Meta shares its earnings with creators: New Reels ads expand choices for brands and revenue opportunities for influencers.

Ahead of its third-quarter earnings, Meta has expanded its ad offerings for Instagram, Messenger, and Reels.

TikTok will bring live shopping to the US after all: The platform is partnering with TalkShopLive for the launch, despite lackluster results in the US.

LTK thinks the time is ripe for a social commerce foray: The app is integrating shopping just as Meta and TikTok cool off on commerce.

Learning is the new retention perk: A survey shows that learning opportunities incentivize younger workers to stay at their jobs. It shows how Big Tech could close the skills deficit.

In the US, 52% of Facebook users reported seeing more ads on the social network, while nearly half of YouTube and Instagram users said the same of their respective platforms. Across the social platforms we studied, less than 10% of users felt ad load had decreased.

Meta and Google are laying off staff in a curious manner: It’s not en masse, and it’s quieter than usual—but it’s still happening.

Meta tries to skirt around ATT: A lawsuit alleges that the social media giant injected tracking code into its in-app browsers, breaking privacy rules.

Zuck has a golden opportunity if he doesn't muck it up: Meta’s market valuation drops are tied to its metaverse aspirations. Its upcoming product releases need to be crowd pleasers.

Reels, Reels, and more Reels: Facebook released an API for Reels, allowing users to share short-form videos to the app from outside platforms.

TikTok swoops in to fill the addressability drought: D2C brand spending increased 231%, but its lead won’t last forever.

Watch this video, featuring Meta’s John Cantarella, vice president, community and scaled partnerships, as he explains how fostering a community can give brands of any size a competitive edge because of how the relationships built over time can be leveraged for engagement and growth. In his role at Meta, Cantarella leads a team that helps leaders, creators, and brands—including Airbnb and Tonal—with their community strategy across Instagram and Facebook.

Meta faces new challenges: ByteDance and Sony are building their VR ecosystems. This could be the perfect time for Meta to double down on its productivity and collaboration-focused metaverse

Pinterest’s new “Don’t Don’t Yourself” ad campaign highlights the platform as a site for genuineness and creativity, while hinting at the darker sides of other social media networks.

There’s no denying Facebook is a commerce powerhouse. But it also has Facebook Marketplace, which is primarily intended for C2C shopping and buying, though it also allows companies to list their items and place ads.

In 2021, affiliate marketing investment drove $71 billion in ecommerce sales and a 12-to-1 return on ad spend, illustrating that this area is still booming for creators and the brands that support them.

Reports that Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are abandoning some of their shopping features are not a reflection of the platforms’ overall commerce ambitions. But as social commerce buyer growth slows, brands should focus more on reengaging existing customers and less on direct buying capabilities like native checkout.

The digital ad industry is under regulatory scrutiny: Reforms laid out by the Biden administration focus on the use of personal data for advertising purposes.

Facebook is still the king of social commerce in the US. More than 60% of US social media users ages 14 and older will make a purchase via the platform this year, and about 40% will do so via its sister app Instagram. TikTok will grow the fastest in this regard, drawing nearly one-quarter of social buyers in that age group.

Instagram retreats from social commerce: The move comes a little more than a month after parent company Meta reported its first year-over-year revenue decline this quarter.