Social Trends & News

Interesting news via Adweek about updated Meta social offerings.!--startfragment>Meta is expanding its advertising offerings by introducing video ads on Threads and reviving Facebook Live Partnership Ads. At the NewFronts 2025 event, Meta announced that a small number of advertisers will test 16:9 and 1:1 video ads within Threads' feed. Also, Meta is bringing Trending Reels Ads, allowing brands to place ads alongside popular Reels content. The company is also boosting Instagram’s Creator Marketplace with AI-enhanced trend analysis and performance insights. How might this news from Meta affect your 2H social media plans? !--endfragment>  

We have a fairly robust YouTube account filled with lots of videos from the last 15 years. I’ve been hoping to get our audience to engage a little more by doing posts. Some get a lot of attention and others are ignored, but there’s no clear pattern to them yet. Polls tend to get about 10-15 engagements, carousels get around 15-20 engagements, and photos don’t get much (under 10). It’s not much, but we’ve only just begun so I’m guessing it’ll take a while for the audience to get used to it. Anyone having luck with YouTube posts? What’s working?

We’re celebrating the AI event with a special giveaway!To enter to win, answer this question in the thread below:"What's one way you're hoping AI can help make your work in social media easier this year?"Share your biggest challenge or boldest idea — we want to hear it! Share your answer by Tuesday, May 6, 2025 at 11:59pm for a chance to win 1 of 3 prizes that include an Arboretum sweater, moleskin pen, Ringo 24 Oz. MagSafe Tripod Water Bottle, socks and fleece blanket. See full Terms and Conditions here.Let’s get the conversation started!

In April, OpenAI announced a social media network under their banner was being developed. Now, in the last week, we’re hearing that Meta (Facebook, Instagram) has developed a standalone Meta AI app.These developments are moving so fast that I cannot tell if this is a net positive or net negative for either the AI OR social media spaces. What are your takes on these technological crossovers or integrations (hot takes also welcome), which could affect content or algos and more?   

Hello community! I’d love to hear your thoughts about using Bluesky for your organization. I’ve been seeing the rise of this trend lately. Thank you so much! 

I thought this feature would have been long gone on LinkedIn, but I guess it’s here to stay. Has anyone seem their numbers go down on LinkedIn since LinkedIn has made a photo linked to a URL super small? What other LinkedIn features are you using instead to keep engagements up? I’m considering some content to LinkedIn Newsletters. 

My team has been tasked with evaluating options for to add a potential new organic social channel. We are an international professional organization that mostly posts B2C and R&D content, and dabble in B2B content.We are currently active on LinkedIn (our top performing platform), Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and Twitter. We are also currently analyzing if we will stay on Twitter once our new FY starts in July. What other platforms is everyone else on and getting good engagement?We’re evaluating various platforms and are currently leaning towards adding Bluesky once it is available on Sprout. (I claimed our handle a year ago and we have a few hundred followers)Thanks!

So long story short, we aren’t able to get our receipts from Instagram ads, which are required by my org, so we are no longer doing ads there. Since we stopped, we’ve seen a dramatic decline in engagement on all posts. We weren’t spending a lot, usually $50-100/month on a couple notable videos or carousels, so this major drop in engagement (about a 50% decline) seems unwarranted simple because of that. Would love to know if anyone else has seen this, or is seeing an IG decline in general. 

Hi everyone! Has anyone tried the new Buyer Groups targeting option for LinkedIn ads? If so, what was your experience? Do you feel as though it helped you reach a more relevant, engaged audience? Many thanks :)

Hi, we have a main Facebook company page with 12 store location pages underneath for the brands. But we need to set up another page and I’m not sure whether to do is as it’s own company page or a store location page? Does anyone have any thoughts for which one is the best approach?

X/Twitter as a platform has been declining for our B2B brands for a while, but we’ve mainly stayed on due to inertia and making sure people could find us. But with Musk’s inappropriate behaviour at the US inauguration and since, I personally am feeling moral reprehension at the platform writ large. (put another way, I wanted to immediately delete EVERYTHING but of course I couldn’t be so reactive)I’ve put together a business case for my boss’s that lays out statistics etc, but I’ve hit a minor snag in that our competitors are not showing any signs of leaving, and their posting frequency has not changed. So I wanted to reach out to the Sprout community to hear if you are also having conversations like this and/or if your B2B brand has already made a decision one way or the other. Thanks in advance!

I was asked this question recently and I instinctively suggested to our client to look at the Sprout Social blog and SocialMediaToday. Beyond hearing from the major social platforms themselves, where do you find the most valuable insights or analysis about platform changes and best practices? Is there a specific blog or podcast that you regularly check-out that others in our industry should as well? 

It appears that OpenAI is building its own social network, according to Reuters and The Verge. If so, do you think it would be a net good or ill for social media? Would working with an AI-first social media platform be a good fit for you or your clients?As for me, while some news coverage is skeptical or concerned, I think I’d wait and see how this develops, but it’s on my radar now.

The next U.S. TikTok ban deadline is set for Saturday, April 5, 2025, when ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, must divest its U.S. operations by then. Do you think TikTok gets another extension, a sale will go through, or a ban will be made to stick? With all that uncertainty around TikTok in the next week alone, do you have contingencies in place, regardless of whatever happens on the political/business side of things?I feel like a “wait and see” approach may be the only way to go right now, while exploring alternatives to TikTok. 

Hello! We’re a local non-profit that is part of a larger national organization. While we share the same mission and values with other locations across the country, each one—like us—operates independently and focuses on the unique needs of our own communities.We manage our own programs and run three social media pages. Two for our different locations, and one for our Bargain Shop. The Bargain Shop page has different content then our other two pages. We just had our Bargain shop page suspended due to “impersonating” a brand. We appealed it then it was denied and our page has been deleted. We just requested another appeal and are waiting for decision from Meta. Has anyone had a similar issue?

Does anybody have an idea when Sprout Social will add Threads to the Social Listening section?

Holidays are often some of the best times to discover fun and inventive ideas. I’m sure that’s no less true with April Fool’s Day. Gaming accessory company, Razer, posted a “brainrot” AI-powered translation device ad, and it seemed pretty clever and on-point to me. It’s also gotten a lot of traction across different media, such as Facebook, X, and elsewhere.What’s the best April Fool’s social media post/s you’ve found? 

The company I work for, has a tech product that is used largely by educators. There is a private Facebook group that is managed/ran by educators (this is not owned/ran/managed by our company), that is a hub for our product - everything from questions, comments, etc. Is there best practices on how to interact with this Facebook group that is not owned by us? Specifically to help with questions? I wasn’t sure if anyone else had any guidelines or experience with this! 

Has anyone else heard of “WeAre8” or actually using it? It’s a social platform that’s been around for a couple of years and bills its self as “The People’s Platform” with minimal data tracking, strong moderation and paying people for the ads they consume.

Hi everyone,I’ve been experimenting with different posting times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but I’m still not sure when I get the best engagement. Some posts perform well in the morning, while others do better in the evening.Are there any updated best practices for 2024 regarding optimal posting times? Does it vary by platform or audience type? I’d love to hear what has worked best for you in terms of reach and engagement!Looking forward to your insights!