So-Called Social: Week of October 22

Your weekly dose of social news.

We’re back, baby!! Since the newsletter was OOO last Friday, I’ve got a lot of stuff for you this week. Buckle up, it’s a meaty one.

Social nets update stuff

Facebook is fulfilling the promise it made this year to deliver 3D (ish) capabilities for photos. The new capability is powered by artificial intelligence and essentially ads make-believe depth to your iPhone portrait mode shots.

In super cheery (but unsurprising) Facebook news, the social network has been accused of inflating video metrics and not telling brands for more than a year. Now, this may not seem like news if you’ve been following along — in 2016, Facebook admitted inflating its average video viewing figures by only counting views that lasted longer than three seconds. Well, now there’s a lawsuit that says the problem started much earlier and was way worse.

Snapchat has revealed a slate of original, episodic content for this fall called “Snap Originals.” The serialized shows are designed specifically for mobile viewers, lasting around 5 minutes and shot in vertical. What’s most interesting is that some of them include writers from shows like Friday Night Lights and Riverdale. Will short-form TV shows be the next big thing?

Adobe does stuff

All things MAX this week, so buckle up (because we did some cool stuff).

First up, for those of you not at MAX, here are the sizzles from Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. We do a good sizzle here at Adobe, so I think you’ll enjoy.

Now, it’s going to be impossible for me to cover all of the amazing work that went into bring MAX to life on social media. All teams truly came together and crushed it. Here are some highlights:

To celebrate Adobe’s partnership with Sony’s upcoming theatrical hit, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, we introduced our creative community to all things Spider-Verse. Post-MAX, we formally kicked off the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse fan art contest, #MySpiderVerse Contest.

In partnership with Questlove (one of our mainstage speakers), we created a purpose-driven campaign that was unveiled at MAX that celebrates and unlocks creativity at all ages and encourages everyone to get out there and create. We announced a pretty sweet partnership with Questlove and his new endeavor CREATIVE HOUSE, and a Project 1324 Creative Quotes challenge. We also did a fun Q&A with Questlove on the Adobe Instgram channel (Adobe MAX highlight, so watch the whole thing!).

We also launched a custom pack of GIPHY stickers for MAX and people loved them. They also loved the yearbook photos that came out of our Spark booth, Creative High. Basically, there was so much love in the air that someone proposed in the Create Booth!

We covered Sneaks a little differently this year by leveraging Instagram Stories to share the awesome innovations and potential future tech. Watch the Sneaks Highlight on the Creative Cloud IG, or read more about what our super smart engineers are up to.

Other brands do stuff

Nostalgia marketing FTW! Okay ladies, you remember Caboodles, right?! Welp, the colorful organizers and makeup cases that were popular in the 80s and 90s are coming back with a refreshed look and feel (and some new products) to appeal to a new generation. The campaign includes a new site, videos and social content featuring collabs with influencers such as Simone Biles.

Die Hard or Elf? Delta is letting passengers decide which movie should be aired during its holiday season December flights via a Twitter poll. On the docket: Die Hard, Elf, Home Alone, and New Year’s Eve.

This is a bit strange, but I have to put it in here. Apparently, to celebrate 100 million views on their GIPHY stickers, Chipotle Mexican Grill created IRL scratch-and-sniff versions of the stickers. WUT.

Interesting stuff

I can’t believe it, but it’s almost time for all the 2019 social predictions to come in… And here’s one to kick us off. According this opinion piece re: Instagram marketing trends, IGTV will be important for marketers, smaller brands will continue to see success on IG by creating meaningful interactions, Stories ads are gonna be big, and your online coolness needs to be reflected IRL, too.

Fun stuff

Singing syrup bottles are apparently the latest craze on the Twitter.

Stella the dog takes her annual, joyous leap into a pile of leaves.

These halloween decorations play out a new scenario every day and it’s really excellent.