Friday Social: #EndangeredEmoji, Facebook ‘Call Now’ and YouTube Break

Welcome to the Friday Social, our weekly round-up of the key social media news stories from the previous seven days. Let us know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter at @Umpf

Have a Break, Have a… YouTube?

Nestle’s KitKat and Google’s YouTube are to join forces again, this time printing 600,000 chocolate bar wrappers with ‘YouTube Break’.

The move follows the brands’ last partnership, when Google named Android  OS update 4.4 ‘KitKat’ back in 2013 (see our Umpf blog post on this), and is part of a campaign which will see KitKats branded with more than 70 different types of break such as ‘Sporty Break’.

David Black, MD Branding and Consumer Markets for Google UK said: “It’s great to see KitKat consumers are huge fans of YouTube and, along with our 1 billion users, regard YouTube as a favourite source of entertainment.

“With half of YouTube views now on mobile devices, ‘YouTube my break’ is a fun way for more people to interact on the channel and enjoy the best videos available. With up to 300 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every minute, the top trending videos are likely to be changing all the time, making each new search as exciting as the last.”

The chocolate itself will also be imprinted with the #mybreak hashtag.

Pizza via Emoji

In what could be the greatest and most dangerous news for Team Umpf this year, Domino’s is now allowing instant orders via social media simply by tweeting a pizza emoji.

Domino’s announced the new system on Twitter (of course) with a series of pizza-related tweets (see left).

Users simply need to sign up for an Easy Order account online where you connect your Twitter handle and your pizza preferences. Then, it’s as easy as tweeting a pizza emoji and confirming the order via DM.

Patrick Doyle, CEO of Domino’s, said: “It’s the epitome of convenience… We’ve got this down to a five-second exchange.”

Fortunately for our arteries, the service is only available Stateside for now.

Facebook’s Instant Articles

Facebook has launched Instant Articles, a new format that allows publishers to create articles that load directly inside Facebook’s iOS app rather than taking readers elsewhere.

The social media giant says that the articles will be fast and interactive. Traditionally, it takes an average of eight seconds to load links shared on Facebook however the clue’s in the name with Instant Articles – they’ll be available to read up to ten times faster.

Launch partners include big players such as BuzzFeed, National Geographic, The New York Times and BBC News.

Writing in a blog post about the features of Instant Articles, Michael Reckhow, Product Manager at Facebook, said:

“Along with a faster experience, Instant Articles introduces a suite of interactive features that allow publishers to bring their stories to life in new ways. Zoom in and explore high-resolution photos by tilting your phone. Watch auto-play videos come alive as you scroll through stories. Explore interactive maps, listen to audio captions, and even like and comment on individual parts of an article in-line.”

Instant Articles is available on iPhone only for now, with more partners expected on-board in the coming months.

WWF’s #EndangeredEmoji

In other emoji news, the WWF is encouraging donations via Twitter using an emoji of one of 17 endangered animals .

We’re using #EndangeredEmoji to save real animals from extinction. Please retweet to sign up and help. pic.twitter.com/hX1p1GEDZ9

— WWF ? (@WWF) May 12, 2015

In a tweet noting that 17 emoji animal characters are endangered, the WWF asks Twitter users to retweet to instantly sign up and then follow a link to find out more about the campaign.

Then, whenever a signed-up user tweets their chosen #EndangeredEmoji using the hashtag, they’ll be sent a monthly invoice to confirm their donations at a rate of 10p per emoji (although the user will be given the option of adding more funds to their donation).

The campaign was created by Wieden + Kennedy London who approached the WWF to launch the project in time for Endangered Species Day.

Facebook Introduces ‘Call Now’

Facebook has this week introduced a new feature that allows users to call business directly via Facebook.

The new button joins a number of features in Facebook’s Local Awareness drive, which has previously allowed businesses to include call-to-actions such as ‘Get Directions’ or ‘Like This Page’ in ads.

An interested user can press the Call Now icon and will be directed to their phone’s calling application to get in touch directly with the business.

Facebook has also just announced that due to the success of its carousel ad format, this will be extended to mobile app ads as well. According to a News post, carousel ads drive 30-50% lower cost per conversion and 20-30% lower cost-per-click than single-image ads.

Social Media Folks Everywhere Praise TweetDeck

TweetDeck has this week introduced a new optional safeguard against tweeting from the wrong account. We’ve all seen what happens when personal tweets are accidentally sent from a brand account… remember when the American Red Cross was #gettingslizzard (but recovered very nicely) or when Chrysler had a few choice words about driving in Detroit?