May 7, 2025
LinkedIn wants you to use video – like NOW
You may be familiar with LinkedIn’s Wire Program – well, it’s now called BrandLink, and it’s LinkedIn’s way of persuading you to use video as much as possible. It’s already got its main video users like Steven Bartlett, Gary Vaynerchuk and Rebecca Minkoff joining the platform.
So, the catch from an organic standpoint is it’s only available to LinkedIn’s ‘top creative voices’ – so in other words, it’s doing what YouTube does and says sure, you can earn money with us but you’ve got to be very good and get a lot of followers/engagements to be applicable. But, for advertisers, it’s going to be rolled out so that you can be part of LinkedIn’s ‘shows’ and have your content appear alongside these ‘top’ creators.
Now, many are fed up that LinkedIn feeds are getting clunkier and harder to navigate than ever before. More video has made some users more frustrated – despite LI telling us that video is winning out of all other formats.
It’s another ‘wait and see’ – but we imagine the cost for advertisers to be part of this will also be more than the typical in-feed ads.
Meta’s engagement trends = use our AI powered ad tools please
Meta’s latest data says that using its AI tools (basically Advantage+) for content generation is going to drive improved performance. Their latest statement reads:
“Advertisers using Generative Ads Recommendation (GEM) on Facebook Reels have seen up to a 5% increase in ad conversions. And, for every dollar spent with our AI-enabled Advantage+ products, we’ve seen advertisers generate on average $4.52 in revenue for their businesses, an increase of 22% compared to business as usual campaigns.”
An interesting start for sure – but more time is needed to understand the true impact of this tool and whether what it knows and learns won’t just make everything look similar, and in 12 months those results plateau and drop.
Within Meta’s latest brag is another drum bang about video – people consuming more and more of it. Guess it continues the trend that people want and expect video on Meta platforms – so if you’ve not got on it yet, start doing so!
Metas AI chat app under scrutiny
So more Meta AI stuff, sorry – but they have launched a standalone AI chatbot app. You may have already seen it on WhatsApp if you use it. The aim for Meta is for this to rival ChatGPT. In our last snapshot, we mentioned how Meta’s Llama 4 was a big step towards personal AI assistance – but its latest innovation has got under some skins already. The intention behind this standalone app is that, as it speaks to you, it learns more and more about you.
Data security is a buzzword associated with Meta and there are concerns about privacy with these chat bots. Former Meta employee Sarah Wynn-Williams wrote a book about the inside workings of the Meta business, and she disclosed some rather alarming elements. The bots can assess someone’s mental state – so if they’re feeling low, this can be a cue for advertisers to target them accordingly.
Some people shop when down – it’s a clear plan to inform advertisers of certain users who may fall into a category and are more susceptible to spend money to improve their lives.
There has been a lot of fear around data privacy but there is also a lot of disregard for how much it actually concerns users of the Meta platforms. People know more than ever that they’re being tracked and there is also a desire for more relevant ads – so how much push back are Metas AI bots expected to get?
We’ll see!
See you next week!