This week Meta’s Muse has gone from new AI thing everyone politely nods at to one of the biggest apps in the US, and Meta now thinks it should probably help run your business too. YouTube wants you to edit videos by simply telling it what to do, LinkedIn is building a proper creator discovery engine for B2B brands, Snapchat would like some of your B2B budget, and TikTok has agreed that perhaps teenagers shouldn’t spend quite so much time on TikTok.
Perfectly normal week, then. Let’s get into it 👇
Latest News
🤖 Muse is suddenly everywhere. Now Meta wants it running your business
Meta’s personal AI agent Muse has exploded since launching earlier this month, passing 3.4 million downloads by the end of last week after a huge push at Meta Connect. Now Meta has launched Muse for Small Business, connecting the agent to tools including Canva, Shopify, Slack, Stripe, QuickBooks, Zoom, Instagram and Facebook so it can analyse performance, draft content, flag emails and take on operational tasks, with user approval required before anything publishes, sends or spends.
This feels like the bigger AI story to watch right now. We’re moving quickly from AI that suggests what to do to AI that actually goes and does it. That also makes trust rather important. The Guardian reported this week that Muse shared a Marketplace seller’s home address and arranged a meeting without his permission, which is a fairly spectacular reminder that “give the agent access to everything” probably still deserves a little thought. 👉 Read More
✂️ YouTube wants you to edit videos by talking to it
YouTube has previewed Conversational Editing, a new AI-powered tool for Shorts and YouTube Create that lets creators edit video using plain-language instructions. You’ll be able to give it clips and ask things like “match the cuts to the beat”, “find the perfect loop” or “add music”, then keep refining the result conversationally or jump back into the traditional timeline whenever you want.
This could be genuinely useful for social teams because the most painful part of a quick video is often not the idea, it’s turning 47 phone clips into something coherent before everyone loses interest. It’s also another example of editing software becoming less about knowing where every button lives and more about being able to explain what you actually want. Editors everywhere can remain calm. For now. 👉 Read More
🤝 LinkedIn is building a proper creator search engine for brands
LinkedIn is testing Creator Discovery, a new tool inside its Creator Marketplace designed to help B2B marketers find relevant creators using filters including industry, job function, content type, audience demographics and Top Voice status. LinkedIn says 63% of B2B buyers now rely on creators for research and insights early in the buying process.
That’s a fairly significant change in how LinkedIn sees creators. They’re increasingly becoming part of the paid media ecosystem rather than simply people your company page occasionally tags. LinkedIn says Thought Leader Ads can deliver substantially higher click-through rates than conventional single-image ads, which gives brands another reason to find credible humans with an actual point of view rather than asking the CEO to post “Five things leadership taught me about resilience.” 👉 Read More
📸 Instagram reminds us what actually makes a decent Reel
Instagram has published an updated Reels creation guide covering everything from ideal video lengths and hooks to captions, editing tools and distribution. Instagram says 15 to 60 seconds remains the sweet spot for most creative formats, while longer 60-second to three-minute Reels work better for deeper storytelling and how-tos. Reels now account for more than half of all time spent on Instagram.
None of this is going to turn the social media industry upside down, but sometimes a useful refresher is more helpful than another mysterious algorithm theory. Instagram’s advice remains reassuringly boring: hook people immediately, make original content, use captions and give viewers a reason to stay. Still no evidence that writing “algorithm please show this to…” underneath your post achieves anything whatsoever. 👉 Read More
👻 Snapchat wants some of your B2B budget
Snapchat has launched a new Spend Smarter campaign specifically targeting B2B marketers, arguing that brands are overlooking the number of professional decision-makers using the platform. Snap says it can play a significant role in product discovery even when the final transaction happens somewhere else, and is using customer case studies and industry voices to make the case for moving some B2B media spend onto Snapchat.
Snapchat and B2B advertising probably aren’t two things most people instinctively put together, which is exactly why this is interesting. Decision-makers do not cease to be decision-makers when they leave LinkedIn and start sending pictures of their dog to somebody. It may not suddenly become the centre of your B2B strategy, but for the right audience it could be worth testing rather than assuming everyone on Snap is 17. 👉 Read More
⏰ TikTok agrees to a two-hour limit for teenagers
TikTok has agreed to new restrictions for teenage users in Alabama as part of a $100 million settlement over allegations that the app was designed to encourage addictive behaviour. Measures include a default two-hour daily time limit for teens, restrictions on access between midnight and 6am and suspended notifications during school hours. Similar restrictions formed part of Meta’s recent settlement, while related cases are continuing across other US states.
This is starting to look less like a series of isolated court cases and more like a possible template for how younger audiences will be allowed to use social media. For marketers, particularly anyone targeting teenagers, that means available attention could increasingly be shaped by regulation rather than simply platform algorithms. Honestly, two hours still sounds like quite a lot of TikTok, but I’m not sure I’m in a position to judge anybody’s screen time. 👉 Read More
🔧 Quick Tip of the Week
Take five minutes to review Instagram’s latest Reels guidance.
Even if you think you already know the basics, it’s worth checking what Instagram is currently recommending around hooks, length, captions, originality and retention. Platform best practice shifts constantly, and a quick review can be a useful sanity check before you spend another week making Reels exactly the same way you did six months ago.
✨ Campaigns We Love ✨
🥙 KOKO turns the post-club kebab shop into the campaign
For its 125th anniversary and new KOKO Electronic season, the Camden venue has built a campaign around one of London nightlife’s most dependable institutions: the post-club kebab shop. A new film follows a long-suffering owner serving clubbers across different musical eras, while cryptic takeaway-menu-style posters appeared around London with a mystery phone number revealing clues about the line-up. It’s funny, very London, and feels completely rooted in the culture of the venue rather than pasted onto it. 👉 One kebab, extra chilli sauce and the AW26 line-up please
🧠 De Balie makes a case for being uncomfortable
Amsterdam cultural institution De Balie has launched Why make it easy?, a campaign built around the idea that discomfort, disagreement and friction can actually be good for us. Created with Dawn, it pairs provocative copy with surreal photography to encourage people to step outside echo chambers and engage with ideas they might not immediately agree with. In a feed increasingly designed to give us more of what we already like, there’s something refreshingly unfashionable about a campaign asking people to actively seek out the opposite. 👉 Go on, make yourself slightly uncomfortable
🗓️ Mark Your Calendars
Opportunities to celebrate this week
- Thursday October 1 – International Coffee Day ☕
- Friday October 2 – World Smile Day 🙂
- Sunday October 4 – World Space Week begins 🚀
- Monday October 5 – World Teachers’ Day 🍎
- Tuesday October 6 – Mad Hatter Day 🎩
And next…
- Wednesday October 7 – World Cotton Day 👕
- Thursday October 8 – Pierogi Day 🥟
- Friday October 9 – World Post Day 📮
- Saturday October 10 – World Mental Health Day 🧠
- Sunday October 11 – International Day of the Girl Child 👧
- Tuesday October 13 – Ada Lovelace Day 💻
That’s a wrap for this week!
I’m off to give Muse access to absolutely everything I own and ask it to organise my life. I’ll report back, assuming it hasn’t sold my house on Marketplace.
See you next week, bye 👋
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