So-Called Social: Week of March 12

Your weekly dose of social news

It sure feels like this was the longest week ever. Just me? For those of you gearing up for Summit, you’re almost there! This week, some platforms made some updates, Adobe’s #HackTheBracket kicked off, and I’ve got a little recap of SXSW. Keep on reading.****

Social nets update stuff

What started out as a way to verify the Twitter profiles of public figures (such as celebs), turned into a status symbol when the company began verifying other high-profile figures (i.e. journalists, etc.). Well now, Twitter is apparently working to allow any user to become verified. Jack Dorsey discussed this and many other topics concerning the “health” of the company on a Periscope Livestream.

Snapchat is testing a tagging feature that could help brands and influencers boost their follower numbers by letting them tag people in Stories. Honestly, it’s about time.

Well, that was short-lived. Snapchat and Instagram have removed the Giphy feature due to a racial slur GIF that users were spreading far and wide. It’s pretty bad.

YouTube has rolled out search-based targeting, which means that brands will have the ability to select from the top 5 percent of channels, and then target viewers who have also Googled relevant products. Television networks and providers are racing to combine traditional, content-based ad buys with digital-style, audience-based targeting. And YouTube would like to beat ‘em to it.

Adobe does stuff

Who’s in for March Madness this year? So is Experience Cloud and we’re in it to win it. Brackets are in, and with our #HackTheBracket campaign, we provided all the hoop data needed to put together winning brackets. This is just the beginning of what you’ll see from Experience Cloud over the next few weeks with our Summit activations in full swing. Get. Ready.

I’m pretty sure no one can resist a cute cat or dog in a marketing campaign. Myself included. Which is only part of the reason why I like the Pawtastic UI Kit for Adobe XD’s latest release. It’s darn cute.

We are well aware that Adobe Summit is right around the corner. Well, CMO.com is putting together the sessions for the Marketing Innovation track and have created a Spark Page to highlight all of the sessions. Pretty nifty.

Other brands do stuff

I’m a big fan of HP’s International Women’s Day ad. It’s a six-minute film that is designed to inspire young women to tell their own stories. This story, “Paro,” is set in Kolkata, India, and tells the story of a young girl who discovers a love for writing and drawing. It’s beautiful. Grab a tissue.

SXSW stuff

So, I spent last weekend with 35,000 of my nearest and dearest attending the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. It was my first time attending the conference, and I’ll spare you my general perceptions of it. Overall, it was a good use of time — I learned a ton and met some really cool people doing really cool stuff. Here are some highlights.

HBO crushed it. There are a ton of activations throughout SXSW and they’re all pretty much the same. But HBO’s Westworld activation was, by far and away, the most talked about and coveted brand activation at the festival. HBO brought Westworld to life and allowed SXSW attendees to visit a real life Sweetwater. So, what worked here? They created a sense of exclusivity with limited tickets, no easy way to get there (the activation was located 30 minutes outside Austin), elusive social promotion, partnerships with brands like Delta and Lyft offering experiences and ways to get there, offered clues to the upcoming Season 2 plotline, and more. I didn’t get to go (not for a lack of trying…) but it was the talk of the town — I heard all about it and it sounded incredible.

The rest of SXSW was full of sessions all talking about the future of X in this age of disruption. Well, a good chunk of the festival was focused on AR, VR, and AI. But, what’s the future for us as marketers? Experience design. Advertising as entertainment. Short-form content (but millennials and Gen Z sure will binge watch something if it’s good enough). Authenticity, transparency, and vulnerability. According to a Gen Z panel, Snapchat is far from dead, but traditional advertising certainly is. Oh, and blockchain, cryptocurrency, and robots. Oh my!

Fun stuff

This copywriter ditched the traditional cover letter and filmed a rap video instead. And it’s pretty excellent.

Aww this little chubby doggo can’t go with his frannnds.