. Meta’s advertising revenue in Q4 totaled $38.7 billion, up from $31.2 billion a year ago.

As you can see, Meta is still heavily reliant on the U.S. and European markets, but its other regions are developing, with its holiday results reflecting its ongoing ad system improvements, leading to increased advertiser demand.

Which leads to this interesting note for Facebook advertisers:

“In the fourth quarter of 2023, ad impressions delivered across our Family of Apps increased by 21% year-over-year and the average price per ad increased by 2% year-over-year. For the full year 2023, ad impressions increased by 28% year-over-year and the average price per ad decreased by 9% year-over-year.”

More ads, in more places means that the overall costs reduce, though it is worth noting that Meta saw an increase in average price per ad in Q4. That’s likely due to higher overall demand for the holidays, but still, worth noting.

On another front, its longer-term metaverse plan remains costly.

Meta did report an increase in sales from its Reality Labs VR division for the quarter, rising to $1.07 billion. But its cost of development remains high, with overall Reality Labs investment at $5.7 billion for the period.

That means that, in total, Meta spent over $17 billion on VR development for the full year, eclipsing its previous record of $13.7 billion in VR investment in 2022.

So while sales of its new Quest 3 headset are rising, and the latest version of its Ray Ban Stories glasses are gaining traction, Meta is still a long way from making money from its future bets.

But even so, there are positive signals, with Meta specifically noting that the increase in Reality Labs revenue was as a result of increased sales of Quest 3 units over the holiday season.

And with Meta also recently adding mobile connectivity for its metaverse environment, enabling non-VR users to engage in VR experiences, that should help to plant more seeds for the next stage, while Meta’s also eventually planning to integrate generative AI into its VR world building tools, which could further personalize its immersive offerings.

Also worth noting here is the variance in income in its non-advertising intake, which, in significant part, would reflect the performance of its Meta Verified subscription program.

Meta launched its paid verification package to U.S. users in March, so the results of those sales would be reflected in this element from Q2 onwards. Meta’s “Other” intake increased by over $100 million between Q2 and Q4, which could suggest that, at a basic estimate, Meta has sold around 6 million paid verification subscriptions.

Meta hasn’t released any specific info on this, but the rising numbers here suggest that its verification sales are in the millions. Which will help to bring even more money into its coffers, though that at 6 million, that would still only equate to less than 0.5% of its overall user base.

There are a lot of good signs for Meta in this report, so much so that even with the VR losses still being so high, its shares have seen a big boost, as positive sentiment around the company increases.

The storyline last year was that Meta was losing billions on Zuckerberg’s metaverse dream, but now, as that vision starts to clarify, and its ad business gets back on track, the narrative around Meta is changing once again.

The post Meta Posts Solid Increases in Revenue and Usage for Q4 2023 first appeared on Media Group Online.

Realistic-looking shampoo bottles and seltzer cans are popping up on videos from digital creators on TikTok and YouTube in a new form of old advertising.

The post A.I. Fuels a New Era of Product Placement first appeared on Media Group Online.

In an effort to further expand its rapidly growing e-commerce business in the U.S., TikTok, the video-sharing platform owned by ByteDance, is testing a new feature that would link real-world products to any posts on the app. This would theoretically mean that all videos users would see shoppable content.

According to Bloomberg, which first reported the story, the feature is able to automatically identify objects in user videos and then persuades viewers to “find similar items on TikTok Shop,” the company’s e-commerce offering. Viewers will then be presented with a page of products, which they can click on to buy.

The feature, which TikTok says is in limited testing, has the power to set a new precedent on the app. Presently, only approved influencers and brands are able to tag products when posting content to TikTok. This feature would expand the use of e-commerce links posted directly by TikTok.

Earlier this month, Bloombergreported on internal information highlighting TikTok’s plans to grow TikTok Shop tenfold in the U.S. to $17.5 billion in 2024.

The company, which is basing its e-commerce revenue goals on the proven success of China’s doppelganger app Douyin, is hoping TikTok Shop will become a direct competitor to Amazon, Temu, and Shein.

TikTok Shop, which officially launched in the U.S. in September, saw early success over Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2023, with over 5 million new U.S. customers purchasing something on the budding e-commerce platform.

However, it’s likely that the 3% drop in the year-over-year growth of TikTok’s monthly active users may be linked to the platform’s expansion of in-app product offerings. Some users have expressed their dismay.

TikToker Grace Brassel, who has over half a million followers on the app, posted a video saying “There’s links everywhere. There’s a hundred ads. Why is there 17-year-old girls trying to sell me 35-cent ring lights?”

“It’s providing a good opportunity for some people,”another popular TikToker, Mile Taylor, posted in September. “But I think that it can provide a good opportunity for people and TikTok can stop showing me 4 million of them.”

TikTok has not provided any further details on the feature or its possible release.

The post TikTok Tests Feature to Make All Videos Shoppable first appeared on Media Group Online.

Emily Huo, Luke Peng join Paramount to lead SMB ad business

Paramount Advertising said it is increasing its focus on small and medium-sized advertisers and setting up a self-service platform to make it easier for such businesses to buy ads from Paramount.

In a memo to staff, Paramount Advertising president John Halley announced the company had hired two executives to head its small and midsized client business and launch the self-service platform.

Emily Huo was named senior VP of SMB advertising and will be responsible for the company’s go-to-market strategy. Huo had been global director of SMB advertising at Spotify and previously held posts at Reddit and Twitter.

She is based in San Francisco.

Luke Peng joins Paramount as VP of product, SMB Advertising, reporting to Huo. He will develop and optimize products for the SMB platform. His background includes stints at TikTok, Wish and PayPal.

Hally noted that Paramount’s EyeQ digital ad platform has attracting businesses of all sizes.

“Exponential growth in the advertiser base was always the promise of digital, where impressions are bought one at a time, and there is no minimum threshold for campaign investment,“ Halley said. “And while we have seen the advertiser floodgates open across EyeQ, we now seek to evolve and scale our relationships with the small and medium businesses (SMBs) that are fueling this expansion.”

Hul and Peng will oversee the launch of Paramount’s self-service advertising platform, Paramount Ad Manager, to put the power of EyeQ into the hands of SMB advertisers, he said.

“We are one of the few ad-supported streamers with a geo-targeted inventory supply vast enough to connect directly and drive results for the SMB segment, and under the leadership of Emily and Luke, we are doubling down on these efforts, bringing in experienced senior management to drive marketplace expansion,” Halley said.

Jon Lafayette

The post Paramount Setting Up Self-Serve Ad Buying for Smaller Businesses first appeared on Media Group Online.