Can (nes) You Keep Up? 🦁

With Cannes Lions and VidCon both happening this week, there’s been a nonstop wave of launches, announcements, and product news aimed at creators and marketers.

Cannes, in particular, put a bigger spotlight on creators this year. Social platforms, creator companies, and streaming services tapped into the heightened attention, dropping updates live at the event, teasing them beforehand to amplify their presence, or using the buzz around creators to fuel timely releases.

There’s a lot to keep up with, but I’ve pulled together the biggest updates I’ve been following this week. Let’s dive in.

NEWS, TRENDS & INSIGHTS

Meta

Meta is expanding its generative AI tools for ads. Updates include creating ads based on different audience personas, turning multiple images into videos with music and text overlays, and Video Highlights, which lets viewers skip to key segments of a video ad. Meta is also testing Business AIs across its apps, allowing users to start a text or voice conversation with an AI agent directly from an ad to ask questions about products and policies. Additional features include creative sticker CTAs and Virtual Try-On. The range of tools highlights how AI is helping personalize, scale, and make ads more engaging.

Instagram confirmed it’s testing a repost feature. Recently spotted in the wild, the feature allows users to repost public Reels or feed posts to their feed, as well as to a dedicated Reposts tab on their profile. With the shutdown of Notes on Feed Posts and Reels, this offers a stronger alternative for use cases such as brands amplifying sponsored content from creator partners, or fans supporting the latest from their favorite creators, all while giving the original creator proper credit.

Facebook will classify all videos as Reels. In the coming months, any video content posted, regardless of length or orientation, will be labeled as a Reel. These will appear on a renamed Reels tab, reach followers, and be recommended to new audiences based on audience settings. Creators will also have access to unified editing tools and performance metrics. This simplifies how creators publish, track, and monetize video content and aligns Facebook more closely with Instagram.

Facebook says links in post captions can hurt reach. Some users are now seeing alerts in their Professional Dashboard warning that links may reduce distribution, and encouraging them to place links in the comments instead. Adding links in comments has become common practice across platforms, but it often makes them less visible. Creators should strike a balance by using links in captions when clicks matter most, and links in comments when reach is the priority.

Threads added a spoiler alert feature that lets users blur selected text or images. Viewers can tap to reveal the hidden content when it appears in their feed. It’s especially useful for avoiding spoilers in conversations about movies and TV shows and supports the growing entertainment and pop culture chatter on the app.

Threads expanded its integration with the fediverse. Users can now see posts from others in the fediverse via a dedicated feed in the Following tab and search for fediverse users from WordPress, Flipboard, Mastodon, and more. Meta’s continued move toward the open web is helping bring more awareness to the fediverse, especially among creators.

WhatsApp is finally getting ads. Ads will appear on the Status page, where users consume Stories-style content. Businesses will also be able to promote their Channels in the Explore tab and offer paid subscriptions for exclusive updates. Ads have long been unavailable on the platform, but Meta is taking a slow approach to introducing them in a way that minimizes disruption and preserves privacy, at least on paper.

YouTube

YouTube officially announced Open Call, a feature in testing since last year. It lets brands post an open call by sharing a brief with campaign details. Creators respond by submitting videos for the campaign. Brands review submissions, approve selected videos, promote them as Partnership Ads, and pay the chosen creators. This helps smaller creators work with brands that might otherwise overlook them, while brands get a low-lift way to source content at scale, specifically for paid media campaigns.

YouTube is changing how shopping buttons appear in Shorts. Instead of a shopping banner, tagged products will now show up as product stickers. Tapping a sticker takes viewers directly to the retailer’s site. If multiple products are tagged, a down arrow reveals the full list. During testing, product stickers generated 40% more clicks than shopping buttons, likely because they’re more prominent and align with behaviors like interacting with Polls or Q&A stickers.

YouTube will begin integrating Veo 3, Google DeepMind’s latest video generation model, into Shorts later this summer. During a keynote at Cannes Lions, CEO Neal Mohan announced the rollout but didn’t share specifics. Shorts are now averaging over 200 billion daily views. While creators can currently use Veo 2 to generate AI-powered video backgrounds, Veo 3’s improved quality will unlock even more creative possibilities. However, with some creators now realizing that the model is being trained on YouTube’s vast library of videos, there could be some pushback.

YouTube is opening up Communities to all creators with access to Posts. Eligible creators can enable the feature via their Channel page. New sorting options like Top and Recent have also been added for Community content. By opening it to more creators, YouTube gives them dedicated spaces to engage with fans, while letting fans interact with each other directly within the platform.

TikTok

TikTok expanded Symphony AI, its generative AI tool suite. New features like Image-to-Video and Text-to-Video let brands turn static assets into dynamic video content. TikTok also launched Showcase Products, which uses digital avatars to model items, try on clothing, or showcase apps. These tools make content creation easier for brands, but also raise questions about the future role of creators, who have traditionally been the faces and creative drivers of content on the platform.

TikTok reports 120% year-over-year growth in TikTok Shop sales in the U.S. According to the platform, 83% of shoppers have discovered a new product and 70% have found a new brand through TikTok Shop. Live shopping is also gaining traction, with over 800 hours of sessions hosted and 76% of viewers making a purchase after engaging. U.S. sales from small businesses are up 70% year-over-year, and over one-third of all U.S. TikTok Shop purchases in 2024 have gone to them. With the upcoming #DealsForYouDays event and its new LIVE Price Match Guaranteed program, TikTok is doubling down on its e-commerce ambitions and taking direct aim at Amazon Prime Day.

Pinterest

Pinterest is partnering with LTK to bring more creator content to the platform. As part of a pilot program, high-quality, styled images can be shared as Pins, reaching Pinterest’s 570 million monthly users. Each Pin credits the creator and links back to the original LTK post and products. The partnership increases creator reach and earnings potential while helping Pinterest expand its catalog of shoppable content and address concerns about the rise of AI-generated posts.

Pinterest teamed up with Emma Chamberlain’s Chamberlain Coffee to launch its first-ever co-branded global product. The limited-edition Sea Salt Toffee Flavored Blend will be sold on Chamberlain Coffee’s website and Pinterest profile. Emma created the entire campaign and design directly on Pinterest, drawing inspiration from the Fisherman Aesthetic trend highlighted in the platform’s Predicts report. This showcases how Pinterest trends can inspire product development and strengthen its connection with Gen Z.

Snapchat

Snapchat is rolling out new creator tools, including auto-saving Stories to profiles, simplified video creation with templates, and editing with a Timeline editor. Creators will also get deeper insights like Returning Viewers, Top Content, and Views by Traffic Source to better understand what’s working. Auto-saving Stories stands out by helping creators extend the lifespan of their content and build a portfolio that fans and brand partners can revisit directly from their profile.

Reddit

Reddit announced new comment features. Users can now turn comments into posts, share them in other subreddits, access comment analytics (Views, Upvotes, Replies, Shares, Awards), and save comments as drafts. It’s the latest sign that comments are a content format of their own, with platforms enabling users to repurpose and track them.

Reddit also introduced Community Intelligence, which includes Reddit Insights and Conversation Summary Add-Ons. Reddit Insights is an AI-powered social listening tool that gives marketers actionable insights from over 22 billion posts across 20 years of Reddit data. Conversation Summary Add-Ons is a new ad format that surfaces positive, relevant user comments beneath a brand’s creative. These tools offer brands native, self-serve ways to uncover insights and showcase social proof.

Spotify

Spotify inked a partnership with United Airlines. Over 450 hours of Spotify-curated playlists, podcasts, and audiobooks are now available across 130,000+ in-flight screens on United flights. Mirroring YouTube’s partnership with Delta, Spotify is bringing content from creators to new environments, expanding reach while showing up far beyond the app.

Patreon

Patreon is updating its pricing plans. Starting August 4, 2025, creators launching new pages will be placed on a new Standard plan with a 10% fee, consolidating the previous Pro (8%) and Premium (12%) tiers. Existing creators won’t be impacted. This is Patreon’s first pricing update in six years and reflects its evolution into a full media and community platform with features like video uploads, live streaming, and podcast syncing. The move also positions Patreon more directly against platforms like Substack.

Tubi

Tubi announced Tubi for Creators, a new initiative to bring digital creator content to its 100 million monthly viewers. The free, ad-supported streamer is launching with creators like FunnyMike, Kinigra Deon, and Mythical Entertainment. The program will debut with over 500 episodic videos, with more creators to follow. It’s a major step in Tubi’s push into creator-led content, following up on its Stubios program and new Kickstarter partnership, offering a pathway for creators to break into Hollywood.

WHAT I’M READING

2025 Forbes Top Creators List (Forbes)

The top 50 creators earned a combined $853 million, an 18% increase from last year. Several have expanded into TV or launched scripted content that rivals Hollywood studios.

For the first time, social media overtakes TV as Americans’ top news source (Niemen Lab)

Social media is now the top news source in the U.S., per Reuters Institute. 54% of Americans get their news from social platforms and video apps, compared to 50% from TV and just 14% from print.

Most Trusted Brands 2025 (Morning Consult)

Digital-first brands like Google, YouTube, and PayPal are the most trusted among younger audiences. Older generations continue to favor legacy names like Dawn, Band-Aid, and UPS. Younger consumers build trust through digital experience, while older groups rely on long-term familiarity.

Okay, what is going on with CapCut's terms of service? (Mashable)

TikTok, LinkedIn, and Threads have been filled with posts from creators telling others to delete CapCut, citing a change in its Terms of Service that appears to grant broad licensing rights in exchange for using the app. It doesn’t seem like this is new and isn’t all that different from other platforms. Still, it’s causing backlash among creators.

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