Trends in social media: The Motherhood scours the headlines so you don’t have to. Check back throughout the month for more!
Influencer Marketing Industry Resources
The Shape of the Influencer Economy – March 15, 2025
In Episode 5 of The Media Room, media expert and author Vanita Kohli-Khandekar speaks to 2 experts, Harikrishnan Pillai co-founder and chief executive officer of digital marketing agency The Small Big Idea as well as Kalyan Kumar, co-founder and CEO of influencer marketing platform KlugKlug. They discuss the influencer economy, how marketing campaigns utilise influencers, the duopoly of Meta and Google, breaking down parameters and levels within the ecosystem and the effect of recent events on current trends. Tune in for insights on how brands view influencers and how they capitalise on their influence.
Why Is Unilever’s CEO Fernando Fernandez Investing In Influencers? – March 13, 2025
Unilever believes influencer marketing will accelerate growth in a competitive market. Under new CEO Fernando Fernandez, the FMCG giant intends to spend 50% of its media budget on social channels and will increase influencer marketing investment twentyfold. His vision? “Desire at scale.” Instead of relying solely on traditional brand messaging, Unilever is making creators a key driver of its marketing efforts, signaling a new era in how brands leverage influence.
50% of Unilever’s ad spend will go to social media. Will an influencer-first strategy work? – March 13, 2025
In a major strategic pivot, its new CEO says it’ll spend half of its media dollars on social channels and work with 20x more creators. Here’s why the move makes sense. In a shock leadership change last month, Hein Schumacher stepped down after less than two years as chief executive of Unilever, to be replaced by Fernando Fernandez, an Argentine executive with almost four decades at the conglomerate.
Creators and influencers on edge about Meta’s reported Reels spin-off – March 11, 2025
Meta’s plan to potentially spin Instagram Reels into a standalone video app has sparked excitement among creators and influencer marketers — but also concerns that the move could disrupt creators’ brand partnerships on Instagram.
How cult brands like Crocs, Southwest see influencer marketing evolving – March 10, 2025
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Influencers have long played a role in brands’ bids at relevance with young consumers. What happens when they climb to the top of the strategy agenda? Executives speaking at South by Southwest (SXSW) over the weekend detailed how influencer marketing is expanding to impact everything from campaign casting decisions to experiments with new shoppable ad formats. Looking ahead, some see the potential for the tactic to command a greater share of budgets once reserved for more conventional forms of advertising — the latest sign that industry decision-makers are shifting to a social-first mindset as channels like linear TV decline and Gen Z’s career aspirations turn further toward internet stardom.
Influencer Marketing Is Busting Through The Walls Of Social Media – March 10, 2025
As influencer marketing rose to fame over the last decade, it’s gone through several stages of maturity. Influencer marketing 1.0 was fairly simple and straightforward. Brands worked with people with social media followings to post about the brand. That content reached the creator’s audience, and their following was a predictable signal of reach.
Brands hire Gen X and boomer influencers as the ‘power of the silver influencer’ rises – March 7, 2025
When you think of influencer marketing, you typically picture brands working with a younger creator to target Gen Z (ages 13-28) or Gen Alpha (up to 12 years old). That’s not always the case. As the influencer marketing space and creator economy continues to grow, so-called silver influencers, or creators from Gen X (45-60 years old) and boomer generations (ages 61-79) are increasingly catching marketers’ attention.
From Marketplaces to Community Power: 2025 Rules of Influencer Marketing – March 7, 2025
I also got the ultimate insight toolkit: top platforms, key metrics, and tips based on my XP as a Creative Director at an influencer marketing agency AAA Agency — why kick off your campaign 3-6 months early? why you shouldn’t be writing the script for the influencer? and more secret sauce for marketers.
Uncovered Industry Gems at Creator Economy Live 2025 – March 6, 2025
The creator economy is thriving and on track to become a $500 billion industry by 2027, making it more important than ever for brands and creators to stand out from the pack. At the third-ever Creator Economy Live conference in Las Vegas, industry leaders – brands, marketers, platforms/tools and creators – uncovered some invaluable insights and growing trends to help them do just that. Spoiler alert – our favorite buzz word ‘authenticity’ is just the tip of the iceberg. From platform strategy (hint: LinkedIn is that girl!) to community engagement (real-time interaction continues to be king), here are five gems we uncovered during the conference that can help both brands and creators navigate and excel in this ever-evolving space.
Olipop is Worth $1.8 Billion. Here’s Its Influencer Marketing Strategy, Which Can Work for Any Brand – March 5, 2025
Most small businesses look at influencer marketing and assume it’s out of reach. They’re wrong. “People assume influencer marketing is all about cash deals,” says Steven Vigilante, director of strategic partnerships at the soda brand Olipop. “But some of our best partnerships started with a free sample and a conversation.”
How creator partnerships go beyond awareness and conversions to fuel advocacy – March 5, 2025
While brands see creators as a safe bet to boost awareness or drive conversions, they’re missing something. Analyzing influencer campaigns from 2024 uncovered an intriguing trend: that much of the industry isn’t necessarily utilizing or thinking about influencers in the most beneficial way. They’re overlooking the true superpower at their fingertips: influence.
Why More Influencers Are Turning to LTK – March 3, 2025
Affiliate marketing has been around for decades, but it’s undergoing a major shift. LTK (formerly known as LikeToKnowIt) is aiming to revolutionise how creators monetise their influence, positioning itself as the AdSense of affiliate marketing.
DICK’S Varsity Program Goes Public, Influencers Able To Apply – February 28, 2025
The Varsity Team influencer program, once limited to internal employees at DICK’s Sporting Goods, recently opened to the public for the first time with an “open call” for influencers. Sports enthusiasts and content creators with no prior association with DICK’s were eligible to apply—with a select few set to receive benefits like athlete mentorship, paid contracts, and brand exclusives. DICK’s opened the program to prioritize user-generated content (UGC) as the brand searches for authentic stories from sports enthusiasts.
How Gen Z teens are becoming social influencers against gun violence – February 26, 2025
Students are getting and sharing the message that they’re safer without guns. On March 22, 2012, I got a Facebook message with a simple call to action: “Today, walkout, 1st lunch, justice for Trayvon.”
Pharma
The new rules for pharma marketing influencers = authenticity over audience – February 14, 2025
The days of the Kardashian celebrity influencers are waning in pharma and health care marketing. Not exactly literally—although Kim and Khloe Kardashian were once high-profile influencers for drug brands Diclegis and Nurtec, respectively—but in general, celebrity influencers with million-plus social media audiences are not as sought after, or effective, as micro-influencers and content creators today.
Social News
Instagram Experiments With AI-Generated Comments on Posts – March 16, 2025
I can’t imagine why anybody would want this, nor why Meta thinks that anyone would want it, while I also can’t see it having an overall positive impact on social media interaction. But… Apparently, Instagram is now experimenting with AI-generated comments on posts, so you don’t even have to come up with an opinion, or an original thought of your own, in order to respond to an update.
Oracle Emerges as Most Likely Partner for US TikTok Deal – March 13, 2025
A quick update on the TikTok U.S. saga: In what will be a surprise to absolutely no one, Oracle is firming as the favorite to establish a partnership deal that would enable TikTok to keep running in the U.S., according to latest reports.
Facebook Adds Stories to Its Creator Monetization Program – March 13, 2025
Facebook has announced that it’s adding Facebook Stories into its creator monetization program, which will give creators another way to earn money in the app. Last year, Facebook merged its in-stream ads and performance bonus programs into one scheme, in order to simplify its creator monetization process. That means that creators posting videos, Reels, photos and text posts now only have to opt in to a single initiative to make money from their content.
Meta Invites More Advertisers To Link Their Google Analytics Account – March 13, 2025
After working on its integration with Google Analytics over the last year, Meta is now inviting more ad account managers to link their Google Analytics data into Meta’s system, in order to feed in more traffic insights to help improve ad performance.
Bluesky Adds Longer Videos, DM Requests Folder – March 12, 2025
Open source Twitter-clone app Bluesky has announced its latest app update, with longer videos, a new chat requests filter, and additional language translation options.
TikTok Shares New Report on Its Impact on the US Economy – March 11, 2025
As TikTok continues to fight for its life in the U.S., the platform has today outlined the economic benefits that it’s delivered for the nation, with expanded data showing that TikTok exposure is connected to over 28 million American jobs.
TikTok Rolls Out More Teen Safety Elements – March 11, 2025
TikTok’s rolling out some new tools to help parents manage their kids’ use of the app, and ensure that they are indeed taking breaks from TikTok’s addictive, never-ending ‘For You’ feed.
TikTok Provides Tips on Creating Engaging Photo Posts – March 9, 2025
Looking for more ways to engage your TikTok followers? Maybe still image posts could be worth trying, and to help with this, TikTok recently published an overview of its still image posts, and how you can use them to best effect.
US TikTok Negotiations Stall With Only a Month Left To Arrange a Deal – March 6, 2025
Checking in on the U.S. TikTok situation, and with a month to go before the platform’s 75-day negotiation window closes, things don’t exactly look great.
TikTok Sets Deadline for the Switch to Its Creative Suite – February 27, 2025
TikTok One, which was originally announced at its “TikTok World” event last May, will provide a more centralized home for all of TikTok’s creative tools, including analytics, campaign creation, Creative Challenges, and more. Which also includes its current Creator Marketplace, TikTok’s discovery tool that connects creators with brands.
Instagram Provides Tips on How To Maximize Content Recommendations – February 26, 2025
Instagram has provided an update on its effort to maximize exposure potential for smaller creators, which it says has now resulted in significantly more opportunities for creators to reach a broader, more focused audience in the app.
Instagram May Be Exploring a Separate Reels App – February 26, 2025
That’s apparently what Instagram is currently weighing, according to a new report from The Information, which suggests that Instagram chief Adam Mosseri recently floated the concept of a separate Reels app to IG staff.
Instagram Explains How Its Algorithm Weighs Time Spent Watching Longer Clips – February 25, 2025
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has provided some more insight into how its content algorithm measures watch time as a percentage of a video, as opposed to a binary count.
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