So-Called Social: Week of December 10

Your weekly dose of social news.

TGIF. Between all the holiday parties and the gift exchanges, every day this week has felt like a Friday. Finally, the real MVP is finally upon us. This week in social land, Instagram has a new sticker, we launched some cute holiday icons, an Elf on the Shelf-inspired Photoshop challenge, and more. Read on below!

Social nets update stuff

Instagram has a new Countdown Sticker and I’m pretty pumped about it. With this Sticker, you can create a countdown timer that your audience can follow to receive reminders for whatever you’re counting down to (i.e. an event, product launch, party, etc. Users can also share the countdown to their Story. The cool thing is that even when the Story disappears after 24 hours, the Countdown you created will stay in your Stickers in case you want to use it again. Neat.

Also new in IG, users can now send voice messages through Instagram Direct. These messages can be shared with individuals or groups and are created by holding down the microphone button in the app and recording.

Facebook is redesigning its “Life Events” feature, which allows people to share significant milestones in their life (like an engagement, graduation, a new job, a move to a new city, and more). The redesign includes the ability to add animated photos or videos, photos from the people or Page you’ve tagged, or you can pick an image from FB’s own art collection if you don’t have your own.

Google just can’t wait to get rid of the consumer version of Google+. Thanks to another security issue potentially impacting 52.5 million users, Google has announced that G+ will be shutting down four months sooner in April 2019 instead of August 2019. And even more urgently, Google will shut down all Google+ APIs within the next 90 days.

Adobe does stuff

In collaboration with Iconfinder, Illustrator is giving away free holiday icon sets this week so we can all spread the holiday cheer with free icons to share. They’re actually pretty cute.

Other brands do stuff

Acura has unveiled an Instagram campaign that enables users to customize the automaker’s 2019 ILX sports sedan with special stickers (like wheels, accessories, or A-Spec packaging), and animations and create their own Stories. Acura also teamed up with some IG influencers and artists on Giphy Stickers that people can add to their custom ILX models. While Acura certainly isn’t the first automaker to enable potential buyers to customize their vehicles online, it’s one of the first to do so via Instagram Stories.

Interesting stuff

Instagram Stories are now used by more than 400 million people each day. And that means that it’s not really surprising that other platforms have started to adopt this content format. This new format opens up a lot of opportunities for branding and marketing. Here are 12 ways the Stories format could shape the future of content.

ICYMI, Ariana Grande released the music video for her chart-topping hit “Thank U, Next” (which is pretty great, tbh), and it went viral. But why? And what can marketers learn from this viral sensation? Well, for one, she carefully crafted a marketing strategy, was culturally resonant (not just relevant), and tapped into nostalgia in a big way.

We all know Facebook has had some hard times this year… And among their many missteps is the fact that marketers just can’t trust Facebook’s metrics. So in this piece, marketers weigh-in on the dilemma of trusting Facebook’s video ad metrics and offer alternatives for measuring video campaign results.

Fun stuff

Airports have come together in an Elf on the Shelf-inspired Photoshop challenge (and it’s pretty great).

Just a 4-year-old casually ordering his kids meal from Burger King.

I watched this video of a toy train pulling off crazy stunts for longer than I’d like to admit.