Tuesday Tune-Up #373

News
michele.danno
LEGO creates an AR fashion boutique on Snapchat
Are Snapcodes the new catwalks? We think yes. Our We Are Social office in London launched an exciting piece of work last week, working with LEGO to create a pop-up store called ‘The Missing Piece’ ahead of London Fashion Week. The venue sold an exclusive range of streetwear clothes for adults. However, the “store” contained nothing more than a Snapcode on a giant plinth, which allowed visitors to access a Snapchat augmented reality fashion boutique. The virtual shop featured an interactive DJ booth, an arcade machine, and customers could buy online through an integrated “Shop Now” feature.



Sydney goes rainbow with big bevvy campaigns
This year’s Mardi Gras has us thinking about Coke…a-cola. With the annual Sydney event just around the corner, brands are already owning the city’s most important corners, starting with the notorious Kings Cross Coca-Cola sign. The brand went old school by changing up their iconic billboard to read ‘Welcome to Queens Cross’, and Absolut has rolled out its ‘Absolut Love’ campaign celebrating marriage quality in Australia, which is the first locally produced campaign in eight years. The campaign helps celebrate over 282 couples within the LGBTQI community who have tied the knot since Marriage Equality was finally legalised last year.

As we approach Mardi Gras, we look forward to seeing more and more brands come out (pun intended) to support. In the meantime, pour yourself a vodka Coke and get excited for the festivities.

Absolut

Instagram tests direct messages for the web
Want to slide into DMs from your desktop? The ‘Gram says you can. Instagram is privately testing a direct messaging feature for the web on mobile and desktop devices, according to reports. The user experience of the web version of the app has been kept minimal to date, but the introduction of direct messages for the web-based app would be a step forward for the platform, and a step backward for all productivity during work hours.















WhatsApp plans changes to Status updates 
Another day, another algorithm change. WhatsApp is experimenting with a new algorithm for Status Updates (its version of Stories) that will sort updates by relevance rather than in reverse chronological order. The new feature will take into account several factors when ordering Statuses – including whose Statuses you frequently view and who you message the most often. It is currently being tested with a small number of iPhone users in Brazil, Spain, and India, but there are plans to roll it out more widely in the future.

Facebook pushes Watch to media partners with new initiatives 
We touched on Facebook’s plans to fund shows on their Watch platform in our Tune-Up last week, but since then it has been confirmed that the platform will begin reaching out to publishers and studio production partners over the next couple of monthsFacebook is also working on new ways to connect content publishers’ ad technology directly into Watch so they can sell and serve ads programmatically for their shows. The service draws 75 million viewers a day, according to Facebook.

If you’ve got a decent social following and have always wanted to produce your own show, there’s no better time than now.

Twitter develops an enhanced camera feature 
Twitter has confirmed that it is working on a new ‘Snapchat-style’ camera update, which will allow you to overlay captions onto photos, videos and Live broadcasts before sharing them to the timeline. The new feature is accessible by swiping left from the home screen and offers several options to jazz up the media – such as coloured backgrounds for captions and a location overlay card – before posting. There is currently no set timeline for the feature to be rolled out.

Twitter tests pop-up mini-profiles to make threads easier to read
Long conversation threads on Twitter can be notoriously hard to follow. So, to help fix this, Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has said the company is testing a new profile preview overlay feature on iOS mobile devices so that you can see a replier’s full twitter bio, follower counts, and when they joined the service without leaving the page. The preview works in both conversation threads and the main timeline, and will also be coming to Android users in the near future.

Twitter considers ‘clarification’ feature
Despite being a highly requested feature, Twitter doesn’t have an edit button. However, this could be about to change (kinda) after CEO Jack Dorsey said that the company is thinking about a ‘clarification’ feature that would allow users to include additional context for old tweets. Unlike an edit feature, ‘clarification’ could work “kind of like retweet with a comment…to add some context and some colour on what they might have tweeted, or what they might have meant”, said Dorsey.

This may be the single best thing to happen during @realDonaldTrump’s reign, as I have no doubt he inspired the idea…

LinkedIn finally rolls out video live streaming service, LinkedIn Live
LinkedIn is finally joining the live streaming game as it announced the initial launch of LinkedIn Live last week. The platform has said that it is aiming to put the focus on interactive and timely live video streams – giving Reddit’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) events as an example – and is set to announce a wave of new partnerships to help bring a high level of production to the live streaming service. The new feature is currently running as an invite-only beta test in the US.

LinkedIn Live

Reddit adds more performance tools
Following the launch of its cost-per-click buying last month, Reddit has launched app install as a campaign objective for CPC and has improved its conversion pixel. The updated pixel can now track eight conversion events (previously only one), break out view-through and click-through conversions, and allows for attribution windows of 1, 7 or 28 days. The move comes as Reddit looks to boost its ad offering, and it continues to seek additional financial investment within the platform.

TikTok tests new ad features and adds verified account badges
TikTok could be testing its latest ad offering – sponsored video posts that drive users back to the brand’s website. A video labelled ‘sponsored’ was spotted on the main feed of US version of the app, complete with a ‘Learn more’ button. In addition to the post, a banner ad was also spotted at the bottom of Specialized Bikes’ profile page, as well as what appeared to be a tweaked version of the verified account badge. TikTok and Specialized Bikes have both declined to comment.

TikTok ads


This post courtesy of @ohmychristiee