The Week in Social: Father's Day, Hard Questions, and Celeb Disclosure

Happy Father’s Day

However you choose to celebrate your paternal lineage, the social platforms have you covered for sharing. Facebook and Instagram introduced stickers and filters made for celebrating the finest in fatherhood. Google Photos added a tool that turns your pics into a short video, and Google Home will tell you Dad Jokes if you ask. Platforms are rightfully eager to enable sharing on holidays. Of course, our recommendation is to get on one of the older social platforms, and give dad a call.

7 Questions from Facebook

How should controversial content be handled? What’s the difference between news and propaganda? How can young people be safely introduced into this media environment? Facebook recognizes that the answers to these questions are far beyond an internal PR team. In response, Facebook’s Elliot Schrage is asking users to write their thoughts on, “Hard Questions”. Content moderation is a tough topic for the social giant, and will continue to be as nearly 2 Billion people come together on the global channel.

Trust and Paid Promotion

Buying a digital campaign comes with the understanding that a certain percentage of results will be, in some way or another, worthless. Publishers combat our fears by providing constraints to where our campaigns are seen. Intelligent marketers raise worth by targeting audiences’ relevance and interest. All the same, platforms continue to struggle provide an honest look at the value of the ads that brands buy. TrustX has signed 33 publishers including Hearst, Time, and Conde Nast. The group is touting a new level of transparency for ad buyers. Hoping to gain money that brands reserve for Google and Facebook, expect to see them introduce public buying options soon.

Instagram’s paid partnerships

Influencer marketing has its roots in guerrilla marketing. However, it has grown main-stream enough that the FTC enforces guidelines to maintain truth in advertising. Tracking what is and what isn’t an ad has grown difficult. Some people tag their content with things like #spon or #ad. However, there isn’t a standard for alerting a user that their favorite TV star has been paid to take a sip of that carbonated beverage. Instagram’s new feature enables influencers to tag the name of the partnership or the name of the brand at the top of the post. As a result, brands will gain better campaign tracking, and more transparency with their audiences.

Celebs aren’t disclosing ads

A mere 7% of posts from the most followed accounts on Instagram properly disclosed advertisements in the month of May. The FTC is aggressively cracking down on paid efforts. Last year, the FTC warned Warner Bros about posting paid-for reviews. More recently, 90 letters were sent to influencers asking for their positions to be clarified. Despite the crack downs, celebs do not seem too bothered by the regulation.

Facebook Safety Check

Safety Check lifts up the trust and affinity users have for Facebook. Consequently, the platform is expanding the feature. Facebook has announced new options that go beyond enabling people to mark themselves safe during times of tragedy. Users who check in can now add a personal note when mark their status. In addition, check-ins will lead to trusted news sources for descriptions on what’s happened. Finally, U.S. users will be able to start fundraisers for victims in coordination with any crises that emerge.

Twitter’s in-stream videos

Twitter’s new ad unit is succeeding with upper-funnel metrics like brand recall, favorability, and purchase intent. A report released by Publicis indicates that Twitter’s in-stream ads have quickly matched or exceeded impact compared to, “a leading social video platform”. The success is partially attributed to Twitter users ability to curate their own content feed. Thus, when ads are placed in relevant places, the viewer is already receptive to the message that is being delivered.

Page ratings on ads

A Facebook advertisement can claim just about anything. If you’re skeptical, you’ll have to research the ad’s claims on your own time. How can Facebook help credible brands get above the noise floor? Facebook is testing an answer by enabling brands with a 4+ star rating to ad their rating to their ad campaigns. The addition may increase the speed with which consumers can evaluate the quality of an offering and that increase of confidence could increase ad impact and performance.

100 Million Followers

Oscar Wilde penned, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” P.T. Barnum is thought to have said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” If you’re a #katycat, or if you love #leftshark, or if you simply enjoy some wholesome schadenfreude, Katy Perry is on your mind. Bad or good, woke or clueless, the pop star became the first person to reach 100 Million followers this week. Beliebers take heart, Justin is still second at just over 96M.