The Social Scoop - September

Instagram makes Reels creation easier with First Draft 🎬

Instagram is making it easier to turn existing clips into Reels with First Draft, a new tool that automatically selects the best moments from multiple clips, cuts pauses and creates a first version in seconds. Creators can simply select videos from their camera roll and let Instagram do the initial editing. You can edit, reorder and customize the draft as you like, making it easier to turn raw footage into a ready-to-post Reel without starting from scratch.

Meta Ads gets more automated 🤖

Meta is making another move toward more automated advertising. Advertisers will soon lose the ability to exclude specific placements or Meta platforms, leaving Meta’s system to decide where each ad is most likely to perform best.
At the same time, Meta is testing more flexibility at the ad level, allowing advertisers to set age and gender preferences for individual creatives within the same ad set. This means brands can match different creatives to different audiences without creating separate ad sets.

TikTok brings your feed to the real world 🌎

TikTok is expanding its Out of Phone advertising, giving brands more ways to take TikTok content beyond the app. Think billboards, in-store screens, cinemas, gyms and even universities. With six new partnerships, the offering is expanding across markets including Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and the UK. Brands can also use user-generated content in these placements, making it easier to bring that authentic TikTok feel into the real world. For brands, this could be an interesting way to give strong TikTok content a second life and reach audiences beyond the feed.

YouTube is changing how it counts views 👀

YouTube is changing how it counts video views across all formats. From August 24, a view will be counted as soon as a video starts playing, instead of only after 30 seconds like before. This brings regular videos in line with the way Shorts are already measured, but it also means view counts will likely increase significantly. For creators and brands, this is important to keep in mind when comparing performance over time or evaluating influencer results. The good news: engaged views will remain the metric used for monetization, giving a better indication of intentional viewing and actual engagement.