News & Trends: March 14 – 20, 2025

Here are some relevant news, trends, and updates from the business and marketing world that you may want to know about…

• TikTok introduced a Security Checkup to safeguard TikTok accounts. The new security tools help users take control, make updates, and stay safe from scams and fraud.
  
  
• Meta is celebrating 1 billion downloads of Llama (Meta’s open-source AI model). Meta shared some incredible Llama applications they’ve seen since launch. Discover more here.
  
  
• Meta is about to begin testing Community Notes on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Meta’s Community Notes will resemble those of X and will allow people to add more context to posts that are potentially confusing or misleading.
  
  
• Bloomberg has shared an analysis of 1.1 million Community Notes from 2023 to 2025. According to Bloomberg, the Community Notes fact-checking system did not perform as expected and “has fallen short of stopping the spread of misinformation.”
  
  
• xAI has acquired Hotshot, a generative AI video startup. This could mean that Hotshot is on track to compete with big fish like Sora and Veo 2.
  
  
• X launched the X Bracket Challenge in partnership with Uber Eats. The big prize is a trip to Mars! 🚀
  
  
• Puma announced its biggest global brand campaign to date – “Go Wild.” The campaign celebrates and inspires everyone (beginners and pro athletes) and represents a new vision of sport and a new chapter for Puma.
  
    

Team Vavoza Reacts 🗣️

Here’s what our content and marketing team has to say about the latest news and trends report…

Researcher:

I’m not a basketball fan, but I just might pretend to be one for a trip to Mars … 👀 🚀

– Stephanie Hill

Agency Manager:

It’s hard to know whether things you see and read online are real or fake, the truth or a lie, especially now with AI chatbots and image and video generators.

I’m optimistic about Meta’s community notes because the third-party fact-checkers they had before were a huge failure. One thing that caught my attention was the notes on advertisements. They’re saying they won’t have notes on advertisements to start with, but you know it’s coming.

How will this affect your ads? If you have a good product and reputation, you have nothing to worry about, but if you’re in a grey area, you might want to rethink your business decisions.

– Vadim Silchuk

Social Media Guy:

Customer retention is the one thing that every business needs to be successful. If I were to summarize this article and put it into one gold statement, it would be this.

Value, value, value. Your customers will never be unhappy if you provide them with the uttermost value and offer solutions to their problems and needs. Your business will grow exponentially when you focus on always bringing value rather than always trying to sell. 🚀

Think value. How can you make your business even better, simpler, and easier for your customers to access and learn from your free products, paid products, etc.?

Always bring value and never settle for anything less. 😎

– Vadim Strizheus

The Founder:

Fact-checking is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, I appreciate it. For instance, when someone posts flat-out lies about something or someone, it’s nice to see X’s community notes spank the liar and set the record straight.

On the other hand, fact-checking is often weaponized. I think it’s inevitable that fact-checking will continue to be used to justify suppressing free speech, and that is really, really, really bad for a healthy society.

I think that community notes should exist because liars deserve to be exposed, but by no means should anyone’s content be censored or demonetized unless it very clearly breaks the law.

– Vlad Strizheus


Tune in to Vavoza Insider weekly for more relevant business and marketing news, trends, and ideas from our team. 🗞️ 📈 🗣️