Social Media Buzz Weekly: Roundup of Social Media Updates

Welcome to Social Media Buzz Weekly, your weekly bulletin of the latest social media updates. With the social media landscape evolving with each passing day, it can be challenging to keep a tab on the rapid developments. Well, not anymore, as we have taken it upon ourselves to keep you abreast of every happening in the social media space.

So, without any further ado, let’s look at some of the most significant developments from the last week in the world of social media.

1. Meta and X Announce AI Data Center Expansions

https://apnews.com/article/musk-meta-artificial-intelligence-data-center-1cf320ad4d50bff8d3fac4d0535a0004

Meta is reportedly planning to build a $10 billion AI data center in Louisiana, which, if it goes through, would make it Meta’s largest data center in the world.

The hyperscaler data center, which is planned in Richland Parish, is designed to process huge amounts of data required to support digital infrastructure, including artificial intelligence workloads. Elon Musk’s xAI project is also expanding its “Colossus” supercluster, in order to power its own AI work. Colossus, which xAI rapidly put together earlier this year, is reportedly the world’s largest supercomputer, operating a cluster of more than 100,000 interconnected Nvidia GPUs.  

xAI is already expanding its Colossus center in Memphis to power the next stage of its project, which is currently in use for X’s Grok AI chatbot.

2. Meta Implements New Requirements for Financial Services Ads in Australia

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/02/meta-to-force-financial-advertisers-to-be-verified-in-bid-to-prevent-celebrity-scam-ads-targeting-australians

Meta is rolling out new verification requirements for financial services ads in Australia, as it looks to combat the rise of “celeb-bait” scam ads, which use fake celebrity endorsements to lure unsuspecting victims.

Celeb-bait scams illegally use the likenesses of big stars to promote their products, or dupe users into scams. But Meta is now taking more steps to address such for Australian users. Beginning in early February, Meta will require advertisers seeking to run ads about financial services to verify information about the beneficiary and payer. Businesses will be required to provide their Australian financial services licence number or declare an exemption. Individuals will need to provide a government-issued ID.

3. Court Rejects TikTok’s Effort to Negate US Sell-Off Bill

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/06/tiktok-divestment-law-upheld-by-federal-appeals-court.html

A U.S. appeals court has rejected TikTok’s bid to disqualify the U.S. government’s enforced sell-off bill, which means that TikTok is now closer than ever to being removed from the country, a move that could come as early as January 19, 2025.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that because of China’s continued efforts to interfere in U.S. democracy via other digital platforms, which have been well documented by various investigations, the foreign adversary justification is valid, and therefore overrules TikTok’s claim of First Amendment protection. As such, the basis of TikTok’s challenge has been dismissed, which means that TikTok now has till January 19 to either commit to a sell-off to a U.S.-based company or pull out of the country completely.

4. TikTok’s In-App Sales on Black Friday Top $100M

https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/736658

TikTok has shared that TikTok Shop saw a 3x increase in sales on Black Friday this year. 

According to TikTok, TikTok Shop saw a 165% increase in shoppers year-over-year during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend alone. Fueled by both familiar and new creators within TikTok’s extensive community, there were over 4 billion #tiktokshopblackfriday views and 3.5 billion #tiktokshopcybermonday across the platform to help inspire shoppers. On Black Friday alone, TikTok Shop hit over $100 million in single day sales - triple from Black Friday last year.

5. X Makes its Grok AI Chatbot Available to All Users

X has made its Grok” AI chatbot available to all X users. This was so far only available to X Premium subscribers who are fewer than 1% of the platform’s users.

With Grok, users can now ask questions, generate images (which is now even better with X’s new Aurora integration), analyze posts to get more context as to their meaning, generate sassy responses (via “Unhinged Fun” mode), and more. The latest wave of generative AI tools has seen Meta jam its AI chatbot into virtually all of its apps, while LinkedIn has also been adding more and more AI elements to “assist” in your posting process.

6. X Adds Follower Versus Non-Follower Engagement Data

https://web.swipeinsight.app/posts/x-introduces-follower-vs-non-follower-analytics-feature-13241

X has added a new element to its updated analytics, which now shows you how many followers versus non-followers are engaging with your posts in the app.

X’s analytics element now includes a new chart showing you your engagement split, which could provide more context to help you grow your following. Though given the expanded reliance on systematic recommendations, there may not be a lot that you can do to address an imbalance like this. With X rolling out this new element, the platform may soon look to follow Threads’ lead, as more creators note that their engagement is coming from non-followers in the app.

7. X Launches Labels for Parody and Fan Accounts

https://www.socialmediadissect.com/x-twitter-labels-parody-fan-accounts/

X is rolling out new labels for parody and fan accounts, in order to clarify what each profile actually represents in the app.

Parody and fan profiles will now have their own labels on the platform, which will delineate them from the real entity in the app. The parody label includes a jester’s hat icon at the left. Accounts will have to add these new labels, or they’ll risk suspension in the app. That’ll make it much easier for people to see when a profile isn’t who or what they think it is, which will help to avoid misrepresentation and misunderstanding in the app.

Though X’s original checkmark process, while not perfect, did already facilitate that purpose.

8. LinkedIn Adds Revolving Slideshow Option for Profile Banner Images

https://web.swipeinsight.app/posts/linkedin-introduces-revolving-slideshow-for-profile-banners-13202

LinkedIn has rolled out a new option to add an auto-revolving slideshow of images as the banner on your profile, which could be another way to attract more interest to your LinkedIn presence.

A  new “Create Slideshow” option is now available in the banner editing tools for LinkedIn Premium users. It’s a paid-only feature at this stage, but for those who have upgraded, it could be an attractive option to help show off more of your personality, skills and/or projects. The images scroll through every few seconds, giving it a more animated feel while showcasing all of your various cover images to visitors.

Wrapping Up

And that was a wrap of this week’s Social Media Buzz. We’ll be back next week with more news and updates for you from the social media world. Till then, stay tuned!

If you want to read more on the latest developments taking place in the social media space, take a look at ClickInsights’ Social Media Buzz, wherein we bring to you monthly reports on everything going on in social media, ranging from platform updates to policy changes that influence the way we market.