In a nutshell

Meta launched six new features on Reels, aiming to give its users more ways to be creative, grow their audience and monetise their content. Here’s a breakdown of the tools and how they work: 

• 'Add Yours’ sticker enables users to join or start trends on Meta’s platforms, to inspire their followers and drive engagement. 

• Creator studio insights give Facebook users access to more data, giving them more chances to improve performance and gain more followers. 

• ‘Stars’ is a new way for creators and brands to earn money through short form videos. 

• Remix in sequence is another option, enabling Meta to compete with TikTok.  

• Cross-posting video content between its Instagram and Facebook platforms to expand reach, making sure content is seen by more people. 

• Auto-created Facebook Reels, allow users to automatically turn their archived Stories into Reels clips.

What does this mean?

“In light of the latest updates for Meta, it’s integral that brands are building the new functions into their social strategies,” says iCrossing UK’s audience intelligence analyst, Charlotte Willmott. “As the rise of TikTok has proved, short-form video continues to gain traction, and Reels is now Meta's fastest growing format, accounting for 20% of the time that people spend on Instagram. These new functions give brands the ability to repurpose content where suitable, with the stories to Reels conversion, which will in turn target users who have other format preferences.

“Equally, the new features also provide additional engagement opportunities for brands, with the ‘Add Yours’ sticker. Finally, with the addition of Reels performance insights, brands can gain more insight on what content is working for them and their customers, providing the ability to optimise content strategy in the long-term.”

In a nutshell

Aiming to give users more options and ways to control their in-app experience, is working on a new ‘Reply filter’ option. This will allow users to manage their setting to limit ‘potentially unwelcome replies’ – meaning tweets that contain potentially harmful or offensive language, as identified by the platform’s detection systems. The filter is still under development, while its description highlights the fact that Twitter “uses technology to help users identify such replies, so while we’re always improving, we may not get it right all the time”.

What does this mean?

The new filter won’t restrict users replying to posts; it will only prevent the person who posted the tweet from seeing those replies, while everyone else will still have access to them. But it could be a good option for people who want to avoid exposure to negative comments to potentially offer a more pleasant experience when using the app.

In a nutshell

Harry Sumner, iCrossing UK’s senior search director, talked to Performance Marketing World about the ‘messy middle’ theory, which suggests that customers are always in the market to buy products and services. But how can brands nudge them and pull them out of the exploration and evaluation stages and onto making purchases on their sites?

What does this mean?

Harry explains how iCrossing UK’s holistic search approach can help brands take advantage of opportunities, get the most out of search and ultimately drive sales; “Our programme looks to leverage paid capabilities to then scale within organic search,” says Harry. “Given that there are a range of queries being made throughout a buyer’s journey and based on the finding that it’s paramount for a brand to be seen, we decided we needed to bring our search channels together. We brought iCrossing UK’s search practices to one unified search framework, which we call Total Search.”