SOCIAL

📩 Instagram rolls out more DM updates.

🤖 Meta allows advertisers to restrict terms from AI-generated text.

📱 Instagram drops an iPad version after 15 years.

BRANDS

👖 American Eagle has no regrets over signing Sydney Sweeney.

🍅 Kraft Heinz will split into two companies, one for groceries and the other for sauces and spreads.

👻 Scary cute! Sweethearts drops blank “Ghosted Sweethearts” for Halloween.

😴 The “sleep stream” is an internet phenomenon and the basis for a viral marketing campaign.

CULTURE

💥 The tariff apocalypse is here.

⚖️ Google won’t have to sell Chrome, after ruling in search antitrust trial.

⚔️ How the rebrand became part of the culture wars.

🧩 NYT’s Mini Crossword ducks behind paywall.

Tuesday:  Content needs to work for two different ecosystems: search engines and generative engines. Search engines weigh everything from E-E-A-T signals to schema markup and link quality. Their inputs are usually short queries, and their outputs are lists of ranked URLs. Gen AI, on the other hand, deals with richer prompts and provides human-like responses. So, how do you serve both?

Wednesday: Recession-proofing your brand starts with listening, and nowhere is consumer sentiment louder or faster than on social media. Social is where users express financial anxiety openly, where thrift becomes aspirational, and where brands are scrutinized not just for price, but for their role in people’s daily lives. Here’s a helpful framework from VaynerMedia North America’s senior strategist Estelle Levy.

Thursday: Reddit is now the #1 most cited source across major AI platforms, meaning customer recommendations are increasingly shaped by conversations happening in subreddits. Consequently, Reddit is rolling out a huge update its business suite, going mobile to offer real-time monitoring, smarter insights, and practical guidance for engaging authentically. Here’s what’s new in Reddit Pro.

Can you solve this puzzle? 🔇

🔥 Trending in The Daily Carnage Facebook group this week:

“Every social tool is integrating AI at every level—post creation, image creation, hashtag creation, and so on. Is anyone is actually using these or are they just another bright shiny gimmick?”

💬  Our community of experts says…

• “I’ve tried the AI captions, but they are always terrible so I just stick with my original caption.”
• “No hashtags, ‘strategy,’ ‘art,’ or copy are worth taking jobs from actual people, who deserve employment, that use their practiced, honed talents. Not to mention the MASSIVE ecological impact the servers required to run AI farms have on the water table of the cities they’re in.”
• “Every time I use a native AI, it feels like it’s not quite there. Kinda like copilot… just a little bit shittier than the one you’re used to.”
• “When you are a one-person marketing department for an entire organization, you have to rely on AI to help with certain things. I don’t love that it’s the case for me, but without it I could not keep up with all the things on my plate.”

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