Social Media Buzz Weekly: Roundup of Social Media Updates
- ClickInsights
- 17 hours ago
- 7 min read
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 Will Enable Users To Exclude Terms From AI Copy Outputs
Meta has provided another way for advertisers to better guide their AI-generated ads, with marketers now able to list words that they want to exclude from AI-generated ad copy in-stream.
Meta has now added a new “Restricted Words” option within its Advantage+ campaign set-up, which will enable you to ensure that certain terms are not included in any copy generations. Meta has now added a new “Restricted Words” option within its Advantage+ campaign set-up, which will enable you to ensure that certain terms are not included in any copy generations.
2. Facebook Is Trying To Make Pokes Happen Again
Facebook has announced a new revamp of the Poke option, which it already attempted to revive in 2017, then again last year, to limited interest.
Facebook’s latest attempt to resurrect Pokes adds simplified poke functionality, and a new gamification element. Facebook has also brought the Poke button back to user profiles, so you can easily poke somebody by heading to their profile page.
3. Meta Faces More Questions Over Teen Safety in AI and VR
Meta is set to come under regulatory scrutiny once again, after reports that it repeatedly failed to address safety concerns with its AI and VR projects.
According to a new report from The Washington Post, Meta has repeatedly ignored and/or sought to suppress reports of children being sexually propositioned within its VR environments, as it continues to expand its VR social experience. The report suggests that Meta engaged in a concerted effort to bury such incidents, though Meta has responded by noting that it approved 180 different studies into youth safety and well-being in its next-level experiences.
4. TikTok Continues To Grow in EU, Reduces Moderation Staff
TikTok has shared its latest EU content enforcement and usage numbers, as part of its DSA disclosure reporting covering the period between January and June 2025, and is the platform’s fifth DSA report.
TikTok’s EU audience has increased 25% since September 2023, with steady rises in all EU markets except Estonia, where TikTok doesn’t seem to be gaining traction. It’s also seen slower adoption in Sweden (+12% since 2023), Denmark (+15%) and the Netherlands (+17%). But overall, TikTok is expanding its EU reach, and is now up to 170 million total European users. For broader context, that means that TikTok currently has 170 million users in Europe, 30 million users in the U.K., and 170 million users in the U.S.
5. TikTok Adds More Assistance Tools for Shop Creators
TikTok has added a range of new courses and guides to help you build your TikTok Shop presence, including a “Creator Pilot Program,” content policy quizzes, scores for your TikTok Shop guideline compliance and more.
The Creator Pilot Program is designed to both guide sellers and affiliates through TikTok’s shopping requirements, while also limiting misuse of its Shop tools. Along a similar line, TikTok’s also added new “Creator Policy Quizzes,” which will test participant knowledge on common rule violations.
6. TikTok Offers Movie Ticket Sales In-App, Powered by Fandango
TikTok is adding another shopping-type functionality to the app, this time for purchasing movie tickets in-stream, via a new partnership with Fandango.
TikTok users will now be able to purchase movie tickets in the app, via a direct “Get tickets” CTA button linked to dedicated movie promotions in-stream. The option could be a valuable means to drive movie ticket sales, with TikTok also reporting that almost 50% of U.S. TikTok users have discovered a new movie coming to theaters in the app.
7. TikTok Reaches 200 Million EU Users
TikTok has reported that it’s reached a new usage milestone in Europe, with 200 million Europeans now logging into the app each month. That’s up from 175 million people last year.
It’s also more than TikTok listed in its recent EU DSA disclosure report. As required by EU regulations, all large online platforms need to provide twice-yearly updates on their actual usage in the region, as well as how many human moderators they have on staff.
8. Instagram Is Growing at 10X the Rate of Facebook in EU
According to Meta’s DSA reporting obligations, Instagram is growing at 10x the rate of Facebook in the EU.
Facebook’s total EU usage stood at 263.6 million monthly actives between January and June 2025, and Instagram reached 281.8 million MAU in the same period. Since March 2024, Facebook’s EU audience has grown 0.65%, while Instagram’s has risen by 6.17%.
9. Instagram Finally Launches an iPad Version of the App
After many years, and many user requests, Instagram has finally launched a dedicated iPad version of the app, built for the bigger iPad screen.
The new Instagram for iPad app is specifically formatted for the larger screen, enabling full IG functionality on the device. Instagram has also added a range of iPad-specific functionalities and processes, which it hopes will help iPad users maximize their use of the app in the bigger format.
10. Instagram Updates Notification Ranking To Reduce Repetitive Alerts
Instagram has outlined a revised approach to in-app notifications, which will demote updates from the same person or profile if the system feels like its sending repetitive updates from those users.
Instagram’s development team has devised a new way to ensure that users don’t get notification fatigue, by reducing the amount of updates from specific users. Essentially, IG doesn’t want to annoy people with too many updates from a single user or profile in the app. So now, it’s reducing such notifications in certain cases.
11. Instagram Will Now Enable You To Pin Your Own Comments
Instagram is rolling out the option to pin your own comments on your posts, which will provide another way to expand upon your text captions, and add additional info within the comment stream.
Instagram added the option to pin comments back in 2020, with users able to pin up to three comments from users in-stream. But up till now, you’ve only been able to pin comments from others, not your own. It’s a relatively minor addition, but it could be a valuable one for adding context and additional insight on your updates.
12. Snapchat Launches First Open Prompt AI Lens
Snapchat is taking another step into generative AI, with its new “Imagine” Lens, which enables users to recreate images from the Snap camera or their camera roll using text prompts.
Much like Meta’s “Imagine Yourself” AI option, or YouTube’s “Dream Screen,” or TikTok’s “AI Self” process, or even Snapchat’s own “Dreams” AI option, Snapchat’s new Imagine option will give you another way to use AI to re-contextualize your selfies, and/or other images. With the Imagine Lens, Snapchatters can create, edit, and recreate Snaps simply by entering their own prompts, then seamlessly share them with friends, post to their Story, or outside of Snapchat.
13. Pinterest Expands Alerts To Get Teens off the App During School
Pinterest is expanding its in-app push notifications for teens, which aim to get kids off their devices during school time, with U.K. teens now set to receive these new alerts.
Pinterest’s teen usage prompts aim to get students to rethink how they’re using social apps, including Pinterest, during school times. Pinterest began testing these push notifications among American and Canadian students earlier in the year, and says that over 1.3 million students in these regions tapped on the prompt in less than one month.
14. X Launches Holiday Marketing Hub To Steer Brands’ Efforts
X has launched a new holiday marketing hub to help guide your X ads approach this coming season.
X’s holiday marketing hub includes links to a range of upcoming webinars with X’s ad team, covering key topics like how to use the X pixel, the latest ad tools on X, and creative best practices. X’s holiday marketing hub includes links to a range of upcoming webinars with X’s ad team, covering key topics like how to use the X pixel, the latest ad tools on X, and creative best practices.
15. CapCut Adds New Features Including LinkedIn Integration
TikTok’s CapCut is rolling out some new options, as it seeks to maintain its place as a top video editing app.
CapCut recently added a new LinkedIn integration, which enables CapCut users to export videos from CapCut to LinkedIn direct. CapCut’s composer now has a LinkedIn sharing button to facilitate easy posting, so you can easily transition your CapCut creations across to the professional social network.
16. LinkedIn Expands AI Hiring Assistant to More Regions
LinkedIn is expanding access to its new AI-powered Hiring Assistant tools for recruiters, which will give more hiring managers access to the platform’s latest tools to help streamline the staffing process.
Originally launched with selected brand partners in October last year, LinkedIn’s Hiring Assistant enables HR managers to automatically generate short lists of LinkedIn users who are a good match for an advertised role. LinkedIn’s AI hiring assistant can also schedule interviews, take notes, and manage follow-up, providing an all-in-one, AI-powered hiring solution.
17. LinkedIn Expands Company Page and Recruiter Verification
LinkedIn is looking to take on scammers who falsely present themselves as recruiters or company representatives in the app, with an expansion of its company verification option.
In August last year, LinkedIn launched company page verification, with a limited number of pages able to gain a verification tick in the app. It is now expanding the option, though initially only to businesses that pay to use the app.
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.
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