So-Called Social

Social nets update stuff

The biggest update over the past couple weeks was when the Internet went bonkers over Instagram’s test of a horizontal layout with tapping instead of scrolling for navigation. Apparently it was just a test that went out to more users than the company intended, and let me tell you, those users were P.I.S.S.E.D. Needless to say, IG backpedaled pretty quickly and I would gander that the horizontal feed update test won’t be coming to an IG app near you anytime soon.

ICYMI, here’s a little roundup of all the social platform changes in 2018.

Other brands do stuff

Oreo got other brands to spread holiday cheer (and its hashtag) on Twitter over the holiday break. The cookie brand fired off tweets with videos showing carolers doing personalized riffs on “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” for six brands (Burger King, BuzzFeed, Jonathan Adler, MoonPie, Wendy’s, and Twitter). The goal, of course, was to attract likes, RTs, and attention to Oreo using the #OreoCarol hashtag. Brilliant.

Interesting stuff

“Go where the customer is.” That’s generally the mantra for advertising, right? And people (aka customers) are in messaging apps. In fact, they spend more time on messaging apps than they do on the mobile web. So naturally, marketers are exploring how to engage with consumers on messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Snapchat. And Giphy’s Alex Magnin describes the potential for conversational content via messaging apps as “huge.”

According to Neilsen, 1 in 4 Americans has posted an image of an outdoor ad on Instagram. And the people’s love for billboards is great for advertisers. From Deadpool to Spotify, the opportunity to use outdoor space to attract not only eyeballs, but active engagement (like posting photos of billboards, posters, wall murals, digital installations, etc.) has become clear.

It’s that time of year again — the time for annual predictions. And this one is all about what Facebook should do (in on guy’s opinion) to come back from it’s very challenging 2018. Hint: More emphasis on Instagram and visual storytelling as the company evolved into a family of brands.

And here’s a little prediction on what Snapchat has to do to stay…alive.