The TwoSix team is back and ready to share what’s On Our Radar for September so that you can stay ahead of the always-evolving digital marketing landscape. This month, the TwoSix team discusses YouTube CTV, GA4 Engagement Rates, ChatGPT and Google Updates, Threads Podcast Transcripts, and more! Keep reading to find out what we’re keeping On Our Radar for September 2026.

YouTube keeps rolling out new features! The latest is a new way for creators to serve their playlists on YouTube’s TV app. This could mean an opportunity for some added engaged exposure, as YouTube’s #1 viewing source is now Connected TVs based on watch time. This is the perfect time to start placing your episodic or multi-part video series into this new “shows” feature for some long-term views. The new feature will make consuming YouTube content more like viewing a television series.

To get started, all you have to do is navigate to your YouTube Studio and click the “Content” tab. From there, simply click the “New Show” button.

From there, you’ll be prompted to create a show title, description, and upload some customized banners and backdrops. Simply add those assets and select or upload the videos that you want included in the Show! You can choose to have videos featured from oldest to newest or newest to oldest, making for a great way to leverage your existing videos.

Don’t have any episodic content? It may be time to start planning. As long as you can keep a story going, you’ll be in a great place to share an extended story with viewers. Consider developing a multi-day/multi-part itinerary or a best-of series to get started taking advantage of this new Shows feature from YouTube.

A text-book example of low engagement rates and low Average Engagement Time per Session in GA4 from Paid Social and Organic Social.

I’ve been looking into why Google Analytics 4 (GA4) reports declining engagement times for social media traffic—both organic and paid. Are users really leaving immediately, causing those 0-second average sessions?

No. Users are staying, but GA4 fails to record it.

GA4 measures engagement like a stopwatch: a signal starts the clock on load, and an exit signal stops it. If GA4 never gets that second signal, it defaults the duration to 0 seconds.

Social media in-app browsers now feature an “instant kill” mechanism. Tapping the “X” terminates the process immediately — killing any code running before the exit signal can transmit to GA4. This is hitting harder now because social browsing is almost entirely mobile, combined with aggressive background process-killing in recent OS updates. It’s more complicated than that — because of course it is — but those are the broad strokes.

Can this be fixed? Absolutely. Primarily through Google Tag Manager or custom GA4 event tracking. But… that’s a broader conversation, and I wanted to make sure this was on your radar!

If you’re stuck creating reels but have some great clips or b-roll, Instagram has introduced First Drafts to help make something out of your clips. You get to pick the clips, and the program will seamlessly put them together to make a first draft of a reel. From there, you can adjust things like the order of the clips or duration. The program helps trim and transition between clips, but everything is customizable. You can then take your first draft and head to the edits app to edit it even further. Instagram is heavily focused on reels and for good reason, it accounts for over 50% of app activity. It’s important to be visible on the platform but can be a daunting task so with the help of these two programs, the task can seem a little more manageable without sacrificing quality to an AI generated video. You can find First Draft in the Reels Gallery or in the Instagram camera. With the early success of their CTV app, I see that 50% going up even more. So, if you’re not at least playing around with Reels this would be a really good place to start!

If you’re like me, you’re no stranger to a good Reddit story. Stories on Reddit have become incredibly popular, especially when read aloud over a TikTok, Reel, or YouTube video. On TikTok alone, there are 19.6 million posts with the hashtag #reddit and another 9.9 million using #redditstories. Now, Reddit wants in on some of this action.

Reddit has begun testing out new audio and video versions of select posts that users can choose to “read” or “play.” These features would allow users to both watch videos and listen to posts. As the news of the potential new features has spread, it’s no surprise Reddit users are concerned, to say the least. Many users are describing Reddit as an “escape” from the short-form, “addictive” content we’re seeing slowly seep into every social media platform. 

For marketers, this is just another sign that social media platforms are continuing to blur the lines between search, social and entertainment. If Reddit expands these formats, its massive library of community conversations could become even more discoverable and engaging, giving brands and destinations another reason to pay attention to how and where they’re being discussed on the platform. This is something I’m definitely keeping an eye on, and you should too!

ChatGPT has quietly stopped citing Reddit in mid-August. What used to be a major source of information in ChatGPT responses, making up a steady 3.8% share of ChatGPT search citations, has now seen an 86% drop in citations as of August 14, and it appears to be staying there.

The drop on August 8^th occurred when ChatGPT updated its query fanout behavior. To put it simply, an update made on August 8^th made it so that ChatGPT now relies on specific domains for answers more than it used to. Before, it was just searching the open web to see what comes back. Now, it’s going to specific sites to pull information from them.

Let this be your reminder that platform-controlled search behavior can change overnight, so continuous monitoring and flexibility in this space matters.

Speaking of overnight changes: Google’s August Spam Update should also be on your radar.

Google is a great example of the same principle. On August 18th, Google began rolling out its August 2026 Spam Update, and it finished on August 21st.

A spam update is Google’s periodic re-run of the systems that catch content that violates its guidelines. Think low-value or mass-produced pages, deceptive practices, and thin content that exists mainly to rank rather than to help the reader. These routine passes can shift rankings, and it has been reported that this one has hit rankings harder than normal.

Here is how you can check whether your site was affected. Open Google Search Console and look at your Performance report for the window around August 18th to 21^st. Compare clicks, impressions, and average position just before and just after those dates. A noticeable, sustained drop that lines up with that window is your signal to dig in. If you see one, review your site against Google’s spam policies, and keep an eye on performance. Recovery from a spam update can take time and often is not fully reflected until a later update. If your numbers held steady through that window, you should be in good shape.

Meta’s Threads app introduced podcast integration to user profiles at the end of last year. In the same way that accounts on Instagram can add links to their websites, phone numbers, and email addresses to the profiles, users are also able to add their podcast details. It adds the link to the show along with the show’s thumbnail art.

Now, they have started testing even more podcast promotional tools directly into their platform with a new transcript feature for shorter clips. It automatically generates real-time, synchronized transcripts directly over any podcast audio clips in the feed.

Most people scroll social feeds on mute, meaning they will scroll past any audio-only posts. This new transcript tool will fix that friction by displaying large, synced text that updates as people speak. Audio will be readable in an instant. Given that Threads is a text-heavy feed to begin with, it’s a solid addition that doesn’t make people hunt for headphones or turn up their volume to the lowest possible setting to hear what’s being said.

For DMOs that have destination podcasts and are trying to figure out how to grow their audiences, this is a great amplification tool to check out. Drop a 30-60 second audio clip into Threads with auto-transcript turned on, add a caption describing what it’s about, and fire away to get your message out there.

With the ever-changing digital marketing world, we are here to keep you informed of new digital trends and what we are keeping on our radar each month. Have any questions? Contact us! We’re here to help. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter  to receive monthly updates on trends and insights in the digital marketing and tourism industries straight to your inbox! Click the buttons below to connect with us on social media and stay in the loop on all things TwoSix Digital.