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The Top Three 🏆

The industry’s most important stories today.

🥇 META’S AI PROFILES BACKFIRE

Gee, who could have seen this coming?: Meta’s push to flood Facebook and Instagram with AI profiles is already backfiring.

Users uncovered fake bot accounts that have been around since 2023, like “Jane Austen,” a “cynical novelist,” and “Liv,” a “proud Black queer momma.” Despite more than a dozen AI characters, none of them gained much traction, each barely scraping a few thousand followers and little engagement.

That is, until recently. After news broke of Meta’s plans to roll out millions of AI profiles, these bot accounts are suddenly in the spotlight—and the reactions are not good. Comments “What the f*** does an AI know about dating?” and “This isn’t only virtual blackface, it’s just weird” are pouring in. more

• Several of the AI profiles have now been taken down.

• Users were not able to block or report the bots since typical blocking features were missing.

• Meta has yet to respond to questions about the role or development of these profiles.

🥈 2025 INFLUENCER MARKETING TRENDS

Out with the mob wife, in with the sportsfluencers: What 2025 has in store for influencer marketing, according to experts. more

• Rise of Social Commerce: experts predict continued growth in social commerce and affiliate marketing.

• Influencer Brand Extensions: Influencers expanding into brands, podcasts, newsletters, and subscription content.

• Long-Form Content: Expect more long-form audio and video content, with a focus on episodic series.

🥉META ADS PUSH GUN SILENCERS

Wired Magazine says Facebook and Instagram ads have been pushing gun silencers disguised as car parts. Despite Meta’s policies banning such content, thousands of videos demonstrate how easily these devices can be modified into silencers, a process that could result in felony charges without federal approval. more

• The ads, which have persisted for years, are fueled by a network of more than 100 Facebook pages marketing “fuel filters” that can be easily tuned into gun silencers.

• The devices sell for as little as $50.

Today’s Other News ☑︎

Everything else that matters.

Advertising & Search 🔍

• In this week’s episode of Inside Google Ads, Jyll Saskin Gales explores where Google Ads is going and what you can do about it. From SEO and PPC to audience-based marketing and creative, she covers a lot of ground in this 12-minute episode. Listen now.

• The Google Ads API currently doesn't accept or support placement exclusions for Performance Max campaigns, even if specified at the account level, according to Michael Cloonan, a Google Ads API specialist. more

• Zero-click is here, and marketers need to adapt. AI Overviews (AIOs) dominate search results, providing in-depth answers without clicks, which shifts the SEO game. The silver lining? AIOs drive higher conversions by filtering out unqualified traffic. A great piece to read: more

Social Media 📱

• X videos: X is testing a dedicated video tab on the bottom function bar, which will provide one-tap access to an “immersive video feed,” alongside icons for Grok, its AI chatbot. more 

• 🤔 What could go wrong?: X Money, the company's new payment system, is happening sometime this year. Elon Musk’s vision for X as a payments hub is moving forward under the new name, shifting from "X Payments" to "X Money." more

• Meta taps Joel Kaplan, a former Republican White House staffer, to replace Nick Clegg as global policy head. more

  • The move comes ahead of Trump’s inauguration, suggesting a major shift in Meta’s policy direction under its new, Trump-friendly leadership. cool cool.

• TikTok's rolling out generative AI features, like the "AI Group Shot" tool, letting users add themselves to image templates. More AI tools are in the works, including easy meme creation from personal images and AI-driven suggestions for video captions and edits. more

Commerce 🛒 

• Retailers took a $103 billion hit from fraudulent returns in 2024—15% of the projected $685 billion in returns. more

  • Nearly half of retailers faced returns of stolen merchandise.

  • 60% dealt with “wardrobing”—items bought, worn, and returned.

• TikTok Shop has added 10 new collectible categories, including comics, manga, and art books, plus more sports memorabilia and autographed items. Merchants must verify item condition and authenticity to prevent the sale of fake goods… 🙃 Sure, I trust that verification process… more

Fin Tech & Cybersecurity 🛡️ 

• Bench, a Canada-based accounting startup providing software-as-a-service for SMBs, has shut down unexpectedly, as per a notice on its site. The company's entire site is currently offline, leaving thousands of businesses without access to vital accounting and tax documents. more

• Hackers have targeted dozens of VPN and AI extensions for Google Chrome to steal data from roughly 2.6 million users. Malicious updates were injected into popular extensions like ChatGPT for Google Meet, Bard AI Chat, and VPNCity. more

Infrastructure 🚧 

• Later, the influencer marketing and social media management platform acquired Mavely, the influencer platform for $250M. Mavely has a network of more than 120K creators representing brands like Nike, Lululemon and Adidas. more

Marketing Tool of the Day 🔨

Cool stuff we found on the web (not a paid placement)

I kind of love the idea behind Flowdrafter. It’s pretty basic — it’s a text field where the backspace and cursor keys are disabled.

It actually is a pretty good way to just get ideas out of your brain and onto the screen without trying to be perfect.

Next time you’re trying to come up with some landing page copy or ad text, this might be a helpful tool.

And it’s free!

Today’s Trivia Question 🧠

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Spotted on Social 🔍

The social web’s best posts in the last 24 hours.