March 2025 in Digital Strategy

Everything you missed in March about digital and influencer marketing.

Apr 01, 2025

Happy April!

It’s April Fools’ Day, but we’ve got no time to fool around.

TikTok is just days away from most likely sticking around, US intelligence is making plans on Partiful, and everyone I know online who’s never sat through an entire Studio Ghibli film is now finding out what they’d look like as a “Studio Ghibli-style” illustration.

I'm writing to you this morning from overcast Bucharest, where this weekend I'll be making the trek to the not-really Castle Dracula to find out what apps the undead are using these days.

Let's dive into March,

Ryan

The Month in Digital Strategy - March 2025

Big Picture

Digital Minimalism, or: "Why the coolest people online are barely posting at all."
I'm a firm believer that brands should be pursuing two strategies on digital media: decentralizing their external messaging through creators and niche networks, and building out their internal owned communities through newsletters and groups.
One of the 5 key themes emerging from SXSW conversations: “Audiences don’t distinguish between social, streaming and traditional TV. It’s all screens for them. If you're not treating YouTube like an entertainment powerhouse — whether for podcasts or shows — you’re leaving audiences and revenue opportunities on the table.”
Duolingo has a social media writers room modeled after SNL’s.
Social is the New Hollywood: “52% of Gen Z-ers said they feel a “stronger personal connection” to social stars than to TV personalities or actors. And 56% said social content is “more relevant” to them than TV series or movies.”
Search Still Matters: “Google Search Grew 20%+ in 2024; receives ~373X more searches than ChatGPT”
Bloomberg study says Community Notes like on X and Meta don’t work and can’t scale.
People who disable Netflix’s autoplay watch less each day, according to a new study from the University of Chicago. Participants without autoplay enabled watched 21 fewer minutes per day compared to those with autoplay on. The authors call autoplay a “dark pattern,” a user interface designed to keep people engaged at the expense of their well-being.
Top Trump officials discussed war plans on Signal in a group chat with a major reporter. (Signal 101 here if you need it.) This led to a huge spike in Signal downloads in the United States. Even the cofounder got in on the fun:

The State of Social

“Over 40% of companies make at least one video a week. Among them, mid-sized companies make about three a week— twice as many as they did in 2023.” - 2025 State of Video Report
Here are some data-backed 101 ways to boost your social media engagement and the latest average engagement rates across a bunch of industries.
HubSpot’s Global Digital Social Media Trends PDF is about… 52 pages.
The best times to post on social media, Q1 2025 edition.
ICYMI: My Community vs. Broadcast Social Media Quadrant
People First analyzed the politics and sentiment of posts across Twitter X, Bluesky, Threads, and Truth Social. Some of the results might surprise you.

Influencers

Influencers aren’t just baby Millennials and old Gen Zers who live on the coasts. You can source creators from any demographic you want to reach. Senior creators from Gen X or Baby Boomers love social media just as much as any generation, and working with these "silver" creators is a unique way to generate content that speaks to their peers.
Work with creators from outside your brand category: “Contrary to conventional wisdom, Frank argues that non-endemic partnerships—working with creators outside a brand’s product category—often deliver better results than endemic ones. ‘I think there’s a very strong argument that the best ad space possible is non-endemic,’ Frank says. He explains that non-endemic creators face less risk to their credibility: ‘The fishing YouTuber risks their credibility recommending fishing gear, but has zero risk recommending a wallet.’”
The recent WSJ podcast on Utah’s child influencer law is well worth a listen.
“There are 19,000 Zip codes in India. There are 5,764 municipalities in Brazil. I want one influencer in each of them.” - Unilever is going all in on social media, with a major focus on influencers. The move will increase its media spend on social channels from around 30 percent to 50 percent of the total budget, and it plans to work with 20 times more influencers.

TikTok

There is a law that says TikTok must sell its US operations by April 5, but what do laws even mean anymore, right? A handful of groups are interested in buying TikTok, though it does not exactly look like it is for sale. So the big questions this week are 1) will there be a deal and 2) if not, does TikTok go dark again? Tune in on a social platform you are pretty sure will still be operational on Saturday.

TikTok shut down its old Creator Marketplace and replaced it with a cooler-sounding TikTok One.
“The emergence of the TikTok Oracle is characterized by several key traits:
- Brevity over depth – Successful digital critics condense complex ideas into bite-sized, declarative statements, sacrificing depth for brevity.
- Performance over exploration – Algorithms favor confident delivery. The more authoritative the tone, the more traction the content gains, regardless of rigor.
- Virality over rigor – The objective shifts from thorough analysis to visibility. Thought leadership becomes a branding exercise rather than a pursuit of genuine insight.”
TikTok’s CPM has dropped 80% year-over-year.
After 10 PM, your kid’s TikTok automatically plays some creepy calming meditation content, which is almost certainly not brainwashing them into joining the Chinese Communist Party.
University study says TikTok’s algorithm helped Trump during the 2024 Election.
Longer videos are now getting more views on TikTok.
Guide to using still photos on TikTok.

Instagram

Instagram is looking to destroy whatever authentic value comments still have by adding "AI-generated" suggestions when you view your friends' posts. Comments are about to become another random engagement metric. Meanwhile, Instagram is looking to expand creator communities through a Discord-like chat feature. No word yet on whether the chat will hit you with random AI responses so it can basically be Discord, but with Meta AI talking back and forth.

Reels tips that Meta shared with creators on at a live NYC event. Also, what’s the ideal Reels length?
One day, Instagram will have better search for content and creators.
Early engagement on an Instagram post is key for it to be seen by non-followers.

Facebook

Facebook is stealing from 2004 Facebook by launching a "Friends" tab that cleans up the feed and refocuses it on people actually in your community.
At 21, can Facebook get its groove back?!

Threads

Threads has launched new features to make it easier to discover topics and communities.
Some publishers are starting to see some real traffic coming from Threads.

Linkedin is working on ways for users to control more of what they see in their feeds.
LinkedIn isn’t exactly a Twitter replacement, but X’s decline has given the platform a fresh new life with more diverse conversations.
Linkedin is now showing impression counts on comments.

Twitter/X

Musk’s xAI bought X and that’s not an April Fools’ joke.
I think most folks would be surprised just how much Gen Z loves X.
The “Xodus,” the movement of lefties and normies leaving X, is slowing as the platform is more stable across demographics.
Elon Musk’s politics dominate X.

Is AI slop eating Pinterest?

Reddit wants to make it easier for new users to get engaged in the right communities.

YouTube

“YouTube commands 78% of viewership among U.S. children aged 2-12…”
Google might finally bring partnership ads to YouTube Shorts.
You probably should be making more short-form content for YouTube.
YouTube is testing an exciting new creator-centric approach to advertising on video podcasts.

Podcasts

Podcast “Super Listeners” consume more than eight hours of pods weekly have higher engagement with advertisers than average listeners. They are 60% more likely to purchase advertised products online and 71% more likely to make in-store purchases of brands featured in their favorite pods.
Gen Z consumes their podcasts at home, where they do everything else.
YouTube is now the number one platform for listening to and watching podcasts in the United States.
Research shows people are surprisingly into podcasts hosted by their favorite brands. 43% of listeners said they would consume podcasts about a brand they love. And among these brand fans, 59% had listened to a podcast in the past week.
The White House hosted a bunch of conservative podcasters. It was totally awesome, as you can see:

AI

Everyone should check out Ezra Klein’s recent podcast with Ben Buchanan, the top adviser on AI in the Biden White House, about the politics and possibilities of AGI in the near future.
If you're using LLMs for research and not fact-checking everything against the original source, Columbia Journalism Review's recent study should scare you straight.
New Study: “We find suggestive evidence that top freelancers are disproportionately affected by AI. These results suggest that generative AI may transform the role of human capital in the organization and reduce overall demand for workers.”
Only 1 in 3 marketers believe AI for revolutionize marketing. 2 in 3 marketers will be very surprised over the next few years.
A detailed look into the various AI “deep research” tools available.
Chatbot super users are showing signs of physical and emotional addiction.

Other Digital Bits

LTK is launching a creator-first social media app.
You can snow schedule Snapchat content.
Is taste finally coming to video games? I mean the sense of taste.
“Our findings demonstrate that voters who received text messages from personal acquaintances were 8.6 percentage points more likely to vote compared to the control group.”
Roblox wants to connect more builders with their audiences.
Brands need to get more serious about their direct messaging strategies.
Movie Marketing: Napoleon Dynamite rewrote the indie marketing playbook. A24 has built real community around a film distribution company.

The Month In Digital

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