Political Social Grab Bag - September 2025

Political Social Grab Bag

What am I thinking about?

I have a new monthly newsletter that will also be going out the first the month…Digital Quick Hits. 3-5 carefully curated ideas for things we can be doing in digital to make our work more streamlined and, more importantly, more impactful.

Again, apologies for the lack of newsletter last month, that made this one a supersized edition so I’ll save my most recent thoughts for next month

What am I reading?

TikTok could be making you more politically polarized. Here’s how. – Suddenly it’s 2013 again and we’re talking about echo chambers on social media (See also this one about Google Search allowing users to choose their news outlets to show up in search)

LinkedIn Post from Daniel Lewis– Just read this one…a lot of what he says isn’t just applicable for TikTok, rather it’s applicable across social media

The Revival of Long-Form: Why Micro-Content Is Losing to Depth in 2025– Just read this one

Your next social post will die– An interesting survey of the data for content shelf life on the various platforms

Study: Social media probably can’t be fixed– Just read this one

New Tools of Interest

Flashes– the new Bluesky based Instgram clone

Meta Design Check App– Available in Canva’s App Marketplace- will provide feedback on how images will appear in Meta ads and more

Germ– End to end encrypted DMs for Bluesky

Platform Updates

Meta Platforms

Facebook- has now walked back the idea of charging when you set up your ad campaign (they claim it was an “error”

ICYMI: More tweaks to detailed Ad targeting are now underway

For those in the EU: Beginning Oct. 25 Meta will no longer run political ads in the EU

Facebook Algorithm Update: The algorithm now will deprioritize “unorginal content”, that is content that isn’t shared using the share button

Facebook: Now lets you mute reels before they even start playing (reenforcing the importance of captions)

Facebook: Now rolling out Value Rules for Ads– haven’t played with them yet but will be soon

Facebook: In addition to being available in Business Suite for content in general, copyright check is also now available as part of the workflow for creating reels

Facebook: You can now add music to colored or generated backgrounds text posts

Instagram: After years of off and on testing- Reposts are now live in Instagram…and their version of “Snap Map” (which is off by default)

Instagram: Subtle but big change to post sizes

Instagram: Edits continues to get more and more feature upgrades

Instagram: Live streaming is now restricted to accounts with more than 1000 followers

Instagram: Coming soon…enhanced Insights for Reels for Carousels and more metrics in general

Threads: Expanded Insights now available

Meta Business Suite- At long last Suite supports multimedia content

Other Platforms

TikTok: Scheduling for a post is now a part of the post composer

TwitterX: Another new ad restriction- no more than 1 emoji in an ad

YouTube: Video Title Testing is now available in YT Studio