Weekly Marketing Rundown - May 30, 2025

Weekly Marketing Rundown - May 2, 2025 Hi everyone! In this week's edition of Kavanah Media's Weekly Marketing Rundown we discuss weak Meta's potential breakup, Open Ai's new foray into social media, Government censorship on Bluesky and more. Enjoying the Weekly Marketing Rundown? Support our work and keep it free for missions teams worldwide: https://www.kavanahmedia.com/donatetoKM Government Censorship on Bluesky and Türkiye Bluesky, at the request of the Turkish government, has restricted 72 accounts on the platform. This development raises concerns about freedom of expression and the potential impact on user content. What this means for mission teams: This is a good reminder to always be prepared to shift strategies and highlights the importance of implementing cybersecurity measures. Government censorship could affect how you share your message and engage with your audience, making it important to stay informed and adapt your strategies accordingly. Kavanah Media Founder and CEO Jon Ralls discusses risk management in missions in a 3 part series of the Christian Media Marketing Podcast. Listen here. https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/23/government-censorship-comes-to-bluesky-but-not-its-third-party-apps-yet/ OpenAI Explores New Social Media Platform OpenAI is exploring the development of a new social media platform to rival X, following a $40 billion funding round. This move aims to create a competitive alternative in the tech industry, potentially reshaping the landscape of digital platforms. What this means for mission teams: This development is significant as it could offer new opportunities for outreach and engagement for missions teams to integrate into their digital strategies. https://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/openai-explores-platform-to-rival-x-following-40b-funding-round/ Meta Breakup Threat: What Marketers Need to Know Meta is facing a potential breakup due to antitrust concerns, which could lead to the separation of its major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This situation raises questions about the future of digital advertising and the impact on marketers. What this means for mission teams: Changes in Meta's ownership of it's platforms could SIGNIFICANTLY affect digital engagement strategies and how teams use these platforms for outreach. https://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/meta-breakup-threat-what-marketers-need-to-know/ Meta Advantage+ Tools and Ad Performance In their latest update Meta claims that their Advantage+ AI ad tools are showing impressive results across various campaigns. AI-generated backgrounds have increased click-through rates (CTR) by 11%, and advertisers using Advantage+ earn $4.52 for every $1 spent, which is a 22% increase compared to standard campaigns. The new sales setup has reduced the cost per action by 9%, and opportunity score recommendations have cut the cost per result by 5%. What this means for mission teams: While most mission teams likely are not utilizing Meta's systems for sales ads Advantage+ ads and utilizing AI content tools could improve your results. Members of the Kavanah Media team have experimented with these AI tools and did see similar performance improvements and lower costs. It should be noted, however, that any targeting parameters advertisers set when using Advantage+ Audiences (i.e. age, gender, location) are merely suggestions and the algorithms can and will ignore them if it believes it can achieve your performance goals elsewhere. In these scenarios it is best to utilize Original Audience targeting. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/meta-advantage-plus-ads-overview-ai/746042/ Branding in Ads Manager: AI-Generated Text and Images Meta has rolled out another update to it's Branding tools under the Identity section of Ads Manager. Previously users could upload logos and select font and colors choices. However, now they can ad text tone and visual style. These selections help guide the AI content tools in ads manager. What this means for mission teams: These AI tools can significantly improve your content creation process. Meta claims they can lead to lower engagement costs and higher performance. It should be noted, however, that these tools - especially the text specific ones, do not always function well in languages other than English. Teams should experiment in their context before utilizing the new features. http://jonloomer.com/qvt/branding-in-ads-manager-ai-generated-text-and-images/ WhatsApp Adds AI Tools Without Sacrificing Privacy WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature called Private Processing, which allows users to use AI features like message summarization or editing suggestions—all without breaking the app’s end-to-end encryption promise. The messages will be processed in a secure environment where neither WhatsApp nor Meta can access the content, even as AI is applied. This move aims to balance privacy with the growing demand for helpful AI features, and Meta plans to open the system for feedback, bug bounties, and security audits. What this means for mission teams: This is a positive move for user privacy, especially as concerns grow about LLMs being trained on scraped user data. If Meta follows through with these features missions teams could feel safer when experimenting with WhatsApp's AI integrations in their digital strategies. https://therecord.media/whatsapp-in-app-tools-secret-messages Stay Equipped for Digital Engagement At Kavanah Media, we’re committed to helping mission teams use digital tools to make God known around the world. Whether you’re looking for inspiration, practical insights, or in-depth strategy, we’ve got resources to help: Intentional Newsletter – Be encouraged each month with stories of transformed lives, ministry milestones, and the latest updates from our team. Subscribe here. Kavanah Media Blog – Learn from our experiences serving hundreds of mission teams worldwide. We share practical lessons, real stories, and best practices to help your team avoid mistakes and grow in digital outreach. Subscribe here. Christian Media Marketing Podcast – Tune in for weekly deep dives with CEO Jon Ralls on everything from digital strategy to cybersecurity. Subscribe here or on your favorite podcast app. Digital Strategies got you stumped? Reach out anytime—we’re ready to help. Contact Us Thanks for reading this edition of Kavanah Media's Weekly Marketing Rundown! For more up-to-date insights in digital marketing, make sure to follow us on Instagram @kavanah_media and stay connected through all our social media channels via the link below. https://linktr.ee/kavanah_media Authors: Cody Adams and Cherry Messimer Article Published: May 2, 2025

Weekly Marketing Rundown - June 20, 2025 Welcome to this week’s edition of Kavanah Media’s Weekly Marketing Rundown! In this issue, we’re diving into Ads on WhatsApp, ManyChat's Privacy Policy Update, Meta.ai's data leak issue and more. Enjoying the Weekly Marketing Rundown? Support our work and keep it free for missions teams worldwide: https://www.kavanahmedia.com/donatetoKM Meta Advises to Post Links in Comments A new strategy for Facebook posts suggests that adding links in the comments section rather than the post caption can improve engagement and reach. This approach is based on the observation that Facebook's algorithm may prioritize posts with fewer external links in the caption, potentially leading to better visibility and interaction. For Mission Teams: Placing links on organic posts can potentially increase the engagement of their posts, but not if it hurts reach. By posting those same links in the comment section mission teams can help avoid unnecessarily hurting reach and engagement. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-advice-suggests-adding-links-in-comments-not-post-caption/750754/   Ads in WhatsApp WhatsApp has launched advertising directly within the app. This new tool helps businesses reach audiences on WhatsApp by showing ads in the new Status Screen- using signals like location, language, followed channels, and ad interactions. For Mission Teams: By utilizing WhatsApp's ad features, mission teams can tap into the app's extensive user base and scale their digital engagement strategies even further. https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/16/whatsapp-is-adding-ads-to-the-status-screen/   Meta.AI Exposes User's Private Chats Meta's new AI app has a feature allowing users to share their creations and prompts with other users within the app. Unfortunately, the entire previous conversations users had with Meta.ai are also shared- exposing users often private information. For Mission Teams: Meta has added a warning that alerts users to the risks before publishing. However, mission teams are still advised to avoid using the feature entirely due to potential security concerns. https://www.rudebaguette.com/en/2025/06/metas-ai-app-exposes-private-chats-shocking-feature-lets-users-discover-strangers-intimate-conversations-with-no-warning/   ManyChat Privacy Policy Update As of April 2025, Manychat has updated their privacy policy to include the following restrictions regarding religious beliefs: "We ask that you not send or disclose to us any sensitive personal data (e.g.,depending on your applicable data protection law the following can be considered sensitive data social security numbers: information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health, biometrics or genetic characteristics, data regarding health or sexual life, criminal background, union membership, or adherence in a religious, philosophical, or political organization) on or through the Service or otherwise." For Mission Teams: Many mission teams currently use ManyChat as part of their digital outreach strategies. However, under the new policy, teams risk possible account restrictions if they’re found to be in violation—particularly when sharing religious or personal data. As a result, some may need to shift to alternatives like Echo (https://www.echoglobal.org/), a platform that allows faith-based messaging without the same limitations. https://manychat.com/legal/privacy   Facebook Renames Videos to Reels Facebook is renaming all videos on its platform to "Reels" to align with the popular short-form video format. This change aims to streamline video content and enhance engagement. For Mission Teams: Teams should prioritize Reels format for video content whenever possible to help ensure consistent engagement. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-renames-all-videos-reels/750973/   Threads and the Fediverse Facebook has made it easier to see more Fediverse (a decentralized network of interconnected social media platforms that allows users to communicate across different services) content on Threads. This update allows users to discover and engage with a wider range of posts and discussions outside of the Threads platform. For Mission Teams: By using the Threads platform with its new Fediverse integration, mission teams can expand their reach to new audiences. While Meta had previously cautioned against expecting high conversions, updates like this could make Threads a more useful tool for digital evangelism. It should be noted, however, that Threads is still owned by Meta and will not possess the same inherent resilience to restrictions by actors, government or otherwise, that a more independent Fediverse platform would. Governments such as Turkey and India have successfully pressured Meta to censor groups before, and this risk will exist on Threads- even with it's Fediverse integration. https://about.fb.com/news/2025/06/its-now-easier-see-more-fediverse-content-threads/ Meta's New AI Generate Videos Meta is introducing a new AI-powered image-to-video tool that allows marketers to transform up to 20 product images into multi-scene video ads. The generated videos can include background music and text overlays to enhance visual appeal. For Mission Teams: This tool should streamline the content development process even further, allowing them to potentially develop localized content at scale. As with all Ai tools, however, teams should test the tools before publishing as they are prone to mistakes and errors. https://archive.ph/rYFX2 Stay Equipped for Digital Engagement At Kavanah Media, we’re committed to helping mission teams use digital tools to make God known around the world. Whether you’re looking for inspiration, practical insights, or in-depth strategy, we’ve got resources to help: Intentional Newsletter – Be encouraged each month with stories of transformed lives, ministry milestones, and the latest updates from our team. Subscribe here. Kavanah Media Blog – Learn from our experiences serving hundreds of mission teams worldwide. We share practical lessons, real stories, and best practices to help your team avoid mistakes and grow in digital outreach. Subscribe here. Christian Media Marketing Podcast – Tune in for weekly deep dives with CEO Jon Ralls on everything from digital strategy to cybersecurity. Subscribe here or on your favorite podcast app. Digital Strategies got you stumped? Reach out anytime—we’re ready to help. Contact Us Thanks for reading this edition of Kavanah Media's Weekly Marketing Rundown! For more up-to-date insights in digital marketing, make sure to follow us on Instagram @kavanah_media and stay connected through all our social media channels via the link below. https://linktr.ee/kavanah_media Authors: Cody A. and Cherry Messimer Article Published: June 20, 2025