August social media roundup: 5 updates you need to know
LinkedIn is fighting AI slop. Facebook wants more original content. And your follower count might not matter quite as much as you think.
Social media platforms change constantly.
Most updates don't require you to immediately rewrite your social strategy, some barely require you to know about them at all.
But there have been a few bigger changes across LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram in 2026 that are worth paying attention to, particularly if you're a small business or work in professional services.
We've filtered out the noise and picked five that could actually affect what you post and how you approach social media.
1. LinkedIn is getting much better at understanding what your posts are actually about
This is probably the biggest LinkedIn change businesses should understand.
LinkedIn has introduced a new feed ranking system using large language models (LLMs) and what it calls "Generative Recommenders".
In normal-person language?
LinkedIn is getting better at understanding the actual subject and context of your post, rather than simply looking at how many likes it gets.
The platform uses information such as someone's industry, skills, experience and location alongside the content they interact with to work out what they're likely to find useful.
It can then recommend relevant content from people outside their immediate network.
What does this mean for your business?
Get specific.
If you're an accountant, lawyer, recruiter, IT provider or other specialist business, this should actually be good news.
Instead of trying to create broad content that appeals to everyone, create genuinely useful content around the things you know.
Answer the questions clients repeatedly ask you.
Explain something happening in your industry.
Share an opinion based on your experience.
Break down something complicated that your clients struggle to understand.
You don't necessarily need thousands of followers for a post to travel. You need LinkedIn to understand what your content is about and who might find it useful.
The takeaway: Write for the people you actually want to reach, not for "the algorithm".
2. LinkedIn is actively trying to reduce AI slop and fake engagement
We use AI every day at GMM, so we're certainly not going to tell you to stop using it.
LinkedIn isn't saying that either.
What it is trying to tackle is low-effort, generic AI-generated content that doesn't add any genuine experience, expertise or perspective.
LinkedIn has said its systems are being trained to identify generic or repetitive content, including AI-generated posts that don't offer anything particularly useful.
It's also targeting automated comments, engagement pods and coordinated attempts to artificially increase engagement.
In initial testing, LinkedIn says its systems correctly identified generic content 94% of the time.
That's a fairly significant warning if your LinkedIn strategy currently consists of asking ChatGPT to "write me a thought leadership post about leadership" and immediately hitting publish.
What does this mean for your business?
Use AI to help you create better content, not to remove yourself from it.
Give it your research, use it to interrogate data or ask it to organise your thoughts. Let it help you find patterns, develop ideas or improve a first draft.
But put your actual knowledge back in:
The story from the client meeting.
The opinion you have because you've worked in your industry for +10 years.
The thing everyone else in your sector says that you don't quite agree with.
That's the bit people want from you.
The takeaway: AI can help create the content but it shouldn't be the content.
3. Facebook is giving original content more reach
Meta has also been making changes to what gets recommended on Facebook and its message is pretty straightforward:
Original content is being prioritised. Recycled content isn't.
Facebook says content filmed or produced by the person or business publishing it is considered original.
If you're using somebody else's content, you need to add something genuinely new, such as useful analysis, information or a substantial creative contribution.
Simply reposting videos, stitching clips together or making minor changes to someone else's post can result in reduced distribution.
Meta says views and time spent watching original Reels approximately doubled in the second half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.
What does this mean for your business?
You don't need a production studio. In fact, this is another reason to stop assuming "professional social media content" needs to look ridiculously polished.
Take people behind the scenes.
Show the work.
Film somebody in your team explaining something they know well.
Turn a real customer question into a post.
Share your own photos rather than reaching for another stock image of people pointing at a laptop.
For service businesses especially, your people and expertise are often your most interesting content assets anyway.
The takeaway: Create more content from your business rather than filling your feed with content you found somewhere else.
4. Your follower count isn't the whole story anymore
One of the biggest changes in social media isn't a new feature at all.
It's the move towards recommendation-led feeds.
Traditionally, businesses built followers and platforms showed their posts to some of those followers.
That still happens, but LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram are increasingly recommending content based on what they think individual users will find interesting.
LinkedIn explicitly says its feed can surface useful posts from professionals people haven't connected with.
Meta says that 75% of Instagram recommendations in the US were coming from original posts by the end of 2025.
That creates an interesting opportunity for smaller businesses.
What does this mean for your business?
Don't obsess over follower numbers.
A business with 2,000 relevant followers and useful content can potentially get much more value from social media than one with 20,000 followers who largely ignore what it publishes.
Look beyond the follower count when you're measuring performance.
Are non-followers seeing your content?
Are people saving it?
Are they sharing it?
Are the right people visiting your profile?
Is social media sending relevant visitors to your website?
Are people mentioning your posts when they speak to you?
And ultimately, is it contributing to enquiries and opportunities?
The takeaway: Audience quality and content relevance matter considerably more than collecting followers for the sake of a bigger number.
5. AI is becoming part of social media itself
AI isn't only changing how businesses create social content, it's changing the platforms too.
LinkedIn is already using LLMs within its feed recommendation system.
Meta is building AI deeper into Facebook, including AI-powered search and tools designed to help people create and discover content.
That matters because social platforms are becoming increasingly sophisticated at interpreting what people are looking for and what individual pieces of content are actually about.
What does this mean for your business?
Simplicity matters. Make it easy for platforms and people to understand:
What do you know about?
Who do you help?
What problems do you solve?
If you're a cyber security company, talk properly about cyber security.
If you're a financial adviser specialising in business owners approaching retirement, create useful content around the questions those people are asking.
If you're a recruitment company specialising in financial services, demonstrate that knowledge rather than posting generic recruitment quotes.
Trying to talk about everything in the hope of reaching everyone is becoming even less useful.
The takeaway: Own your subject.
So, what should you actually change?
Despite all these changes, the answer isn't to completely rethink your social media strategy every six months.
In fact, the direction of travel across the platforms is pretty sensible.
Create original content.
Talk about things you genuinely know.
Make it useful for a defined audience.
Include actual opinions and experiences.
Don't automate the human bit out of your marketing.
And measure whether your content is reaching and influencing the people that matter to your business.
If you've spent the last few years chasing algorithms, trending audio and random posting schedules, that might actually come as something of a relief.
Need help making sense of your social media?
At Great Minds Marketing, we help businesses work out what they should actually be doing with their marketing, rather than jumping on every new trend that appears.
From strategy and content planning to ongoing social media support, we can help you build an approach that makes sense for your business and the people you're trying to reach.
