Hi CCs,

This week’s roundup takes you from Poppi’s kitchen-to-Pepsi empire, YouTube’s takeover of late night, content inspiration for your planning session, and the latest AI tools reshaping how we work and create.

I hope you have a wonderful week. 🔮

xx
Winter

🔥 Featured Content

How Allison Ellsworth built Poppi into a billion-dollar brand

On this episode of Aspire, Emma Grede sits down with Allison Ellsworth, the founder behind Poppi, the revolutionary beverage brand that became the second fastest-growing drink company in history. Allison shares the real, raw journey, from brewing her first drink in her kitchen, to putting her life savings on the line, and ultimately landing a $2 billion deal with PepsiCo.

The YouTube stars replacing Late Night — and writing Colbert’s new playbook

“…late night isn’t dying. It’s just moving to YouTube, where clips of monologues and comedy bits draw way more engagement than they do at 11 p.m. and where a new crop of digital-first shows are attracting the viewers, especially young men, who once might have regularly tuned in live for The Tonight Show.”

We go hands-on with OpenAI's new ChatGPT agent LIVE

In this episode, Corey Noles and Grant Harvey from The Neuron newsletter test ChatGPT’s new revolutionary tool LIVE, showing you exactly what "true" AI agents can do.

🤳 Content Inspo

Here are my [insert Month] favorites — curation taste post. [LINK]
An easy to do lifestyle/taste post where you show us your favorite things of the month. Could be whatever you love that you have laying around that reflects your interests, or your favorite latest purchases. I recommend this hook format where you start the shot with everything in frame because it’s builds intrigue.

Incorporate printouts for IRL visual references. [LINK]
Printed ‘accents’ as visual references have been making their way into content more and more, and for good reason. It’s unexpected, which makes the viewer stick around longer. Consider printing objects or words to animate your story IRL.

[She] thinks she is a [photographer]. [LINK]
Great way to showcase your work/portfolio or brand. Start with some b-roll and text on screen and switch to your finished work/process/products as a way to creatively showcase what you do.

💬 Tip of the day:

💎 Brand Spotlight

phantom is a small fashion brand that is a great example of low budget, high creative lifestyle marketing. They do limited edition waitlist drops only augmented by a video strategy that always starts with an expected hook like this example or this one, and incorporates a tension layer (like running from someone after stealing something), ending with a product fit showcase. Bingeable content that will have you taking notes. ✍️ (Tip: Snapchat-style intro hooks on Reels are trending, another example here).

📡 On Our Radar

Data shows best content format on social platforms in 2025. [LINK]

Myth debunked: saying “link in bio” in your video does NOT hurt your reach. [LINK]

Why repeated virality is how lasting brands are built. [LINK]

Tea: inside the new app where women anonymously review men. [LINK]

Fun fact: fully remote work least popular with Gen Z. [LINK]

🎶 TikTok

US TikTok ban to be upheld if a deal isn’t finalized by current deadline. [LINK]

TikTok announces expanded live broadcast deal with MLS. [LINK]

Ongoing Chinese influence operations suggest that TikTok remains a risk. [LINK]

📸 Meta / Instagram

NEW Instagram feature: add a ”Quiz” to your Reels (like polls). [LINK]

Instagram adds more protection features for young users. [LINK]

Instagram tests auto scroll option for posts. [LINK]

Instagram tests ‘like’ counts for individual frames in a carousel. [LINK]

Meta moves to expand video selfie age-checking. [LINK]

🧵Threads

Threads adds improved content performance metrics for creators. [LINK]

Threads is developing more DM options, including GIF sharing and group chats. [LINK]

🤳 YouTube

Inside Youtube’s new generative AI features for Shorts. [LINK]

ICYMI: YouTube maintains largest share of TV viewing among media companies for third consecutive month. [LINK]

☠️ 𝕏 

X restricts emoji use in promoted posts. [LINK]

X sees revenue boost after launch of latest AI tools. [LINK]

X plans to launch AI text-to-video option, new AI companions. [LINK]

X to test using community notes to find the posts everyone likes. [LINK]

🟦 LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s 11-page “Art and Science of Video Storytelling” report is based on analysis of over 13,000 B2B video ads, in order to identify the key creative elements that consistently lead to higher engagement. [LINK]

LinkedIn shares brand building tips for B2B marketers. [LINK]

LinkedIn offers Notion trial as part of LinkedIn premium subscriptions. [LINK]

🍥 Pinterest

Pinterest publishes 2025 holiday planning guide. [LINK]

👻 Snapchat

Snapchat will now let your friends know you’ve made it home safe. [LINK]

Snapchat partners with Togethxr to help female athletes boost their presence. [LINK]

🤖 AI Boom

Did Walmart just signal the death of search bars? [LINK]

Should Silicon Valley celebrate Trump’s AI plans? [LINK]

Study shows teens are increasingly relying on AI chatbots for social interaction. [LINK]

Google is testing a vibe-coding app called Opal. [LINK]

Sam Altman warns there’s no legal confidentiality when using ChatGPT as a therapist. [LINK]

Elon Musk says he is bringing back Vine in AI form. [LINK]

Elon outlines plan to significantly expand xAI and support X’s operations. [LINK]

Google’s new AI feature lets you virtually try on clothes. [LINK]

Proton’s new privacy-first AI assistant encrypts all chats, keeps no logs. [LINK]

AI Companions: a threat to love, or an evolution of it? [LINK]

AI is putting intent at the heart of social search. [LINK]

Winter Mendelson
Co-Founder and Creative Director: Posture Media
Host: deepfeed Podcast

🦇 Let’s connect on Instagram and LinkedIn

P.S. I will probably have typos in the event that my dad is unavailable to proofread. Sorry in advance.

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