We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #318

Mashup
alex.valk
Instagram launches Stories for imperfect sharing
You’ve probably heard by now that Instagram has launched ‘stories’ which allows users to post snaps that disappear after a certain period of time.



Of course, everyone thought they’d come up with the idea completely on their own, so you can imagine our shock when Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom openly admitted they’d completely copied it from Snapchat.  He told Techcrunch:
“This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it.”

If you say so, Kevin. Such blatant plagiarism hasn’t deterred brands, who have already reported great success with the new format. Nike generated 800,000 views in 24 hours for an Instagram Story, compared to just 66,000 views on Snapchat for its ‘best’ story.

Facebook finds another thing to copy from Snapchat
Facebook has started testing live photo and video filters. So far, the service is only available in Canada and Brazil – the rest of us can just keep on Snapchatting, I suppose.

Facebook to stick ads in the middle of your Live feeds
Long ago, Facebook vowed never to put ads at the beginning of videos, because it would be too annoying for users. Now, they’ve decided it would not be at all annoying to whack them right in the middle of your Live video feeds. The 15 second ads are being trialled after broadcasts have run for five minutes or more, and the platform already has some ‘top publishing partners’ who are equally keen to interrupt your favourite streams. 

Facebook declares ‘war’ on Clickbait
Fed up of seeing random stories about people being SHOCKED on your newsfeed? So is Facebook. The platform has declared ‘war’ on these annoying clickbait stories and will be hiding them in a similar way to how Gmail filters and hides spam.

Snapchat launches Geostickers
Is Snapchat annoyed that Instagram and Facebook are copying everything it does? Nah. It’s too busy launching a new feature called Geostickers. Geostickers can only be found in specific locations and users have to have location services enabled. So far they are available in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, Honolulu, London, Sydney, São Paulo, Paris and Riyadh.



Snapchat announces seven Olympics brand partners
Snapchat revealed the seven official brand partners that will run ads in the platform’s Olympics content via dedicated Live Story and Discover channels. The sacred seven are Sony Pictures, Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Hershey’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Finish Line and Ford. Other brands will advertise in the platform, but only the special seven will be official partners. Snapchat is doing an extremely good job of monetising the platform of late, with figures as high as $7m being floated to cover the cost of season-long NFL deals.

NFL is the First sports league to get a Snapchat discover channel
Speaking of which, the National Football League has signed a multiyear extension with Snapchat that will make the NFL the first sports league with a Snapchat Discover channel. According to a release, NFL Media will handle programming including news, hot topics, photos and videos specifically produced for the mobile app.

Twitter launches ‘instant unlock cards’
Twitter is hoping the allure of exclusive content might help brands better engage with consumers and drive conversation. The company is unveiling an ‘Instant Unlock Card’ that encourages people to tweet about a brand to earn rewards such as a movie trailer or an exclusive Q&A. Twitter claims during a beta test, brands saw an average earned media rate of 34 per cent.

Kik’s chatbots have exchanged 1.8 billion messages with real people
Canadian messaging app Kik claims 1.8 billion messages have been exchanged between users and the 20,000+ chatbots created for the platform since April. Around 70 brands have gone through Kik’s vetting process to enter the ‘Bot Shop’ so far. 

A crackdown is coming for branded influencer content
The US government is getting cross about the amount of undeclared branded content being pushed out by influencers in exchange for payment. In March, the FTC issued a complaint against Lord & Taylor for paying fashion influencers to create posts about one of its dresses on Instagram, without disclosing the dress was free and influencers were paid. Some savvy influencers on Snapchat have been quick to show they are playing by the rules by declaring sponsorship on their posts.