• Melissa Harvey
• 17 March 2025
• 6 min

Social in Six 92

1. Instagram is reportedly working on a standalone Reels app 

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The story:

• According to The Information, Instagram is considering launching a separate Reels app featuring a full-screen, scrolling feed of short-form videos.
• Although we don’t know exact logistics, we can assume Reels would be entirely removed from Instagram and live in a separate app instead.
• This idea is part of Meta’s “Project Ray,” aimed at boosting three-minute-long Reels – an update that rolled out back in January – and improving content recommendations, with over 50% of feed content now driven by AI-powered suggestions. 

So what? 

Not long ago, Adam Mosseri was stressing the importance of short-form video to creators, but now the platform appears to be moving towards long-form content by increasing the Reels upload limit…go figure. On the surface, a separate app purely for Reels is another attempt to compete with TikTok, but many creators who have found success on Reels have been migrating to YouTube to share long-form content and make more money in the process – we could see the Reels app eventually start to serve long-form content like IGTV once did.  

2. TikTok Shop has a new way to get customers buying its top products 

The story:

• TikTok Shop has introduced a “Most Loved” badge to highlight top-rated products with high customer satisfaction, low return rates, and reliable shipping.
• The badge appears on product pages across various categories like beauty, electronics, and fashion, with a pop-up explaining the Most Loved program. TikTok encourages users to leave reviews to help more products earn the distinction.
• TikTok has been busy with its ecommerce push. It’s just announced a handful of new updates for TikTok Shop sellers, including custom returns windows and automated approvals for aftersales requests like returns and cancellations. 

So what? 

TikTok Shop is the future of ecommerce – building trust amongst affluent millennials through tools like this, plus the buy-in of huge brands like Lidl (which recently became the first supermarket to launch on TikTok Shop) is a top priority for the platform. It looks like they’re following the playbook of early eBay or Amazon – building a community of peer reviewers to increase consumer confidence and in turn attract larger sellers. And we all know people trust people, so it’s worth investing in your selling and shipping processes to get that Most Loved badge on your products.

3. You can now include testimonials in Partnership Ads on Instagram 

The story:

• Instagram has introduced Partnership testimonials as an add-on for its Partnership Ads, which allow brands to include a text endorsement from the creator as a sponsored comment within the post.
• Testimonials will be limited to 125 characters and brands will only be able to include one testimonial comment per Partnership post at this stage.
• The feature is currently being rolled out to all users.

So what? 

Instagram is betting big on the power of comments here – we’ve seen engagements on brand comments rivalling entire ad campaigns recently and this feels like the natural progression of monetised engagement within this space. The comment section has been considered a bit of a sacred space of ad-free discussion for a generation. Good social strategists have begun to join the conversation and engage with audiences organically to great effect, but this could be Instagram’s attempt to test the waters and see how users react to a feature that, before now, hadn’t been monetised by brands.

4. LinkedIn has introduced a new metric for comments

The story:

• LinkedIn has begun displaying impression counts on comments for some users, allowing them to see how many people viewed their individual comments.
• Impressions are only visible to the author, and they aren’t unique, meaning if the same person views the same comment twice (including the comment author), it will count as two impressions.
• Company page admins will see the impression count of all their comments made as the page, although comment impressions will not be shown in any dashboard, only on the individual comment.

So what? 

Clearly, platforms are cottoning on to the power of comments and community engagement. LinkedIn knows their audience wants to know who’s looking at their content on a more granular level than other platforms, and comment-by-comment breakdowns encourage users to spend more time on the platform beyond job searching and posting. Take this update as a signal of what LinkedIn considers valuable, and up your community engagement strategy if you haven’t already.

5. TikTok beats out YouTube, TV and OOH when it comes to short-term ROI, according to new study 

The story:

• A recent study from Dentsu of 15 brands on TikTok revealed that 75% of advertisers achieved their highest ROI on the platform compared to other media channels.
• Advertisers who used TikTok consistently rather than in campaign bursts saw the greatest sales effects and generally a higher ROI.
• Data also highlighted that TikTok was the most successful channel compared to platforms like YouTube, TV and OOH when it comes to short-term ROI. In the long-term, TikTok was beaten out by radio, paid social and OOH.

So what? 

We have to be mindful that TikTok commissioned this study, but regardless, it’s useful for getting a glimpse into how TikTok tracks ROI if nothing else. Our top takeaway? Don’t use TikTok as a billboard – it proves the most valuable and will pay dividends in long-term brand building when you post consistently and invest in the platform, in your creators, and in your own internal resources.

6. Pinterest begins tagging its AI-generated images

The story:

• In response to concern about an influx of AI-generated Pins directing users to spam sites, Pinterest has implemented a new policy that automatically labels images detected as generated or modified using AI.
• The label, which is rolling out across the app, appears as an overlay on image Pins to inform users about the nature of the content.
• However, the label doesn’t extend to ads. Users can only view this information if they navigate to “Why am I seeing this ad?”, where Pinterest will explicitly disclose if the ad has been generated using AI.

So what? 

As a platform that’s always embraced makers and the maker economy, Pinterest is now struggling to compete with the volume of generated content sweeping the internet. It’s not unique to them – other platforms like TikTok, Meta and Snapchat have introduced AI labels – and it makes sense that Pinterest would be taking a concrete stand in this way. If you’re going to post Pinterest content and ads made with AI, be mindful of the label – Pinterest users may not embrace AI-generated content as much as they would on other platforms.