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Welcome back to the Weekly scroll, the show where I break down everything happening in the social media world so you can stay ahead of trends, updates and algorithm changes without spending hours trying to decode the platform yourself. I'm your host, Kaitlyn Rhodes, and this week's episode of the Weekly scroll is powered by Club Influence. It's my Instagram membership that gives you everything you need to crush the trends online. We provide you with weekly reels, ideas, plug and play templates, and trending audio so you can stay consistent on Instagram without scrolling aimlessly on your feed for ideas. You can join us anytime. The link is in the show notes. And right now is the best time to join because, guys, December months on social are bad. They're quiet, they're bad. Everyone's using their end of the year budgets for paid ads. So organic reach typically tanks around this time. So now is the time to get into Club Influence. You have a team in your back pocket. That's me, that's Darby, that's the Influence team. And that's exactly what you're going to get when you get inside of Club Influence. We will be there to help answer questions. We will be there to provide you with the trends that are working, tried and tested templates, all the things, all you have to do is join us now. Let's jump into the social media news you actually need to hear this week. All right, so first and foremost, I was very surprised by this one. TikTok is launching a podcast network. So this is the biggest update of the week. I mean, there's a lot of really good updates from Instagram that I'm going to go over, but I felt like I had to talk to you guys about this because TikTok just partnered with iHeartMedia to create the TikTok Podcast Network. Now, as a podcaster myself, I'm a little scared of this because it's a full blown podcast ecosystem. It's featuring 25 new shows hosted by big TikTok creators. I'm sure it's going to get great, great traction. What this means is TikTok's clearly trying to expand beyond video. I love that too, because not all of US are on TikTok scrolling video. We want to consume in our car, when we're driving, when we're working out, when we're going on our weekly money walks or our daily money walks. Like, this is a good call for TikTok. This puts TikTok in the same lane as YouTube and Netflix, who are both investing in audio right now. I heart will also get access to a younger audience, and they've been desperate for that. So this is going to be very Good news for iHeartRadio. TikTok gets deeper roots in the US while the acquisition deal is still up in the air. Like, come on, this is good news. So this could shift podcast discovery in a big way. Expect a lot of cross promotion, a lot of podcast clips on TikTok. So maybe this is a good thing for me because back in the day when I was doing podcast slips, podcast snippets, they just weren't performing very well. But maybe if more people start to do them, we can pull people in. I don't know, maybe it'll be helpful and diversify a little bit of the content that we're so used to seeing. Next update Meta and Instagram. So first on the menu, because I've got a lot. Facebook Marketplace is getting an upgrade. So Facebook Marketplace is quietly becoming one of Meta's biggest product pushes. And these new updates prove that they're trying to evolve it into a smarter, more collaborative, like, shopping tool. So think like, maybe you have a baby shower or a bachelor bridal shower, you can like get on Facebook Marketplace and make buying decisions. Now you're probably like, what are you talking about, Caitlin? So let me, let me jump into this a little bit more. So you can now loop your friends into your Marketplace browsing. So you can start a shared chat around an item or ask friends to vote on options or compare listings as a group, basically making buying decisions together. So like, if you're buying a couch or planning a bridal shower or decorating house, you can now crowdsource feedback in real time and hear what everyone says about that product. So I think this is pretty cool. This is something I was not really expecting, but I guess it's Meta's way of making shopping more social, not lonely. So kudos to Meta. Next Update Meta AI Shopping assistant. So Meta AI now integrates directly into Marketplace search. So you can type or say out loud, black sectional under $500 or white wood crib for small space or rustic dining table that seats six. And Meta AI will generate a curated set of listings that match your description. Now, this could be a huge game changer for businesses. It reduces that endless scrolling that you're having to do on your own. And it just turns Marketplace into something closer to like Pinterest or maybe even like Amazon with an AI concierge. Like, this is a very good update for you gu guys, for all of us. We have a client who does a lot of Posting in Facebook Marketplace. And this is so important for all of you that use that for your business like SEO, search, search engine optimization. Using keywords in your descriptions and in your titles is going to be so important because that's how AI is going to read what your product is about and be able to serve it to the right people. So this is a big win for people using Meta or or Marketplace to sell. Love this update. Now why should you care about it? This update signals that Meta wants to take market share from things like Poshmark, Etsy, Craigslist, Offerup. They're leaning heavily into that. AI powered commerce and Marketplace might get more business tools soon too. So think ads boosted listings, better analytics. This is one of the easiest places to test your local offers or furniture flips or pickups without shipping products. So I think for smaller creator, well, big or smaller creators, but small business like local small businesses, this is going to be a game changer for you guys and I highly recommend learning more about this one. Next one. Meta business suite is now showing an optimization score. So if you run ads or manage business pages, this can be pretty huge for you. Business suite will give you a score from 0 to 100, rating how optimized your content and your ads are. So this is going to tell you if you need to be using better keywords. If your descriptions are off like you're going to know from that rating and specific suggestions to improve performance too. So it'll say something like add more creative variations. Love this for paid ads, adjust your budget distribution or update your messaging. I'm really excited about this because I've been working in Facebook ads since 2014. So it's over 11 years and it still confuses me. There's always updates. I just think that this will be really nice for. It's almost like someone's going to be sitting on my shoulder like kind of watching over my stuff and giving me options to make my ads better. So I'm excited about this update. A breakdown of areas needing improvement is something that I think we all can use in the back of Ads Manager. And it's similar to Google's ad optimization score too. So if you've ever worked behind the scenes with Google Ads, it's going to be very similar to that. So I think this is a win for all of us who run Meta ads. Meta wants to make campaign management easier for non technical users. That's what they say, but of course they're trying to get your money all they want to make it as easy as possible for you to spend money on ads. But with this it means clear to do items to make your ads perform better. Easier diagnosis of weak spots, faster improvements for small advertisers. At the end of the day, like I mean Meta does want you to do well with your ads because it's not like they're losing money by driving you traffic. Of course your, your CPC will get lower, but that can probably just mean more people using ads because it's easier to use and then more money for Meta basically built in coaching is how I'm looking at it. But I like this update. Next update is your search history auto clear. So meta added on an auto clear option for your settings for Facebook search history so you can now set it to disappear your Facebook search history. You can make it disappear within like 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days. Why does this matter? You know, maybe you're a privacy conscious user, you want more control. People who search exes or past colleagues won't panic later. It's not life changing but it's a good quality of life update for all you lurkers out there. And then Notes are also coming to Facebook. Yes, the notes feature that we have over on Instagram, it's being tested inside of Facebook what you can expect status like notes at the top of DMs. Kind of like what we're seeing over on Instagram. 60 character update. You basically can put like a little thought that you have and it's designed to pull people into your DMs and get people talking to you Basically Meta is trying to revive private conversation features and compete with imessage threads. Okay, Instagram updates. First one people can share your stories. I mean it can be good because I sell a lot in stories and I always teach you guys stories is where your, your warm leads are. So if I could have someone sharing my story about promoting, you know my, my three set, my, my three day reset for Instagram growth right now, I guess that would be cool for my reach. So basically Instagram is testing a feature where your story can be reshared directly to someone else's story. Again this is going to be huge for reach. So like thought leadership stories getting shared, memes getting shared, announcements getting amplified, promo content going further than ever. Creators have wanted this for years is what they say. So if this rolls out widely it may replace some of that reels reach that we're seeing. So we're going to have to see how this goes. But I would not mind this update because then you can get your, you know, your team Your hype team. I tell you guys all the time, if you've ever taken one of my trainings or my courses or my live trainings, I have something called a hype team. And that's basically like when you are launching something or you've got really exciting news. I tell you to gather your biggest hype people that could be your friends, family, husband, aunts, uncles, whoever it is, and you tell them to go like your post that you just shared. Or maybe it's go like my story, go press the poll button on my story. But this is a way to get them involved and ask them to share your story too. Again, for maximum reach, 20 minute reels are testing right now on Instagram. I don't understand this because we already did away with Instagram TV before and then we've also been told that if you create a reel over 90 seconds, I think it's over 60 seconds. They're not going to push that reel out to new followers. It's only going to get shared to your current followers. So I'm not sure why they're experimenting with this test. But 20 minute reel, I mean it sounds like IGTV 2.0, but here's the difference. Everything stays inside of the reels ecosystem. You're not going to get a new little, you know, section on your profile for igtv. And I guess what they're trying to do is this lets IG compete with TikTok's long form push in YouTube's shorts. I don't know. I'm curious to see how this works. I know that educational creators will benefit from this if they want to do a longer form video. I like the idea of this for podcast clips, but I want to know if I share this podcast clip over to Instagram, I don't know, is it going to pull people over to the longer form or is that going to be like oh, I got my summary of the podcast. I don't need to listen to it. Vlog style content coming back. But I still like YouTube for that tutorials. I don't know. Most users still watch reels that are under 30 seconds, so I would use this with caution. But I guess we'll have to see how this goes. Next update is Instagram edits now shows the full caption transcript. So this is a great update. You can now view the entire caption of your reel. It has to be a talking head. Someone has to be speaking. You can view the entire caption within the edit tool so you can edit without copying and pasting you can adjust your long captions more easily. It's perfect for creators who write long form captions like me. New trending audio filter, so popular with your followers is coming. This filter is going to show you audio that your specific audience likes, very cool sounds trending among your followers, and then niche audio that your community is engaging with. This is huge. And we'll be talking about this more inside of Club Influence because it means that we don't really have to guess which trends fit your niche. IG is going to literally be telling us. So I think this is a way for us over on Club Influence to get even more nitty gritty with our reels prompts that we give you right now. We already give you like the trend and we give niche specific examples. But if we could say something like, hey, heads up, if you're in this specific niche, this sound right here is trending for you. Hey, if you're in this niche, this sound is trending for you. So I love the idea of this audio filter. I will keep you guys updated if we start using that. And then I don't know if any of you guys are still playing around with trial reels. You should be. If you're not, at least once or twice a week, go ahead and do it. It's not going to hurt you. But you can now schedule them, pre plan them, test content, queue up experimental formats, run trials in advance, in advance instead of posting them manually. This is great for creators who test multiple approaches. So, hi, it's me. I'm the problem. It's me. I will definitely be using this trial scheduler because I think of trials at the end of the week when I've, like, finished up, and I'm like, okay, what else can I do next? And then I'm like, oh, I didn't post a trial this week. So I think having maybe like two or three days out of the week where I just remind myself, hey, post that trial, I could at least schedule it and get it out of the way and help help my account grow. Instagram is removing the ability to see who other people follow. So instead it's kind of like Facebook. You're only going to see mutual friends or suggested connections. This is part privacy update, but part stop stalking your ex's new follower list. Creators can lose some insight into competitors with this, but overall it will increase user protection. And I love that. I always think about, like, if people who aren't following me can go see who I'm following, like, why does it concern you who I'm following and you're. I don't know, there's nothing really good about someone doing that to you unless they're trying to stalk you and find something out about you. I don't know, it just sounds icky. So this will be a way for you. You guys out there that are stalkers, you're gonna have to stop. And then the last update I have for you guys is Threads is becoming a hub for podcasters. Did not know this. Threads is leaning into episode discussions, audio clip sharing, long form threads summarizing episodes, real time conversations around launches. Apparently Meta wants Threads to be the place for podcast talk. So this is great for myself and the call her creator strategy. Something I'm going to be looking into because growing a podcast is so freaking hard. So speaking of that, if you are listening to today's Weekly scroll and you're enjoying it, please go leave me a review over on Apple Podcasts. Please send it to your friend or your colleague or your business bestie. That concludes my updates for the day. I'm going to go ahead. There's some more in here, but for the sake of this episode, I like to keep things short and sweet for you guys. But I will be adding a blog up on influencestudio.com blog and that's influence with a C. There was also an engagement report inside of this update, so I'll make sure I put that on the blog. But basically what they said was that buffer analyzed like 2 million posts. And they said that the most effective strategy for growing your engagement was to reply to your own comments. Because people want connection. They want you to see them, they want conversations. And Instagram rewards that interaction. So this is still the easiest strategy to win engagement is to reply to your comments. All right, that wraps up this week's edition of the Weekly Scroll. If you made it this far, you already know the social media world moves very fast, and staying on top of it is half the battle. But implementing it, that's where most people fall off. And that's exactly why I created Club Influence. Because here's the truth. Instagram doesn't reward the people who try the hardest. It rewards the people who show up consistently with the right content. And inside Club Influence, we make that part effortless. Every single week, my team and I send you viral reels, ideas that actually fit your niche. Plug and play canva templates that save you hours of content creation. Captions, prompts, hooks that stop the scroll trending, Audio curated for your audience. Monthly content calendars to remove the guesswork of your content strategy. And there's no fluff in there. No guessing, no more. What do I post today? It's just strategic, high performing content delivered directly to your email inbox every single Monday. And it's why Club Influence has become one of the most sought after Instagram memberships. Online creators use it, coaches use it, small businesses swear by it because it works. So if you're ready to finally make Instagram feel simple, sustainable, profitable, the link to join Club Influence is in the show. Notes. Thank you guys for tuning in to this week's weekly scroll. I will see you next week, same time, same place, with everything you need to stay ahead of the algorithm.