Hello friends,
How has it been another week already?
In today’s edition of The Social Tea, we’ve got Instagram FINALLY releasing a feature that everyone’s been asking for, Facebook trying to get more content creators to post on the platform (ha, good luck) and so much more.
Plus, I’m joined by the absolutely fabulous Carolina Barbosa (ex. Flo Health) discussing one of our subscriber’s burning social media questions: how do you actually grow on TikTok in 2026?
So, go grab a drink + a snack, and let’s dive into this week’s latest social media updates.
👋 THE TOP STORY THIS WEEK:
→ You can finally reorder carousels on Instagram AFTER uploading.
Finally, a feature people have actually been asking for has been released. Now when you accidentally upload your carousels in the wrong order on Instagram, or Instagram decides to switch up the order, you can natively reorder your carousels after it’s gone live – without any hacks.
Remember: You can see in your insights exactly when a user liked your carousel, whether that was on the first slide or the tenth. Which is incredibly useful information when auditing your Instagram content strategy.
😣 WHAT’S HARDER? WORKING FOR A SMALL COMPANY OR A BIG CORPORATION?
SUBMITTED BY ANONYMOUS. If you’d like the chance for your hot take to be included in The Social Tea, just reply to this email. I’ve loved reading through your submissions so far.
🔥 Do you agree?
💌 THE REST OF THIS WEEK’S UPDATES:
→ You can now pause Instagram Reels.
→ YouTube is testing a thumbnail highlights feature which shows users a short snippet of what the video will entail.
→ Tubi partners with TikTok launching its “Creatorverse Incubator” which gives creators support via promotions or funding to create original shows exclusively for Tubi.
→ Facebook is trying to get more content creators on the platform by launching a fast track programme which has guaranteed pay, and increased content reach. The initiative is to entice creators who have built a following on other platforms to start posting on Facebook, and they can earn $3000 per month if they have over one million followers on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube. Which seems a bit tight to me.
→ YouTube launches an AI-powered creator partnerships platform, which uses Gemini to analyse signals like audience similarity, brand mention, subscriber growth, etc., to match brands with 3M+ creators.
→ New data by Emplifii shows that Facebook Reels which include a person appearing in the first three seconds, or human speech, show higher retention and engagement.
→ 68% of small businesses say that social media is driving the most value in 2026, and TikTok use amongst SMBs has surged from 17% in 2023 to 33%, according to eMarketer.
→ Pinterest has launched its Spring Trends Report 2026 which highlights four key trends based on search activity: curated comfort and mini makeovers, spring soups not diets, micro escapes (like making the most of your ten minute break outdoors) and intentional connection + of course, spring cleaning and organisation.
→ X, FKA Twitter, is testing downvotes again to “improve algorithmic ranking”
📞 Ring ring… What’s that? I think I can hear the phone ringing!
🎙️ Welcome to our THIRD edition of the Social Tea Hotline (it’s flying by) and this week, our expert is the one and only Carolina Barbosa. She is a freelance Fractional Head of Social after an already super impressive career leading global social efforts at Flo Health Inc.
Carolina answer’s this week’s anon burning question: What are your top three tips on actually growing on TikTok in 2026? Listen to find out!
(Transcript for this week’s episode can be found here.)
P.S. I’d love to hear your feedback on this section, just hit reply to this email and let me know what you think!
And that’s another edition of The Social Tea done and dusted! It’s been interesting to see how the Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has announced new updates this week (are we in the simplified era of announcing it casually?) and to be honest? I’m here for it.
🚨 And remember: I’d LOVE to hear from you. So if you have seen anything interesting in your feeds, or you want to submit your hot takes + questions to be featured in an upcoming edition of this newsletter, just hit reply to this email! Happy to include any submission anonymously.
💬 Now it’s time for my favourite new feature, which fake update should be included in my Wednesday roundup?
🎙️ Which fake update should I use this week?
See you next week.
TTYL,
AM @ Girl Power Marketing xx