So-Called Social: Week of November 12

Your weekly dose of social news.

Pssst…. It’s FRIDAY! Who’s excited? Quick note that the newsletter will be in a food coma next Friday (Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the U.S.), so catch you in two weeks! Meanwhile, check out below for some stuff happened on social media this week.

Social nets update stuff

Zuck has made it abundantly clear — Stories are the future of Facebook. Investors have heard Mark Zuckerberg describe Facebook as being mobile-first, people-first, and video first. And this new pitch seems to combine it all together in one word: Instagram. You know what this means for marketers — the future of online advertising must be story-driven.

LinkedIn is rebuilding its self-serve ad platform to go big on objective-based advertising. This new version of Campaign Manager will customize the campaign creation experience to objectives such as video views or lead gen. The update also has some redesigned targeting tools, a live ad preview, simpler navigation, and a forecast panel that predicts campaign results. Sweet.

Apparently, Snapchat AR ads are on sale right now. As you may know, Snapchat helped pioneer augmented reality advertising, but the ad format, like many shiny, new experiences, was too expensive (read: $500k minimum for most brands). Now, thanks to a $50 tier, one just might be willing to check it out.

Adobe does stuff

Did you know… Adobe Support is getting into the bot game? Welp, now you do. In January, our social support teams launched Adobe’s first Twitter customer support bot. Turns out, it was a smashing success (the bot actually improved customer satisfaction!). Creative Cloud got a Facebook bot in March and the Adobe, Illustrator, Lightroom, Photoshop, and Stock FB pages added Messenger bots in Q4.

Now for some sick stats:

Other brands do stuff

A little meta, but Facebook launched a campaign for Oculus Go to show consumers what’s possible with VR technology and “normalize” it. The campaign’s main 60-second spot features Jonah Hill and Adam Levine watching a basketball game together in VR with Oculus Venues, the company’s social co-viewing app.

Coca-Cola wiped its social media accounts, then relaunched with a positive, happy new look. “World Kindness Day feels like such an appropriate day and moment to kick off messages of positivity, but also when you look at Coke and what Coke stands for, Coke really is a brand about optimism, uplift and wants to bring people together in moments of connection,” said Coca-Cola’s Sarah Traverso.

Interesting stuff

This fascinating article about the psychology of social sharing seems to think that consumers share content on social media because they’re psychologically driven to be helpful, to boost their reputation, to be seen as cutting edge, to obtain validation, to build emotional connections, or to be viewed as discerning. There you have it.

Now that voice is bigger than ever, brands need to evolve from top of mind to tip of tongue. MediaCom conducted a custom study to determine what it takes to be a tip-of-tongue brand. The three things they learned: tip-of-tongue brands are recalled 30 percent faster than other brands in the same category (i.e. Spotify and Uber); these brands are also part of a cultural conversation and are even sometimes used as a verb (i.e. “I’ll Google it.”); and such brands are growing in value, both as a business and in terms of brand love.

Fun stuff

Meet Wilfred, my new favorite Instagram cat.

For you fans of The Office, here are some excellent Easter eggs.

Armpit scritches FTW.