Umpf / Blog / Friday Social: Beast from the East Storms Social Media, Lacoste Ditch the Logo and What is Vero?

Friday Social: Beast from the East Storms Social Media, Lacoste Ditch the Logo and What is Vero?

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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

Beast from the East Sweeps across Social Media

This week the UK grinded to an icy wild halt as a Siberian weather front, aptly named ‘Beast from the East’, drifted across our little island, and naturally it caused ‘a few disruptions’.

The weather, which saw temperatures drop to as low as -8 degrees and saw most of the UK covered in a thick layer of snow, brought about snow days, train cancellations, abandoned cars, and general carnage – but one benefactor was certainly social media, which enjoyed a host of weird and wonderful content.

From videos of epic snow ball fights, to the classic ‘dive outside in your underwear’ gag, it was a minefield of snow day frolics that dominated newsfeeds all week.

GAP Embraces Motherhood with Breastfeeding Campaign

This week American clothing retailer GAP launched its latest Instagram campaign featuring a breastfeeding woman, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

In a bid to remove the taboo of breastfeeding, the campaign contained images of their model breastfeeding her , son.

This becomes one of the first campaigns by a major brand to feature such content, and it probably won’t be the last – as the photo on Instagram racked up over 42,000 likes and more than 3,000 comments.

Vero – True Social Blows Up

This week you would have done well not to hear about Vero – the latest social media network challenging the likes of Facebook and Instagram for the top spot.

Despite launching rather unsuccessfully in 2015, the platform has had a remarkable surge in recent weeks with over 1 million users signing up, including many household names and influencers.

The app claims to be somewhat of a Facebook/Instagram hybrid that aims to make ‘social media more social’, boasting no ads and the desperately sought-after chronological timeline.

Despite recent success, it has also been surrounded by a great deal of controversy surrounding its billionaire owners, its privacy terms, and its overall agenda.

It’s unknown as of yet whether the app will be able to claw its way up to the big leagues with Facebook and Instagram, but we’ll soon find out.

Online Game Tackles ‘Fake News’

This week saw the release of ‘Bad News’, an online game all about spotting fake news and educating users on how easily and quickly it can travel online.

Designed by students at the University of Cambridge, the game allows players to build a virtual social following by posting scandalous, inflammatory headlines alongside images to their imaginary followers, and get rewarded for successfully for spreading misinformation.

Based on existing studies of online propaganda, the game aims to show users how easily it can be to create ‘fake news’, and educate them on the risk of believing everything you read online.

Lacoste Ditches the Logo

And finally, this week clothing brand Lacoste launched an exclusive range which ditched the iconic crocodile logo, to see it replaced with one of 10 endangered species.

‘Save our Species’ is a three year partnership between Lacoste and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which has temporarily dismissed the crocodile logo for 10 species that need the visibility that much more.

The number of shirts available for sale even corresponds to the number of animals of each species that remain in the wild.

A total of 1,775 shirts have been made and the campaign aims to highlight the need to protect these species that are so close to wild extinction. Bravo.