What about all the good things on the Internet?
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
This week, I’m going to take a page from our buddy Bueller’s book and call out a couple of the things worth appreciating in social. Of course, there is always a pile of updates, ad units, and trends worth discussing, but just for a moment, this week I feel like we can all be better off by remembering that there is so much good stuff out there, and it’s why we’re optimistic about the future of digital media:
1. God Bless the GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (always, always pronounced with a hard G — it’s not peanut butter) changed the internet forever 30 years ago this week. It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been sharing clever little clips for three decades. To celebrate, I’ve got for you, in no particular order, 5 of my all-time favourites:
2. Social Pride
Around the world, people are celebrating Pride Month on all of their favourite channels. Pride tends to bring out the best in people, whether that means acceptance, love, togetherness, or just a fantastic excuse to celebrate. This year, the platforms have stepped their games up, making it easier than ever to show your love and support. Here are a few of the best Social Pride applications this year:
Facebook adds Pride Reactions
Instagram adds Stickers
Snapchat’s got both + Bitmojis
So what?
If you’ve been here for a while, you know that I always want to give you a takeaway, a lesson or something that you can apply to your own digital media this week. Here’s why this week’s breath of positive air is important:
We’re just guests here. Social media is, was, and always will be for the users first. GIFs weren’t created to inject branded content, they were a richer way for people to have a little fun online. Similarly Pride, and the content associated with it, does not exist for brands to show their support — it is a fundamental human rights issue that happens to manifest in some pretty positive ways.
My call this week is to keep that in mind as we’re all planning out our content and messaging: Social media is for the users. Anything that we, as brands, make will be successful only if it adds to that conversation.
Here’s to a week filled with fails, free speech, and most of all, the ability to look at ourselves and crack a smile every once in a while.
Every week I pull together what’s been happening in social & digital and offer my un-edited opinion in an email called the Social Brief. To get it in your inbox every Monday, enter your address below.
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