Hello, social strategists! Welcome to a new week of social updates. LinkedIn is providing more ways for users to show their AI literacy and skills with a verified identifier. This could boost employment options and help legitimize any upskilling or training you’ve been working on. Let’s take a deeper look and see what else has improved.
X
X has launched a new feature called Brand Ranx, which is a live tracker for Super Bowl ads that shows which campaigns are getting the most attention on the platform.
Brand Ranx uses real-time conversation and engagement on X to rank ads. It also highlights the most talked about, most loved, most shared and most disruptive outside traditional TV ads.
This is similar to the old Brand Bowl feature Twitter used to run, but updated for X’s current platform and audience, Social Media Today reports. Users can click on any brand in the tracker to jump straight to that brand’s X profile and see posts and reactions.
LinkedIn is launching a new product to help people prove their AI proficiency. This will help potential employers easily see a person’s skills and strengths in a verifiable way.
Users can now earn live, verified skill badges based on real usage of popular AI tools. LinkedIn is partnering with companies like Descript, Lovable, Relay.app and Replit to validate this, Hari Srinivasan, LinkedIn’s VP of product, said.
Over time, more partners like Gamma, GitHub and Zapier will be added so people can show real experience with the tools employers care about.
Meta
Meta has rolled out new AI tools to help brands work better with content creators and turn creator content into ads.
Within the Partnership Ads Hub in Ads Manager, brands can now find and sort organic creator posts, user-generated content and affiliate posts, and see how well those posts are performing (likes, comments, views, shares, etc.) before deciding which to promote as ads.
Meta says partnership ads tend to perform better with lower costs and higher engagement than many traditional campaigns.
Meta has also expanded creator eligibility, including more types of professional profiles, and simplified how creators can give brands permission to use their content. Tools like a Partnership Ads API and Creator Discovery API can help brands find the right creators and automate the process of turning existing content into ads.
The app makers say the goal is to make creator partnerships easier to manage and more effective using AI-driven insights and workflows across Facebook and Instagram.
Additionally, Meta’s Edits just got several improvements that make editing faster and more flexible for creators.
Users can now copy and paste fonts and clips between projects, helping keep styles consistent and saving time when working across multiple videos.
The app also now has a drop-down menu for guides, frames and snapping controls, making these layout tools easier to access. There’s also an option where changes to your main track can automatically apply (or not) to linked visual and audio clips, giving users more control over how elements stay connected in different projects.
In addition, Edits added more effects that can target specific objects in a frame, a new “Reverse” play option and extra text animations so users’ content can look more dynamic.
These updates are rolling out on iOS and Android.
WhatsApp introduced a new privacy and security option called Strict Account Settings.
This is a “lockdown-style” feature users can turn on by going into Settings, then Privacy, then Advanced, and it makes accounts more secure by setting many features to the app’s most restrictive options.
This means it blocks attachments and media from people not in your contacts, silences calls from unknown numbers, turns off link previews and limits who can see your profile info or add you to groups. These are all optional and designed to reduce the risk of sophisticated cyberattacks, WhatsApp said.
Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at [email protected].
