So-Called Social: Week of September 10
Your weekly dose of social news.
TGIF! There’s lots of good stuff for you in this week’s newsletter. Facebook ad updates, the Ad Council’s “Seize the Awkward” campaign, Apple’s Twitter escapade, and more… below.
Social nets update stuff
Say goodbye to Canvas ads, and hello to “Instant Experience” ads. Facebook has rebranded its mobile Canvas ad format and also introduced pixel capabilities to help advertisers retarget users and track campaign performance better.
On the Facebook advertising train, it sounds like brands are getting more control over where their ads appear on the platform. These updates cover Audience Network, Instant Articles, and in-stream videos, and will give marketers a better understanding of all the places their ads can potentially run before they begin setting up their campaigns.
Now that it’s officially pumpkin spice season, Facebook is sprucing up Dynamic Ads and Collection Ads for the holiday shopping season. Customizable overlays, a video creation kit, and holiday-specific templates, are among the updates.
Sometimes you just wanna talk without being on camera, right? Well, Twitter and Periscope users can now get into podcasting (and join everyone else…) with a new audio-only service. As with live video, analytics for audio broadcasts include the number of live viewers (listeners), replay viewers, and time watched.
Snapchat has launched Curated Our Stories with the help of 20 partners like CNN, Cosmopolitan, Lad Bible, and NowThis. Curated Our Stories is essentially themes collections of user-generated content chosen by news publishers for viewing on and off Snapchat. Naturally, Snap has built-in monetization from day one, splitting revenue with publishers from ads run in the Our Stories they curate (even though they still won’t share revenue with independent creators…).
Adobe does stuff
Last week, we launched a series of creative challenges built for Instagram Stories. The first challenge, “Spot the Adobe Photoshop Edit,” was a pop quiz around what’s real and what’s made-up with Photoshop leveraging the poll sticker. The organic story was active for 48 hours on the @adobecreativecloud channel and earned nearly 400k views (200 percent higher than average!). The second challenge, a cheeky BINGO board template themed around creatives on Instagram, launches on September 17.
Other brands do stuff
The Ad Council has collaborated with major influencers, social media platforms, and even a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical for a campaign for Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. The multichannel campaign is called “Seize the Awkward,” and is meant to encourage young people to talk about mental health. The campaign includes interactive conversations on Reddit and Twitter, a three-day livestream on Twitch with influencers, and original artwork created by Instagram’s Goodtype community.
As many of us know, Apple announced a whole new slew of stuff this week. And while the company doesn’t tweet, it blanketed Twitter with ads for the iPhone XS launch. On September 12, Apple had a promoted trend ($200k/day), a custom build for “like for reminder” ($250k for several days), promoted tweets in at least 12 languages (CPMs depend on budget, going from $0.50 to $8), a hashflag, and a livestream of the event. Apple used to be pretty absent on social networks, but clearly has started to see the light.
Interesting stuff
Advertisers are beginning to explore the possibilities of technologies that identify the content of images and videos. In other words, people are posting more images and videos than ever, and those images and videos provide insights into not only what products people like, but can also give marketers a window into a customer’s lifestyle. Algorithms that analyze the detail in imagery will enable advertisers to target consumers in a super relevant way.
Fun stuff
There’s just something really cute about this bunny, with a cast on its leg, eating parsley.
A narwhal has been adopted by a pod of beluga whales, and it’s the sweetest.