Umpf / Blog / Friday Social: Emoji Hashtags, #beachbodyready and Nars Breakthrough

Friday Social: Emoji Hashtags, #beachbodyready and Nars Breakthrough

  • Social Media

Our #FridaySocial is a weekly round-up of the key social media news stories from the previous seven days. Let us know your thoughts in the comments or via Twitter – @Umpf / @EllieHallsworth

1. Emoji hashtags

As well as adding three new filters to its existing suite recently (Juno, Reyes and Lark), Instagram has also added support for emoji in hashtags, letting you tag your pizzaphoto uploads with the relevant emoji. You can then click on them to find more uploads associated with specific emoji; for example, the lipstick emoji for beauty addicts, or the poop emoji for… err, no comment. According to Instagram, almost half of all Instagram captions now feature emoji.

Those looking for delicious aubergine recipes however, will be left feeling deflated; Instagram has banned the aubergine emoji from its search algorithm, claiming that it is too often used to tag lewd photos. Ahem.

This is likely to be part of Instagram’s plan to help it keep its edge on the market and stifle any potential growth from any third-party apps aiming to provide other options.

2. #beachbodyready

Brand suicide or a stroke of genius, the new (and now banned in its current form) ad campaign from Protein World has certainly divided opinion, and caused a huge stir on social media in the process. The ad, which stars Australian model Renee Sommerfield, promotes weight loss aids by asking London commuters if they are “beach body ready”.

Backlash began with body image campaigners and feminists taking to social media to criticise the ad, which led to the ads being vandalised and pictures circulated on Twitter

Causing even more furore, was the way the brand responded to comments on Twitter:

tweet

Which camp are you in?

3. Snapchat News

Snapchat is launching a news division and, according to Politico, storied political correspondent Peter Hamby is leaving CNN to join Snapchat as Head of News. In an interview, Hamby stated: “They have a big and growing audience, and we’ve seen Discover is a huge success. Their live stories around big events, around places both here and abroad, the potential to take users to new places – we can see some application of that with news.”

As predicted by The Verge, with the US election coming up in 2016, Hamby will likely be called upon to use his expertise to break ground at Snapchat.

4. Nars Breakthrough

To celebrate its collaboration with designer Christopher Kane, Nars created a Twitter competition where entrants could win an accessory from the designer’s new spring 2015 collection.

Hidden inside a mysterious orb, the prize was only to be revealed once the orb had cracked open. All tweets to the #NarsChristopherKaneUS or #NarsChristopherKaneUK hashtags triggered a strike on the orb from spears designed to slowly chip away at the orb. The final tweet to break the orb won the prize, which entrants could watch live through a YouTube broadcast.

It took 26,000 tweets to reveal the prize inside the orb, and a second orb shattering in the UK generated a further 12,000 tweets. Nars’ digital and consumer strategy director said: “We wanted to do something bespoke, something completely different – and we landed on this. The fact that it was so strange was the terrific aspect of it.”

Here’s a full insight into the extensive campaign planning and implementation.

5. Scheduled Pins

Social marketing company Buffer has teamed up with Pinterest to allow users to schedule pins for the first time.

To access this capability, you’ll need to sign up for a paid account for either Buffer Awesome or Buffer for Business. The service also allows for advanced analytics on the performance on individual pins.

And finally…

Twitter celebrated a momentous fourth anniversary of #EdBallsDay. See our round-up of our favourite celebrations.