So-Called Social: Week of December 17
Your weekly dose of social news.
We made it! Happy Friday Before the Holiday Break, y’all. Hard to believe this is the last newsletter of 2018. Pumped for 2019 and all the fun social stuff we’ll have to talk about. Cheers to the new year!
I’ll be honest, I think everyone is already on break (including the social nets), so this week’s newsletter will be short and sweet. Get reading (so you can get outta here!).
Social nets update stuff
Instagram is taking some new steps to woo some of its most influential users with “creator accounts.” These special accounts are said to include reporting on content performance, plus daily and weekly insights about followers. Sounds like it’s currently being tested by some premium influencers and will roll out more broadly next year.
Twitter has rolled out a “sparkle button” that magically reverts your Timeline back to it’s chronological original state. The company began testing this feature a few weeks ago, but officially rolled it out this week.
Get ready! Pinterest has laid out some plans for a 2019 IPO that could come as early as April. Market valuation topping $12 billion just might be in store.
Other brands do stuff
This holiday season, Hershey’s has updated its classic “Bells” commercial for the social generation. If you’re not familiar, this ad has been around for nearly three decades. It’s the one where the little foil-wrapped Kisses dance around in the shape of a Christmas tree? Yeah, it’s cute. And this year, instead of just watching the commercial, people have the chance to play the bells themselves via Instagram Stories, share the videos, and bring some holiday cheer to everyone in their social circles.
Macaulay Culkin reprised his role as Kevin McAllister in Home Alone for a Google commercial (feat: Google Home, of course), and it’s the best thing ever.
A six-second Groupon spot featuring actress Tiffany Haddish was voted the best YouTube bumper ad of 2018. Now, I know we all have a soft spot for Tiffany Haddish (thanks, #AdobeMAX), but this ad really shows how to grab a viewer’s attention in six seconds. It’s possible, people!
Interesting stuff
Social behaviors are clearly shifting to stories — a collection of images, videos, graphics, and text that last 24 hours and then disappear. Naturally, as more consumers gravitate towards this content format, so are marketers. Here’s some insight from execs at Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram on why stories are so popular right now, and how advertisers should be incorporating them into their 2019 plans.
Honestly, I’m not usually a fan of yearly predictions posts. They all feel a bit…generic to me. But I rather enjoyed reading what Ryan Holmes, the CEO of Hootsuite, thinks is coming in 2019: a return to authenticity, a shift to LinkedIn, a resurgence of Groups, and more. Into it.
Fun stuff
If you need a good reflection on the past year, the Google Year in Search 2018 video is pretty amazing.
Lil Jon did a Christmas song with the Kool-Aid Man and the holidays will never be the same.
Welp, I live here now.