Welcome to our monthly roundup of the best social media stories and platform updates.
From Facebook’s potential new cryptocurrency to impressive performance by Snap Originals content, the major social platforms were busy in May. We saw great campaigns from the likes of the England women’s football team and more controversial creative from Brewdog. As ever, there’s lots to digest.
If you want more advice on social media, see Econsultancy’s newly updated Social Advertising Best Practice Guide.
Snap Originals boasts impressive viewing figures
Snap Originals are the programmes created by the likes of NBC and ESPN that users can watch via Snap’s Discover platform.
In a tweet, Snap’s Senior Manager of Comms, Russ Caditz-Peck, wrote that the Snap Originals show Endless Summer had reached 28 million unique viewers in season one.
Drama. @SnapOriginals ‘Endless Summer’ season 1 reached 28 million unique viewers. https://t.co/EUX1hlCE3a
— Russ Caditz-Peck (@RussCP) May 30, 2019
Twitter user Turner Novak replied to Caditz-Peck’s tweet and pointed out that “As many people in the US watched a random show for teens buried within Snapchat as there are total US users that Twitter is able to serve an ad to.”
Facebook finalising plans for its own cryptocurrency
Facebook has set its sights on fintech and the wide world of cryptocurrency.
BBC News reports that the social network is finalising plans to launch a currency referred to internally as ‘GlobalCoin’, in Q1 2020.
Mark Zuckerberg has met with Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, sought operational and regulatory advice from US Treasury officials, and is in talks with payment processors such as Western Union, Mastercard and Visa, as well as cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase and Gemini.
GlobalCoin is intended to allow Facebook users to make transactions and transfer money securely and quickly. It will reportedly be pegged to a number of different global currencies in order to avoid the wild swings in value that have plagued cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
YouTube introduces P-Score and Discovery Ads
YouTube has made some updates with the introduction of P-Score and its new static image ‘Discovery Ads’.
The P-Score (formerly Preferred Score Algorithm) is a rating that helps advertisers place ads against the most popular and appropriate content.
In a statement, the company says the P-Score “looks at the popularity and viewer passion of specific content – things like the amount of repeat views and how often videos are shared, to keep Google Preferred Lineups fresh It also draws on protection, which places a greater emphasis on content suitability where Google Preferred Lineup ads will only serve on videos that are reviewed first by machine classifiers, then verified by humans”.
In addition, YouTube is adding ‘Discovery Ads’. Unlike pre-roll and mid-roll ads, Discovery Ads will only appear in the users’ home feed and target them based on their YouTube activity.
The introduction of both P-Score and Discovery Ads to engageYouTube’s 1.9 billion monthly logged-in users could prove handy tools for brands looking to improve the efficacy of ads on the platform.
#CatMenDo by Cats Protection
May saw the Cat Men Do campaign from Cats Protection, created to celebrate the relationship between men and their cats, encouraging men to tweet stories, photos & videos using the hashtag.
#CatMenDo pic.twitter.com/7wePmNbOx8
— Jase (@JesterJase) May 14, 2019
The campaign spotlights the many men that have a fond relationship with their feline companions.
User-generated content is an effective way for the brand to get people involved, with the charity’s initial tweet garnering a lot of engagement and replies from cat-loving men in the UK.
The Lionesses World Cup announcement
#BeReady pic.twitter.com/urP1msBpzk
— Lionesses (@Lionesses) May 7, 2019
The England Women’s Football Team (also known as the Lionesses) revealed its 2019 World Cup squad in a creative way on Twitter.
Using the thread feature on the platform, the Lionesses slowly announced the official World Cup squad members to fans and followers over the course of a day using individual videos.
With a mixture of famous faces such as Prince William, in addition to influencers across both the men’s and women’s game, the Lionesses delivered the news in short videos unveiling individual players’ names. With breaks between each post in the thread, the announcement allowed for a full day’s engagement and coverage.
BrewDog’s ‘most honest’ ad
This is our new (and first ever) TV advert.
Buckle up, grab a beer and check it out.
Oh, and make sure your sound is on ???? ????https://t.co/9fXQOsbAwA pic.twitter.com/cVl9ohZd0s— BrewDog (@BrewDog) May 13, 2019
Craft beer company BrewDog rolled out its latest campaign with a very loud and bold video.
Detailed on the campaign microsite, the mission of BrewDog’s ‘Most Honest Ad You’ll Ever See’ campaign is simply “to convince the world to ditch the mainstream and embrace the alternative”.
With “no storyline, no big budget, no highly-paid Danish actors” the ad grabs user attention with its heavy metal music and a can of BrewDog’s Punk IPA taking centre stage.
The ad has had a mixed reception with Marketing Week’s Ellen Hamnett highlighting potential hypocrisy from the brand, or at least a change in direction.
LinkedIn acquires Drawbridge, a data personalisation platform
LinkedIn has announced the acquisition of Drawbridge, a personalisation platform whose website states that it “connects, unifies, and supercharges customer data to create a complete view of the people you do business with.”
The statement from the B2B social network said “We believe Drawbridge’s team and technology will allow us to accelerate the capabilities of our Marketing Solutions platform, helping our customers better reach and understand their professional audiences and measure the ROI of their campaigns across mobile and desktop.”
There was the now obligatory nod to privacy, as advertisers and consumers show more awareness about the issue. LinkedIn said “…we will continue to maintain the strong controls our members and customers have over the data they choose to share with us.”
The Christchurch Call
Following the Christchurch terrorist attack on March 15th, New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and French President, Emmanuel Macron brought together Heads of State and Government and leaders from the tech sector to adopt the Christchurch Call, a commitment to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.
The Christchurch Call has been described as a strategy that “sets out concrete steps the industry will take to address the abuse of technology to spread terrorist content”.
The agreement means all social networks involved will implement certain measures on their respective platforms, including updating current Ts & Cs, improved reporting processes on extremist content, and transparency reports.
In addition to the platform-specific measures above, the likes of Facebook and Twitter will also be required to share tech developments, collaborate on crisis protocols, educate their users on extremist content and, most importantly, work together to identify the root cause of extremist content online.
Boots UK’s Summer Ready campaign
Boots UK tackles body confidence issues with its latest summer campaign.
Spotlighting the anxiety some women have over their bodies being ‘summer ready’, the high street retailer’s purposeful campaign talks directly to women no matter what they look like.
Yes @BootsUK YES! #LetsFeelGood ????
— Hayley Brown (@MamaHJBee) May 16, 2019
Using the hashtag #LetsFeelGood on social, Boots hopes to spark the conversation and spearhead the movement for body positivity. The campaign coincides with news that 200 Boots stores are at risk of closure in the UK as the company aims to cut costs.