October 2023 Digital News Updates – Multiple Facebook Profiles, TikTok Testing Ad-Free Viewing, and More!

Krista Neher

Oct 05 2023

Members of our All Access Pass get the first look at the latest digital marketing news updates each month. We cover what matters to marketers during a live, interactive session and answer questions. We spend hours combing industry news sites looking for the most critical updates, so you don’t have to!

Facebook and Meta News Updates

• Facebook Rebrand – Notice a new color palette on Facebook? It isn’t just you – the brand completed a refresh.
• New Ray-Ban Smart Glasses – Smart glasses have never taken off, and the previous Meta Stories Glasses with Ray-Ban were no exception. The new glasses offer more features and flexibility – from audio listening to audio assist to better and more flexible image and video capture. These are available for pre-order (I have them on my list). We’ll keep you updated on how they pan out.
• Meta Launching Paid Verified Business – I verified my profiles when this feature came out to get accelerated support and increase credibility. This is currently only Beta testing in a few countries (New Zealand to start) but stay tuned. At $35/month for Facebook and Instagram, it isn’t a bad value if it comes with support.
• Multiple Profiles on Facebook – This is HUGE – users can now have up to 4 profiles for different purposes. For example, you can manage a personal and professional profile. Each profile can have a custom newsfeed, but you’ll be able to use a single login.
• AI Assistant and Characters – At Meta Connect, Meta unveiled a variety of AI features, including assistants, collaborative AI images, and characters. These are opportunities for average users to harness AI throughout their experiences with the Meta platform. I think this could be good for driving the adoption of AI.
• Meta Planning $14/month Ad-Free Facebook or Instagram – It isn’t clear how many users would pay for this feature (heck, it costs more than my HBO Max subscription), but it could reduce inventory for ads and drive up costs for advertisers.

Threads News Updates

• Threads Engagement is Low – Meta acknowledged that after a blockbuster launch, engagement with the platform is lower than they would like. There are some power users but many light users. The average time on the platform is only 6 minutes vs. 31 minutes for X (formerly Twitter). I think that the platform launch didn’t include many features needed to drive adoption, so it isn’t surprising that engagement isn’t there yet. This is a priority for the team, so look for more features and prompts to drive engagement.

X (Formerly Twitter) News Updates

• More Features Limited to Paid Users – More features (like some DM options) will be limited to paid users. This is a trend on the platform as they push users to pay-for accounts.

LinkedIn News Updates

• LinkedIn Increases Accessibility with New Features – Including smarter integrated readers. Side note: If you prefer to have LinkedIn articles read to you, this is also a great feature 😉
• LinkedIn Increases AI in Campaigns – Essentially, the AI in the ad platform can create and optimize every part of a campaign for you. You’ll probably want to provide direction (I don’t think it is that reliable for all campaigns yet.) Remember – you need clear, strong, focused strategies to point the AI in the right direction.
• LinkedIn Adds AI to Recruiting and Learning – The new features provide recommendations and streamlined processes.

 TikTok Update

• TikTok Testing Ads Free Subscription – Similar to Meta, TikTok has announced that they’ll test an ads-free version of the platform. I personally wonder how many people will sign up for this and how significant the impact will be, but it is good to watch as the platform develops.
• New TikTok Shops – TikTok is launching shops – where you can create a shop directly in the platform. We already know that TikTok drives massive traffic to e-commerce stores and inspires purchases. If you sell products appropriate for the platform, this is definitely worth a look.
• TikTok Tags AI Content – Content on TikTok will now be flagged as AI if it is created (or assisted) by AI. I’m curious to see if other platforms follow this trend as no other networks require tagging of the content… yet.

AI News Update

• ChatGPT can Now Browse the Internet – This means that it can incorporate links and get the latest information. In my opinion, this is going to unlock much more power in ChatGPT. It is currently only available to paid and enterprise users but will likely roll out to a broader audience soon.
• Chat GPT can See, Hear, and Speak – For real. This is a big breakthrough in the usability of ChatGPT, as it can now communicate in more modalities. Ask questions, have things read, and discuss images – all of these are now possible. I think this will be a big change in how the tool works.
• ChatGPT Canva Plugin – I haven’t used it yet, but this is promising. The AI in Canva isn’t reliable (or always functional) yet, so integrating ChatGPT can be a quick way to get the advantages of AI directly in Canva.
• Getty Images Launches AI – This image AI tool is only trained on images that Getty is licensed to use. This alleviates the challenge of worrying about copyright issues based on what the AI is trained on. The remaining copyright issues around AI images not being copyrightable remain.
• Adobe Firefly Available to Everyone – This is the Adobe AI tool. In addition to text to image creation, it can expand and fill images. When I tested this, the results were really remarkable. PLUS, Adobe only trains their AI on licensed images, so there are fewer issues around copyright.

Digital Marketing News Update

• Social Network Users Compared – This chart compares daily and monthly average users across major social networks. Spoiler alert: Facebook is by far the biggest, and TikTok is about half of it.
• State of Marketing AI Report – This report has lots of great data about how marketers are using AI. If you want to understand the impact of AI on our industry, check this out.

Read some more of our recent posts

• Four Ways AI is Revolutionizing Video Marketing
• April 2024 Digital Updates Instagram Launches Stories Tips and Tricks, Page Messaging Arrives At LinkedIn and More
• 5 Steps to Build Generative AI Literacy Across Your Organization
• March 2024 Digital News Updates - Threads AI and Cross-posting, IG Creator Marketplace, TikTok Could Pull More Music
• February 2024 Digital News Updates