On this episode of Social in Six, Mil and Eve cover two updates from Instagram: a Trials update for Reels, and its latest new features for Broadcast Channels. They also discuss what Australia’s social media ban means for brands, how TikTok is allegedly hoping to boost shopping with TikTok Mini apps, and YouTube’s latest slate of updates to facilitate brand and creator partnerships on platform with BrandConnect. Finally, they cover an ads update from Meta that gives your Traffic campaigns increased flexibility.

Got a question or suggestion for the Social Minds podcast? Get in touch at [email protected].

When the language learning app’s owl mascot, Duo, first appeared on our TikTok screens, marketers and audiences alike couldn’t look away from the unhinged comedy bits and hilarious community engagement. Now, as Duolingo looks to build on its success and evolve the brand for the future, we sit down with its Regional Marketing Director for Europe & LATAM, Rebeca Ricoy, to learn what the future holds for Duo and the other ensemble cast of characters you interact with on the app. Expect to hear why the brand wasn’t shy to embrace its intimidating reputation, how they approach local vs global social, and how social is just one piece of a much larger marketing plan.

Got a question or a suggestion for the SocialMinds podcast? Get in touch at [email protected].

On this episode of Social in Six, Mil and our associate creator director Emma break down two updates from Instagram, including mythbusting on sponsored content and the news that the platform shows less popular videos in lower quality. Elsewhere, TikTok is tinkering with a new shopping integration, and LinkedIn has some tips to get you optimising for mobile. Plus, YouTube wants to make it easier for you to partner with Shorts creators, and finally, microblogging platforms Bluesky and Threads have seen an uptick in usership following the US election.

Got a question or suggestion for the Social Minds podcast? Get in touch at [email protected].

Only a decade ago, social platforms were purely that: social. But what started out as places for people to connect and catch up with family and friends has now become an altogether different space.  

Nowhere is this transformation more evident than TikTok. From entertainment to discovery to search to sale, the explosion of social commerce means TikTok has effectively become a microcosm of the customer journey, launching its ecommerce platform TikTok Shop in 2021.  

Hear more tips from Jackie, Hannah and Gareth as they took to the SocialMinds LIVE stage to prepare your brand for the future of social commerce.  

Click below to watch the full session with insights including: 

• How to diversify your digital footprint cost-effectively through testing 
• Why listing your products on TikTok could be enough to get you started 
• The benefits of letting influencers work across your sale funnel

Download our key takeaways report from SocialMinds LIVE now.

The creator economy is barely twenty years old,
but already, it’s dramatically changed the social landscape for brands and marketers. Audiences crave real life, not challenge videos; excessive gifting is seen as out of touch, not aspirational; and TikTok has levelled the playing field by making creators
out of everyday people sharing their stories. But if there’s one thing creators know how to do, it’s adapt. Creators are testing and learning, leaning into new content formats and features, and even building empires of their own. And old-school influencers
who made a name for themselves on YouTube have diversified their platforms and income streams as their audiences have grown with them.

Play back the live podcast now and find out Nat and Amelia's tips for how brands, like creators, can thrive on social amid constant change.

Expect to learn:

• Whether platforms or creators dictate the changes we see on social
• How to balance staying up to date with trends with creating a sustainable content strategy 
• Why your brand should be partnering with creators across every social platform 

Download our key takeaways report from SocialMinds LIVE now.

This year marks 20 years since Facebook was founded. It's also the year SocialChain celebrated its tenth birthday and welcomed its new CEO Jacinta Faul. Talk about milestone moments.

One month into her role, there was no better time for Jacinta to sit down with our CMO Hannah Baker to look back on the past ten years - and pull out some predictions for the future - than at SocialMinds LIVE.

For our second Mini Cini session at SocialMinds LIVE: Future Casting Social’s Next 20, Jacinta sat down in conversation with our CMO Hannah Baker to give social marketers insight into what the future holds. 

Watch the session back now to find out:

• What Jacinta’s learnt from over a decade working at the front lines of digital
• Why Gen Z talent are the “Swiss Army knives” of our marketing teams
• What marketers need to do right now to stay ahead next year

Download our key takeaways report from SocialMinds LIVE now.

Real people. Real stories. Real moments. Locally created social content can connect with your customers more than generic brand content ever could.   

At least, that’s the thinking behind Greene King’s social strategy. Leveraging its local teams was a mammoth task for the pub chain, which owns over 2,000 pubs and multiple sub-brands across the country. But with over five million fans across its social channels, the UK’s biggest pub retailer and brewer is clearly doing something right.  

In this episode from SocialMinds Live, discover how you can balance global brand building with leveraging local communities on social, including: 

• How to empower your employees to be creators  
• Why you should produce a framework for success (Hint: You don’t want local teams sharing memes every day) 
• What you can do to get buy-in from internal stakeholders   

Download our key takeaways report from SocialMinds LIVE now.

Social is no longer just about being social. It’s a place where people buy, are entertained, become influenced or even find their dream job. And it’s even poised to be a powerful search and discovery channel – look at Search Ads Campaign on TikTok. 

With so much change on the horizon, how can marketers make sense of social’s evolving role in their broader marketing mix? There’s no one better placed to answer this question than the platforms themselves. At SocialMinds LIVE: Future Casting Social’s Next 20, senior marketing leaders from TikTok joined Meta and Reddit to discuss what the future feed looks like and how marketers can equip themselves for the next decade of social.  

Listen to this epsiode to discover evolving trends and features shaping the future of marketing, including: 

• Why real people are the influencers of today and tomorrow 
• How messaging platforms will become hot spots for advertising 
• The benefits of immersing your brand in niche communities

Download our key takeaways report from SocialMinds LIVE now.

Video editing, images and even podcasts. With generative AI tools cropping up for almost every creative skill, there’s no doubt AI enables us to work faster. 

But that could come at a cost. AI is already making it quick and easy for marketers to get answers, but is it also making us get complacent?  

At SocialMinds LIVE, SocialChain strategist Chelsea Noronha and group strategy director Ric Hayes sat down with Brave Bison’s director of AI and creative Matt Garbutt to deep-dive on all the practical ways our proprietary AI tool AudienceGPT can challenge us as much as help us, and how we as marketers can balance efficiency with a need to stay curious.  

In one of four live podcast sessions at SocialMinds LIVE: Future Casting Social’s Next 20, Matt, Ric and Chelsea shared their insights on the practical ways AI can enhance your marketing strategy in 2025 and beyond.

Listen to this podcast discover how AI can make you a better marketer with tips including:

• Why you should prevent simplicity from getting in the way of curiosity 
• How to tap into an audience’s empathy – a superpower we’ve never had before 
• What it takes to become a whizz with AI 

Only a decade ago, brands existed on the fringes of social. Now, entire businesses are built and marketed around it. Impressive, right? Even more so when you remember that two decades ago, most social apps we use today hadn’t even been invented.  

Twenty years on, how are Monzo, Surreal and Lick – three brands who owe a lot of their success to their thriving social channels – integrating this into their wider marketing mix? And how are traditional publishers like ITV Studios adapting to a social-first mindset as the lines between content and broadcast blur? 

Catch up with the panel now and you’ll learn:

• Amie’s content hack that saved you time creating content and gives you more time building innovative ideas 
• What ‘brandformance’ is and why it’s top of the priority list for Surreal’s marketing team in 2025 
• Claire’s top tip for your internal teams to make your storytelling shine.

You can also watch the full panel over on our website.

https://www.socialchain.com/social-minds/insights/the-brand-panel-with-itv-studios-monzo-surreal-and-lick/

Got a question or suggestion for the Social Minds podcast? Get in touch at [email protected].