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As AI continues to evolve, it is more important than ever to avoid disinformation and spot deepfakes. In the meantime, Meta is betting on one metric to rule them all (views), LinkedIn has created a new service for small businesses, and X’s Brand Ranx ranked the top Super Bowl ads this year.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Keep a Close Eye on AI
AI is increasingly realistic with its content generation, as well as image and video capabilities, making it difficult to tell what (or who) is real. Fake videos and falsified information have existed long before the advent of AI, but AI has accelerated this issue. As disinformation continues to spread across social media, it is critical to verify information through media monitoring. Media monitoring is the key to keeping your company safe from disinformation.
Facts or Fake?
Despite AI’s benefits, information from AI has the potential to be inaccurate and biased, just as humans do. After all, AI models are trained on media and information produced by humans. Unfortunately for us, the time it takes AI to generate deepfakes and false information is a fraction of the time it takes to check whether the information is real. While this affects our own research, it also informs others, bleeding into social media posts. When your company is not closely monitoring social platforms, AI-generated content can harm campaigns and sow distrust among target audiences.
Deepfakes and Disinformation
Deepfakes, a type of AI that can create realistic “videos” or “photos” of essential figures, jumpstart mis- and disinformation. They are incredibly hard to trace, and their developers are often unknown. To add to this problem, AI’s image and video generation capabilities have significantly improved. Previous flaws in AI-generated photos, like adding extra fingers to hands, are a thing of the past.
Deepfakes can be dangerous for anyone, especially businesses and community leaders, as they sometimes intend to spread hoaxes. Deepfake “videos” or “pictures” of a politician or journalist could spread fake news. At the same time, scammers can create deepfake videos of leaders in your own company to trick people into giving up sensitive information and putting your company at significant risk. Anyone could be targeted by, or with, this technology.
Keeping AI in Check
Are you concerned about disinformation targeting your business after reading this? Fear not! Here are some tips.
Media Monitoring
Media monitoring is essential to spotting and preventing disinformation that can negatively impact your brand. This form of monitoring gives you real-time insight into your brand and spots disinformation proactively. This makes it easier to correct disinformation surrounding your brand. Beyond disinformation, media monitoring also helps you gain a deeper understanding of mentions and sentiment around your brand on all platforms.
At Strategic Elements, we provide comprehensive media monitoring services. We help our clients understand brand perception, make informed strategic decisions, and combat disinformation.
Markers of Deepfakes
- Pay close attention to the eyes and teeth of images. In deepfakes, these are often not matched to the person’s speaking speed.
- Watch for unique facial features, such as beards or moles, and check if they match the person’s real face.
- Look at skin texture and see if it looks realistic or unusual.
- Pay attention to items that people are holding. If items in a video or photo appear to be defying physics, you should be suspicious.
Deepfakes often stare directly into the camera and move little. If a video appears to be entirely a talking head with little movement, beware. Don’t be afraid of AI, and don’t let deepfakes get you down! Just pay extra close attention, employ social listening tools, and make sure you are getting the facts.
One Metric to Rule Them All
If you’ve ever compiled a performance report in one platform and wondered why the numbers don’t match what you see inside Meta Ads Manager, Meta is trying to fix that. Starting with how data is shared (API) with the tools marketers use every day (third-party platforms).
Here’s what’s changing, and what it actually means.
First, what’s an API (and why should you care)?
An API (Application Programming Interface) is basically a bridge that lets different software systems talk to each other.
The API is what allows third-party tools, such as reporting dashboards, social media management platforms, and ad tech software, to pull performance data and automate reporting.
Meta is standardizing reporting around one main idea: “Views”
By the end of June 2026, Meta plans to introduce a uniform metric in the Graph API. This design will phase out performance metrics such as reach and impressions and, essentially, provide consistent measurements across the Meta space under one metric, “Views.”
Why uniform metrics across tools matter
When Meta and a third-party platform use different definitions of success, you get reports that don’t match and confusion in performance updates. Therefore, standardizing metrics means fewer mismatched dashboards and a clearer story when you’re reporting results.
As Meta rolls out these changes, it’s worth keeping an eye on how your reporting tools label and calculate results. A quick check now can save a lot of head-scratching later.
New Tools, New Rules
This one’s for the small businesses! LinkedIn is now offering a version of its Premium services tailored directly to small businesses, called Premium All-in-One. With feedback and data from small businesses, LinkedIn put in place services through this offering to help your business thrive. It’s one subscription, in one place, for your company.
Premium All-in-One can help increase your business’s visibility. It also helps with hiring and networking, making these options more efficient. Additionally, it has a feature to optimize your company’s profile with AI, and also through the addition of a company spotlight section. These new tools have proven to increase small business’ followers by 57 percent and profile views by 40 percent.
Winning the Timeline: How X Ranked Super Bowl Brand Buzz
X is leaning into real-time cultural moments with Brand Ranx, an AI-powered leaderboard that tracks brand conversation around Super Bowl LX across the platform. By analyzing millions of posts, replies and reposts in real time, including volume, sentiment and share metrics, X surfaced the ads that sparked the most buzz and positive interaction during the big game. The results highlighted household names like Budweiser, Apple Music, and Kraft Mac & Cheese as leaders in engagement and emotional resonance during the game’s social conversation.
For social marketers, Brand Ranx offers a fresh way to measure cultural impact beyond viewership. It reinforces that winning on X is not just about media spend. It is about driving talkability, positive sentiment and shareability among highly engaged fans. The rankings underscored three strategic lessons: build buzz early since pre-game conversation proved highly valuable, integrate campaigns across media and social to amplify reach, and lean into entertainment and humor to match the platform’s real-time energy.
The Million-Dollar Article: What X’s Creator Bet Signals for 2026
X has officially awarded its $1 million prize for the top article of January, fulfilling the high-profile initiative we wrote about earlier this year via the platform’s @XCreators channel. That contest was designed to push long-form, high-impact storytelling into a platform dominated by short bursts of text and rapid conversations, a strategic signal that X wants to diversify the types of content that resonate on the platform.
For marketers and communicators, this payout underscores two important trends for 2026;
- Platforms are experimenting with financial incentives to shape content behavior, meaning campaign strategies that incorporate native long-form content could gain early visibility and engagement advantages as X continues to refine how it rewards creators.
- The move illustrates how value signals (like prizes and monetization perks) are being used as strategic levers to guide creators, something brands should watch as they plan partnerships and content calendars around evolving creator economics.
GET CHATTING!
What was your favorite Super Bowl ad this year and why?
Strategic Elements is a full-service public affairs, marketing, and media consulting firm based in Iowa. Our team of political operatives, marketing experts, and media strategists helps businesses, organizations, and causes shape public opinion, influence policy, and drive meaningful change.
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