Edition 102.

Algorithm shifts, content scores, and why your brand assets on paid social might need more range than polish.

5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week:

1. The algorithm switch up

The algorithm changed (again). But this one’s good news if you create original content for your personal or brand page on Instagram. What switched? Instagram is expanding its protection of original content and rules for what gets defined as “original.”

“We know how frustrating it can be to see aggregators benefit from your work,” the platform shared.

And aggregators (think meme pages and repost accounts) have built real audience, virality, and revenue models from posting other people’s content. It was a quiet cash cow. But when original creators started feeling disincentivized by the algorithm, the algo-gods flipped the switch. They want you back. Aggregator pages will lose out on recommendation reach, which could make their page discovery fall off fast.

The takeaway: Original content is getting the algorithmic advantage.

2. 10, 10, 10s across the board

Speaking of original content becoming more valuable, Nestlé wants creator content to work *harder.* The CPG giant is using a hybrid of tools (CreatorIQ and CreativeX, to be exact) to score organic creator content. The system looks at things like branding, storytelling, and relevance. Content scores high? It graduates from organic to paid ads. From what I’m reading, this isn’t a “scan the whole internet and grab whatever works” deal. Known creators and their content move between the two tools. Then, content is evaluated before media dollars are pushed to amplify top-scoring content.

Creator content is becoming a creative testing engine. And the future of creator marketing will be less “find someone with a lot of followers” and more “find the content that scores high enough to deploy ad dollars.”

The takeaway: Your brand don’t need a massive production (or fancy tools) to test angles, formats, and messages. There are no “rules”. The market will reward what resonates. Try it all. I did (and I explain below).

3. Creative is the new targeting

Nestlé content-scoring also points to where paid media is going next. Arguably, where it already is. Enter Meta’s Andromeda model. Introduced in late 2024 and now showing up in Meta’s current ad push as a case for more automation, more creative variety, and less interest-based targeting, the model works like this: before an ad gets ranked, auctioned, and delivered to feeds, Andromeda helps Meta sort through a large pool of possible ads to find the ones most relevant to each person.

Translation: Targeting is becoming less about hand-picking every interest in your ads dashboard, and more about feeding the machine enough quality creative (and plenty of it) to learn from.

4. Throwing the funnel for a loop

I promised to unpack this last week. HubSpot is calling it “Loop Marketing,” and the short version is this: the traditional top-down marketing funnel is getting a lot less linear. Their framework considers four phases: Express, Tailor, Amplify, and Evolve.

Define your story, personalize the message, diversify where it shows up, then optimize in real time.

These stats make the “loop” feel less like a cutely named framework and more like how modern marketing is already operating:

• HubSpot says 74% of successful marketers (defined by goal measurement) use 3 to 8 distinct marketing channels, and
• 71% of those marketers can pivot large plays in *under a week* when practicing this loop marketing approach.

That’s why the Nestlé content-scoring play fits. Perhaps, perfectly.

Content gets created, scored, selected, and amplified. The message, or creative asset, isn’t locked in one campaign lane (or channel). It moves, learns, and gets sharper as the market responds. Achieve goals. Rinse and repeat.

Takeaway: Modern marketing moves in a loop, and at speed. ⚡

5. Practicing what I preach

I’m not just some brand-news robot drafting brand bytes blind week over week 😉 A lot of what I curate here, I’ve actually done, am doing, or am inspired to test.

Case in point: creative variety.

While an unofficial Meta discrepancy plagued the ad platform for what felt like a month (or more), I ran a small batch of creative ad types for Spoken Flames. Think static images with a mix of model and product shots, plus video with a mix of UGC-style clips and yapper ads.

Where I fell short: I didn’t run carousel ads (had no time - and done is better than perfect).

I really thought the yapper ad would do well. In fact, I *wanted* it to do well. It was new for the brand and fun to bring to life. But it was the least resonant: lower engagement, lower ad spend. This branded static ad performed best:

The lesson? New creative, new formats, more insights. And you’ll be the first to know what’s working (and what’s not).

More brand bytes next Sunday at 5!