Wednesday, January 7

🌟 Today’s Highlights:

• OpenAI might acquire Pinterest

• Reddit is launching AI-powered Max ad campaigns

• Here’s the secret tool that outperforms branded ads by over 20%

• 📊 Stat of the Day: Over 60% of AI searches now end without a click. (Source: Bain & Co.)

• 💡 Today’s Insight: The 9 best social media marketing courses to elevate your skills in 2026

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⚡️ Today’s Headlines ⚡️

👀 Will OpenAI acquire Pinterest? Maybe. The rumor is gaining traction after it was highlighted in a predictions post published by The Information last week. The move is reportedly for OpenAI to lock up more human-generated data insights, particularly around product searches.

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🏷️ Google will require separate product IDs for multi-channel items. The new rule from Google Merchant Center will require separate product IDs for online and in-store items from March forcing retailers to split multi-channel products that differ by price or availability.

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🦾 Reddit is launching AI-powered Max campaigns. The new AI-powered ad campaign in its Max Campaigns will be able to “predict the value of every ad impression,” helping advertisers boost performance by estimating the best audience for promotions.

💡 Today’s Insight 💡

The 9 best social media marketing courses to elevate your skills in 2026

🗞 TL;DR - Whether you’re a social pro in need of a refresher for today’s competitive environment or a marketer who’s looking to pivot into more social activities, there are some really great courses you can take to strengthen your skills this year. Buffer’s got the full list, and we’ve summarized the top free courses you should check out below.

💡 Insight - Here are the top free social media marketing courses:

TikTok Academy - learn everything TikTok can do for small businesses

Growing Your Business With LinkedIn Pages - learn how to use LI for business

Meta’s social media marketing course - FREE, lasts 5 months and requires 10hrs/week of work at your own pace, get a completion certificate on how to build a strong social presence, analyzing social performance, and Meta ads manager

HubSpot’s social media marketing course - FREE, nine lessons at your own pace within five hours on how to develop a social strategy as a small biz owner, drive inbound traffic, and basics of social advertising

For the full list of 9 social courses, check out Buffer’s blog here.

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