#Fun — Spice Up Your Feed With Ugly Instagram Pictures

While Instagram is the realm of digitally-magnified photos, a surprising trend has recently taken the visual network by storm: ugly Instagram pictures!

Yes, you read that correctly: it looks like hideous is the new sexy.

It all started in Australia with a few terrific accounts, according to Mashable & Elite Daily:

Mattresses of Melbourne: a place for the discarded pre-loved Mattresses of Melbourne.

Park_Benches by Josh Ridge: Need a break? Take a seat! This park bench series is a hobby of mine and all benches are geotagged for your convenience. Where do you like to sit?

Shitgardens: A celebration not a condemnation.

Theaustralianugliness: Maybe ugly, maybe not? Continuing Robin Boyd’s conversation about the character of Australia’s built environment.

Inner_northern_delights by Liz Jones: Melbourne’s inner north is a melting pot of retro kitsch, urban goodness. Snapshots of the delightful and the not so delightful from our fave suburbs.

Uglymelbournehouses by Franck Lloyd Wrong: making carefully considered analysis of houses that may or may not be ugly… depending on who you ask… since 1976.

Whether you are going through a boring day or just want to unwind, you WILL have a good time browsing these ugly Instagram accounts.

Enjoy 😉

Warning: this trend is not to be confused with the “Ugly Instagram List” scam, as mentioned here and there.

Loomly is a visual social media calendar tool that lets you preview what your Instagram posts will look like before you hit publish: start your 15-day free trial now.

#Data — The Most Popular Editorial Category On Each Social Network

What do you think is the most popular editorial category — i.e. publisher topic — on each social network?

Beauty, fashion, politics, sports, animals?

Read on, you may be surprised.

In the Q1 2016 edition of their Social Media Report, MPA — The Association of Magazine Media — presented the following results:

In other words, here is the most popular editorial category on each social network:

Facebook: motorcycle

Twitter: popular culture

Google+: parenting

Instagram: travel

Pinterest: shelter (interior design)

Although the above results only take into account magazines as publishers — not brands & businesses — it is very interesting for us Social Media Managers to have an idea of what is driving the conversation on each social network in this sphere.

Loomly is a visual social media calendar tool that helps your team come up with optimized editorial strategies: start your 15-day free trial now.

Learn About Facebook Latest Snapchat Clone Quick Updates

#News — Learn About Facebook’s Latest Snapchat Clone: Quick Updates

In 2014, Snapchat turned down a $3 billion offer from Facebook.

Ever since, the blue giant has been trying to mimic the concept — and grab some of the hype — of the yellow ghost.

Facebook’s latest attempt to clone Snapchat is called Quick Updates.

Credit: TechCrunch

Here is what you need to know about Quick Updates:

These updates 24-hour ephemeral posts, which can contain content you have uploaded to Facebook in the past, “old” images from your phone library, “fresh photos” taken on-the-go or plain text.

They do not appear in News feeds or profiles, but are hidden inside the mobile app (of selected test users).

Quick Updates are supposed to allow users to share content with selected people, as opposed to regular updates that aim at a wider audience (i.e. all friends).

People can reply to a Quick Update.

But let’s not get too excited since, according to TechCrunch:

“Facebook doesn’t plan to launch or move forward with Quick Updates. So (it) is basically a stillborn feature you won’t see more of […] though it could be reborn as a more central part of the traditional status update composer.”

If Quick Updates does become available to all users, it will be interesting to see how brands can leverage such a new feature.

Loomly is a visual social media calendar tool: start your 15-day free trial now.

#LongReads — How A Spanish Mayor Runs His Town On Twitter

Jun is a small town from southern Spain, whose Mayor José Antonio Rodríguez Salas has made a bold move: trying and running his town on Twitter.

In this intriguing New York Times article by European Tech Correspondent Mark Scott, you will learn how Twitter is shaping the life of Jun’s inhabitants:

Allowing them to make a doctor appointment or “say something when they see something”, with a DM.

Saving $380,000 a year on the local budget, since 2011.

Getting in touch on a daily basis with town officials — and keeping tabs on them.

Credit: Laura Leon for The New York Times

In Jun, residents can have their Twitter account verified… by the town hall, to make sure their concerns are addressed online.

Running a town on Twitter not only is a social media innovation: it is also a social innovation.

What if the future of social media management was actually community management?

Loomly is a visual social media calendar tool: start your 15-day free trial now.

#Tool — See Twitter From Another Perspective With Otherside

Twitter is a great way to see what’s happening.

To bypass filter bubbles though and get some more nuanced information, it may be interesting to see Twitter from another perspective.

This is what Otherside was invented for: to let you create a list based on the accounts another user follows, so you can experience Twitter from their perspective.

This is a great way to be in the shoes of celebrities from all fields of course — be it President Obama, Taylor Swift or LeBron James — as well as people you personally know or just about anyone else.

As Social Media Managers, this is particularly useful for us to get inspired and find new post ideas and new accounts to follow.

All you need to do is visit Otherside.site, sign in with Twitter and create your first list.

A word of caution however: due to Twitter limitations, lists cannot contain more than 5,000 accounts, private accounts you don’t follow “on your side” will be skipped and you may be able to follow only up to 1,000 accounts per day.

Have fun 😉

Bonus: if you liked Otherside, you will love Being, a similar app for Instagram.

Loomly is a visual social media calendar tool: start your 15-day free trial now.

#Tip — Get A Verified Twitter Account

A verified Twitter account lets other users know you are who you say you are, thanks a nice blue badge right next to your username.

For a long time, the blue tick was reserved for celebrities, journalists, athletes, politicians and high-profile public figures: in other words, people who were most likely to be impersonated on Twitter.

That was before.

As per a company’s recent announcement, the application process to become a verified Twitter account is now open to any key individual or organization of public interest, which includes businesses and brands!

Twitter stated:

Our goal with this update is to help more people find great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for creators and influencers – no matter where they are in the world – to easily connect with a broader audience.

Apply here to get your Twitter account verified and make sure you follow these guidelines to maximize your chances of being approved.

Good luck!

Loomly is a visual social media calendar tool that lets you approve editorial content as a team: start your 15-day free trial now.

#Data — Facebook Messenger Reaches One Billion Users

This is the number of the week in social media: Facebook Messenger just reached one billion users.

Image source: Facebook

This is a #Data post, although it could very well be a #Quote or a #LongRead post, as the meaning of this number is actually more important than the number itself.

According to Darrell Etherington, in this great TechCrunch article:

“If you’re not already thinking about what your product looks like in a messaging application, it may be too late. Facebook Messenger crossing the 1 billion user mark today isn’t unexpected, but it is a huge blinking marquee telling us what we should already know: messaging is the platform of the future.”

In other words, we are on the edge of a shift between our current social era and the future conversational era, where content is distributed in a more customised way than ever.

Yes, there is some evidence that we, social media managers, may evolve into chat media managers.

Let’s keep an eye on this trend 😉

Loomly is a visual social media calendar tool: start your 15-day free trial now.

Understand How American Girls Live On Social Media Today

#Book — Understanding How American Girls Live On Social Media Today

Loomly Toolkit frequently features ideas and articles about how social media shape brands.

Once in a while, we also like to take a look at how social media shape society.

Today is one of these days, as we are interested in how social media are transforming the lives of teenagers: in particular, American girls.

In her enlightening — sometimes scary — book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, Nancy Jo Sales takes us on her journey through ten states, talking to girls aged 13-19.

Browsing these 416 pages, you will learn how Instagram, Whisper, Yik Yak, Vine, YouTube, Kik and Tinder influence the youngest female millennials on so many aspects of their life: interests, self-esteem, ambition, sex and social skills, just to name a few.

Whether you want to better understand the American girls around you as a person, or would like to get deeper insights on this particular demographic as a marketing professional, this book is definitely a must read.

Happy reading 😉

Loomly is a visual social media calendar tool, which helps you stage your content as a team before publishing it online: start your 15-day free trial now.

#Loomly — Post To Instagram With Buffer Reminders

Unlike most other platforms, Instagram does not allow third-party applications to actually post to Instagram — making it impossible to schedule content from outside Instagram.

To bypass this limitation, tools like Hootsuite & Later offer a feature that allows you to “schedule” a post and then, when it’s time to publish this post, to get a reminder to publish it manually.

#Tool — Create A Tweetstorm With Storm It

Yes, Twitter’s character count is evolving and there has been a huge debate about the whole 140-character limit.

None of this has ever prevented us from circumventing the rules with a simple concept: tweetstorms*.