The Week in Social: the Election, Spectacles, and your death

The Election in Social

In case you missed it, there was a fairly important decision made in the U.S. last week. Regardless of opinions on outcome, insight and data science departments across the world will be going to work to create a clearer picture of exactly how social media shaped and impacted the election.

The picture they provide will have more factors than any previous election. In the realm of social channels alone, 2016 saw candidates unashamedly trading punches on social. The election saw organized influence campaigns from outside the country. We heard word of candidates being separated from their accounts, and channels being criticized for not combating misinformation. While Obama was inarguably the first “social” President, the future of how social media merges with politics seems to have only just begun.

Read more election insights at New York Times, CNet, and Slate.

Snapchat Spectacles

If you noticed a long line of people queueing up to a bright yellow refrigerator this weekend, then you likely spotted a Spectacles vending machine. Snapchat (who now want to be called Snap) released their $130 Spectacles with a heavy dose of exclusivity by making them available solely through a roving pop-up vending machine over the weekend. The glasses capture 30-second videos (with a warning light while filming) that integrate seamlessly with Snapchat on your mobile device. The harder question will be how the specs will be received once availability widens. Will this be a new touchstone in social-integrated tech, or a temporary badge of membership for the cool clique?

Facebook limits Ethnic targeting

“Ethnic Affinity”, is a feature of audience targeting available in your Facebook campaign. While this targeting factor makes sense for advertisers looking to reach culture segments in a positive way, the potential for disastrous discrimination was called out by Congress last week. In response, Facebook announced that it will be launching detection to deny ethnic targeting when advertising for employment, housing or credit.

Links in Instagram Stories

Instagram has added website links to stories this week. They also added the ability to tag friends and add Boomerangs into the Snapchat-inspired feature. The links are a big move, and potentially a big test, since Instagram has held firmly against allowing links in posted content. Allowing links in story content might be more palatable for Instagram since those links, along with the stories, will disappear after 24 hours. We’ll be looking at how brands react in the coming weeks.

TechCrunch

Snapchat’s raw look at the election

Candidates and political parties found traction on Twitter, but election night reactions from the youngest social audience was more clearly projected on Snapchat. Supporters on all sides of the political spectrum took to Snapchat during election night to take part in the Live Story. Meanwhile, Snapchat (Oh, Snap) is rumored to have collected six figures in revenue from candidate ads.

Ads in Messenger

It was never a question of if advertisements were coming to Facebook Messenger. It was a question of when. The answer: now. Facebook has rolled out new features for developers that allow brands to message users that interact with their content. The feature is already in use by the likes of Hilfiger, Absolut, and Activision. It’s easy to see how this could easily become a new spam channel. For now, the opportunity is for early adopter brands to find a responsible, innovative way to use the feature to connect with their audience.

YouTube Daydream launches

Google debuted their ‘Daydream’ VR headset/controller last month, which is landing in stores right now. With the launch, YouTube is introducing its VR app. The app enables users to view standard and VR content within the same experience. Custom VR content can already be found from Tastemade, Huffpost, and comedy site Red vs. Blue.

Social Platforms in America

A new report from Pew shows that 68% of all Americans are on Facebook. That’s more people than voted in the national election last week. While most people sense that Facebook is the dominant social platform, the data indicates exactly how dominant it is. FB has twice the number of users than any other platform (Instagram coming in second at 32%). Further data includes that women are using Facebook more often then Men, that 3/4 of all Facebook users are on the site daily, and the fastest growing Facebook audience is aged 65 and up.

Periscope expands audience features

With the passing of Meerkat, Periscope can see its real competitors ahead. Periscope’s challenges are rooted in the size of audiences available, ease of producing content, and ability to meaningfully interact with the audience. To answer, Periscope has announced three new features, allowing brands/users to identify each other as Superfans; enabling broadcasters to create content-specific audiences; and enhanced features for non-mobile viewers.

Are you feeling alright?

The reports of your demise may have been greatly exaggerated … on Facebook.