The IF Blog: Social Media Insights and Trends

Twenty years ago, I started saying ‘social is the oil in the marketing engine’. Not the fuel. The oil. It reduces friction, carries signals, and makes everything run better. Back then it felt like a hunch. Today we can prove it. If you tune your social properly, you lift search,…

TikTok has launched a new advertising campaign aimed at reminding people just how important the app has become when it comes to discovering new music. The campaign, called “See Where Music Takes You”, is designed to show how TikTok connects music lovers and helps them find their next favourite songs…

Every social platform has a “star” content format, the one that gets the most eyes, likes, and shares. The trick? Not just posting in that format but designing it so it feels like it belongs there while still screaming your brand. Let’s break it down, platform by platform. Instagram: Reels…

The way travellers plan and book trips has shifted dramatically and it’s reshaping how brands need to show up. For years, we thought about the customer journey as a funnel. Today, it’s nothing like that. Discovery is messy, fragmented, and often happens across half a dozen platforms before a traveller…

If you’re trying to grow your Instagram account, you’ve probably asked yourself: How often should I post? According to a recent study by Buffer, the simple answer is — the more, the better. Buffer, a social media management platform, analysed over 2 million posts from 100,000 Instagram accounts. They wanted…

Travel discovery has moved. People still “Google,” but the real decisions are being shaped by what they see and ask in social, and then resolved by AI assistants that summarise it all for them. It’s the era of social search and Ai discoverability. If your brand isn’t showing up clearly…

Make Your Social Media Content Feel Local If you’re working on global social media campaigns, you’ve probably had this experience: you create a Reel or carousel that crushes it in the UK, but then falls flat in Italy or Germany. Same visuals, same message, completely different results. That’s not a…

With budgets tightening and KPIs being closely scrutinised, B2B reporting on campaign performance has become more difficult. Senior marketers and board members are looking for better ROI proof; so how do we do this when most of the data supplied is vanity rather than sanity? The likes of CTR and…

If you’re in financial services marketing and you’re still thinking Google is the only place your audience starts searching – you’re behind. Today, people are asking their questions on TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, and to AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. They want answers fast, and in a way that feels…

If you’re a designer or marketer who’s tired of creating content that gets lost in the endless scroll, this one’s for you. Know Your Canvas (And Its Quirks) Each platform has its own personality, and your designs need to respect that. Instagram loves vertical formats that fill the screen, whilst…

TikTok has just made it even easier to enjoy the music you discover on the app by adding YouTube Music as a new music-saving option. Now, if you come across a song you like while scrolling, you can quickly save it straight to your YouTube Music playlist with just a…

A designer’s guide to scroll-stopping edits and visuals This blog is a follow-up on our recent article on the rising impact of short-form video on LinkedIn, where we explored how today’s business professionals are engaging with video content in smarter, faster, and more selective ways. With completion rates 200%…

How FS marketers stay discoverable when Google isn’t the starting point Sixty per cent of Google searches now end without a single click. Your prospects still have questions, but they’re finding answers on LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok and, increasingly, in ChatGPT’s neat little summaries. As I said on the recent LinkedIn…

Summer’s not slow, but it’s just quiet enough to hear yourself think. With fewer meetings, fewer emails, and half the team in Cornwall, you finally get to lift your head from the day-to-day mess and take a proper look at what’s working, and what isn’t (well that’s what we…

There’s a new feature being tested on Instagram that hasn’t made a big splash (yet), but for social teams serious about performance, it could quietly reshape how we plan, design, and optimise content. Instagram is trialling a new analytics layer that shows how many likes each individual…