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Creator Weekly: Bluesky Likes Links, YouTube Posts AI Tools, 2024 YouTube Music & Reddit Recaps

Creator Weekly: Bluesky Likes Links, YouTube Posts AI Tools, 2024 YouTube Music & Reddit Recaps

Peggy K
November 30, 2024

As we move into December platforms are sharing their annual recaps. Last week it was YouTube Gaming, this week YouTube Music and Reddit. Next week I’m expecting Spotify. And what strikes me is that these recaps only cover your activity into early November.

That means you can be different in December! Experiment. Listen to new artists. Join a new subreddit. Focus on the holidays. If it’s good, keep doing it through the new year, and maybe it will be part of next year’s recap. If it doesn’t work for you, no one will be the wiser.

This week there has been a lot of discussion around which platforms are good for sharing links, and Bluesky seems to be the winner.

And there are updates for YouTube, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky and more.

Top news and updates this week

Social media versus links: Bluesky is the winner.
Add images to YouTube quizzes.
YouTube Posts now have built-in AI image and text tools.
YouTube Brand Connect rolling out to more monetized channels.
YouTube videos in the Google Search results may open on a Search page without engagement features.
YouTube is updating the Inspiration tab in YouTube Studio.
LinkedIn is shutting down Audio Events, and encourages using LinkedIn Live instead.
WP Engine vs Automattic: In a move that upsets some developers, Automattic forked the ACF Pro paid plugin, offering their version for free.
Bluesky adds options for sorting post replies.
X Analytics (for subscribers only) now shows how many of your followers are also subscribers.
Threads makes custom feeds visible on the home screen, is testing Search improvements and lets iOS users watch videos in landscape orientation.
Google Chat is getting audio-first Huddles powered by Google Meet.
Instagram adds new DM features, including stickers, nicknames and location sharing.
Google’s NotebookLM lets you save AI generated notes to your sources.
Plus more tips, updates and interesting reading.

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What do you know about YouTube’s AI tools?

New Tips and Tutorials

I hosted last week’s OnEBoard Chat with a discussion about Google Workspace for personal Google Accounts.
I posted a brief overview of the new AI tools for YouTube Posts on YouTube and Bluesky.

To Do & Try

I am trying out Sill (sill.social), a service that compiles the most popular links shared on Bluesky and Mastodon by the people you follow. If you follow federated Threads profiles with your Mastodon account, it will include links shared on Threads as well. The Sill home feed shows the popular links and lets you see the posts sharing them. You can also get a daily email with the top links from the past 24 hours. I’m liking it so far, as a way to get a quick overview of what people are talking about.
Your Reddit 2024 Recap is now available in the iOS and Android app. It includes data through November 1. If you don’t have a recap, you probably didn’t spend enough time on Reddit.
Get your YouTube Music 2024 Recap in the YouTube Music app (click music.youtube.com/recap on mobile). If you link your Google Photos account, it will include “moments relevant to your music year.” And this year the recap also includes Podcast highlights. If you don’t have a recap, see the eligibility requirements.

There is an ongoing struggle between website owners and social media. Most social media platforms want you to post content natively on their site, not link to content on a different site. This is at odds with writers, journalists, businesses and others who naturally want to publish on a site that they control, but also want to get the attention of millions of users on social media.

There’s been a bunch of discussion about this, with the focus on whether social media sites actively decrease the reach of posts with links. Or is the problem that social media users read the shared headline, but don’t feel the need to read or engage with the actual content?

Add to that the rise of AI overviews and “zero click” searches which give searchers information without the need to visit the web page that is the source of that information, and it feels like websites could die from lack of visitors.

I think that’s at least part of the reason why people are writing newsletters and building their own communities (which comes with its own set of problems).

Here’s what people are talking about:

Making the rounds is Gita Jackson @ Aftermath: For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website. The message:
“Unfortunately, this is what all of the internet is right now: social media, owned by large corporations that make changes to them to limit or suppress your speech, in order to make themselves more attractive to advertisers or just pursue their owners’ ends. Even the best Twitter alternatives, like Bluesky, aren’t immune to any of this—the more you centralize onto one single website, the more power that website has over you and what you post there. More than just moving to another website, we need more websites.”

Andrew Hutchinson @ Social Media Today has an overview of how external links are handled on Facebook, Instagram, X, Snapchat, TikTok and LinkedIn. Facebook and LinkedIn don’t restrict external links, but posts with links don’t seem to get as much reach (is that the platform? Or that people aren’t as interested in those posts?). And “links are not welcome on X”.

YouTube also lets you add external links (with some limitations), but recently made them unclickable in Shorts descriptions. Blame the spammers and scammers.

A new study found that 75% of the times links on Facebook are reshared without the user clicking through first. People respond to the headline and short blurb of the content.

“The engagement is better on Bluesky”. News organizations like the Boston Globe and Guardian are reporting several times more traffic to their sites from Bluesky than from X or Threads. It’s not just clicks -- The Globe also reports 4.5x the conversions to paying subscribers. This seems promising, if it can be sustained.

Sherwood News: Bluesky engagement seems to be punching way above its weight

Hank Green also posted a YouTube video (Twitter (and Threads) Have Made a HUGE Mistake) comparing engagement with his posts on X, Bluesky and Threads. Bluesky appears to be the winner for him as well. And he notes that X not only seems to block the reach of posts with external links, its algorithm also appears to not like posts that mention Bluesky.

While most of these suggest that Bluesky is the best place to share links, it’s not clear if that advantage will continue, especially as the current batch of new excited users settles in. And I expect that even Bluesky isn’t a great place for just link dropping. Engagement with others is important for community building everywhere.

Video Creator and Live Streaming Updates

An update I love: you can now add images to your YouTube multiple-choice quizzes. You can currently only create the image quizzes in the Android YouTube app, but they can be viewed from any device where you can normally see Community posts. (Announcement, instructions)

You can now use YouTube’s Dream Screen AI (the same as in the Shorts editor) to generate images for Community Posts. And then you can use the Transform tool to rewrite your Post text. See what you think of the “funny” transformation of my post text, either in my YouTube post or Bluesky post. Dream Screen is available in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Transform your text is available in the US. English only.

YouTube Brand Connect, previously in a limited beta, is rolling out more widely to channels in the YouTube Partner Program in Brazil, India, Indonesian, the US and the UK. Brand Connect lets creators more easily set up brand deals from inside YouTube Studio. (Announcement, more details)

Less engagement for YouTube videos in Google Search? When you click on a YouTube video that appears in the Google Search results, it may open as an embedded video on a special page, rather than opening on YouTube. I see this happening if I select a “key moment” from the video. The page doesn’t have YouTube features like comments or a prominent subscribe button, and it links to related products and topics. This seems not ideal if you want people to engage, rather than just watch. Via Barry Schwartz, who has some examples.

YouTube gave a sneak peek at updates to the Inspiration tab in YouTube Studio. It can generate video ideas with a thumbnail and title, has an improved interface for brainstorming ideas, generates thumbnail ideas that you can download and more.

YouTube shared 5 tips to make your videos look good on TV.

Tubefilter reports: Want to know why YouTube hid dislikes? Ask a female creator. “A new study found that female creators who were previously victimized by “dislike attacks” are now more productive, and their videos are getting more positive feedback than they did when dislikes were public.”

LinkedIn is removing its Clubhouse-style Audio Events. Audio Events already scheduled through December 31 can still run, but for events after that a new event must be created through LinkedIn Live. LinkedIn Live requires using a third party live streaming platform. You can use a Preferred Partner (Restream, Socialive, StreamYard, Switcher Studio, Vimeo) or any platform that supports RTMP custom streams. LinkedIn Live broadcasts are public and recorded, and remain available on your feed after the broadcast ends.

Ten tips for creating long-form videos from TikTok (?!).

Web Publishers and Search

Beehiiv now lets publishers offer gift links for posts that are normally behind a paywall. They have also added a publication calendar to make managing scheduled posts easier.

Substack suggests gifting someone a newsletter subscription.

The Repository reports more troubling news about Matt Mullenweg and his company Automattic’s fight with WP Engine: WordPress.org Forks ACF Pro in Unprecedented Move Against WP Engine. The abbreviated version: WordPress (dot) org hosts the official repository of WordPress plugins and themes. Despite its official status, it’s Mullenweg’s personal website, rather than being owned by the non-profit WordPress Foundation.

That apparently means that Mullenweg can authorize changes that bypass the repository’s plugin review team. WP Engine’s ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) plugin was taken over in the WordPress (dot) org repository and renamed SCF (Secure Custom Fields). There is a paid Pro version of the ACF plugin, and now Automattic has forked that code and is offering the nulled plugin in the WordPress (dot) org repository for free. Even if this is not illegal, it seems unethical, and may make developers reconsider creating plugins for the WordPress ecosystem.

Bluesky now lets you choose how replies to a post are sorted. The default is “Hot Replies First”, with the option to change it to oldest or newest first, most liked first or random (“Poster’s Roulette”). You can also separately choose to show replies from people you follow first. To update this setting go to Settings > Content and Media > Thread Preferences.

Brian Werdmuller on the recent incident outcry when someone compiled a million Bluesky posts into an AI-training dataset: Bluesky, AI, and the battle for consent on the open web

If you are a X subscriber, you can now see how many of your followers are also subscribers (“verified”) in your Analytics.

Jason Koebler @ 404Media: X's Objection to the Onion Buying InfoWars Is a Reminder You Do Not Own Your Social Media Accounts

Threads is updating the Android and iOS apps to keep your custom feeds (announced last week) visible on the home screen. That makes it easy to swipe between your different feeds.

Threads is testing much needed Search improvements, including searching within a date range and searching a single profile. They are also testing AI-generated summaries of trending topics.

Threads now lets you watch video in landscape orientation in the iOS app. Hopefully coming to Android as well. Unlike Instagram which is all about the vertical video, Threads

Communication and Collaboration

Features are available to free accounts unless otherwise noted.

In August 2023 (over a year ago) Google announced “the new Google Chat”. One of the announced features was Huddles, a built-in “instant-on audio-first meeting” powered by Google Meet. The audio call can easily be turned into a video call with a click. After being in customer preview for over a year, this is finally rolling out to Google Workspace business, enterprise, nonprofit and Frontline customers. The create-a-meeting video icon in the Chat compose bar is moving to the chat or space header (for everyone), offering one button to set up a meeting, make a call or start a Huddle. Learn more about huddles.

Gmail for Android lets you drag and drop contacts in the To: CC: and BCC: fields.

You can now view Tasks in the Google Calendar Android app.

Instagram has new features for DMs (direct messages): new stickers, the option to add a nickname for yourself or your friends, and live location sharing for up to 1 hour,

More AI Updates and Tips

NotebookLM (notebooklm.google.com) has a new option to “Convert Notes to Source”. The notes can then be used with the chat features, used to create an Audio Overview, and acts as an easy way to back up your notes. Learn more in the NotebookLM Discord.

Google shared a useful overview of Google Gemini 1.5 Pro’s multimodal capabilities, including extracting and manipulating data from PDFs, images of receipts and other documents, web pages and videos.