So-Called Social: Week of August 20

Your weekly dose of social news.

It’s Friday, party people. It’s that time of the week again and I am P-U-M-P-E-D. Not too much to report on this week, but I’ve still got some goodies for ya. Facebook has a new CMO, students remix Spark templates, and a new internet challenge. Keep on reading.

Social nets update stuff

Even when Facebook loses, it still wins. Sigh. Sounds like as demand for Instagram Stories ads heats up (and subsequently, so do prices), some early adopters are turning to Facebook Stories.

Facebook rolled out mobile-first video creation tools for advertisers, and they’re pretty smart. Marketers can use the tools to add motion to existing images and videos, or create video ads from assets such as logos or photographs. Digging it.

Also in Facebook Land, the company has a new CMO! HP Chief Marketing Officer Antonio Lucio is leaving the printer and computer maker to become FB’s next chief marketing officer, putting him on the front lines of the social network’s image repair effort. Good luck to you, sir.

Adobe does stuff

We’re getting ready for MAX (duh) and are challenging members of our community to submit an “elevator pitch” explaining why they should win a trip to this year’s festivities. The four finalists with the best pitches will be flown to New York to pitch Scott Belsky…in an actual elevator. Brilliant.

I just love it when we use our own tools, don’t you?! This week, the Adobe Students’ channels launched a brand new contest that invites students to remix Instagram Story templates in Adobe Spark and post to their Instagram accounts. We teamed up with three graphic designer influencers who created the templates for the contest and are promoting on their own channels. Rad.

Other brands do stuff

Google created a fake pizza brand to test out creative strategies for YouTube ads, and the company actually learned a lot — an immersive, multi-sensory experience drives better recall, food ads should include close-up images, and shorter ads that separate video and audio drive higher favorability and recall. Fascinating.

I’m basically obsessed with what the New York Public Library is doing on Instagram Stories rn. The library’s Instagram account began posting Insta Novels, a collaboration with agency Mother in New York. The program brings some of literature’s most renowned tales to live via Stories, allowing users to click through visuals and then read from the novels. LOVE.

Interesting stuff

This feels a little excessive to me, but an analysis of 43 million Facebook Business pages shows that “a modest five posts a day is actually the ideal frequency for businesses to post” on Facebook. WUT. I blame Facebook’s algorithm changes that have radically changed the calculus for businesses and are causing brands to post more content in an effort to get the same amount of engagement they were getting before.

Fun stuff

Possibly the best photobomb ever?

One of these is not like the other.

#SnootChallenge is my new favorite thing.