Lifestyle Arianna Schioldager Lifestyle Arianna Schioldager

Links We Love: Mitigating Fake News, Working During Your Commute & Presents for Everyone!

TGIF, am I right? 

We're in holiday limbo. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas where it's super hard to stay focused at work. 

We're guilty of it. Which is why we're sharing with you all the links we've read through in between emails all week. ;) 

Why did Rihanna and Prince Harry get HIV tests together? Find out. 

If you want to buy your BFF the cheapest gift from the most expensive brands. Like soap, from Chanel. 

Interviews with 100 American workers on what their jobs are really like. 

Fake news was pretty popular this election cycle. Snap (formerly Snapchat) managed to keep it out. But how?

Do you have a NIGHTMARE commute? If you're not the driver, here's how to get work done during those to and fro moments. 

If you think that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is rightfully called "F**k, I Have To Go Back To Work Tomorrow Sunday", then you're most likely to retweet these tweets.

Are you assertive at work? You might be getting paid more than your "nice" coworkers.

Spotify knows what you're listening to, and it has no chill when it comes to outing you for listening to Holiday music in July.

Wondering how Snapchat revolutionized social networks? Here's how

Trevor Noah v.s Tomi Lahren. That is all. 

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Digital Jenay Ross Digital Jenay Ross

The 4 Ways To Use Snapchat For Your Brand

We promise that teenagers aren't the ONLY ones who use it. 

Snapchat has been reserved for the millennial audience, and for a long time, it has made many businesses who's demo falls out of the 18-24-year-old range very skeptical about approaching one of the most popular social media channels known to man. 

However, instead of shying away from Snapchat because you don't know where to start, or because you don't have a large following on there, you should be proactive in creating out-of-the-box content that not only will get your brand more followers but also get those followers to engage with you more. 

If you don't know where to start or are looking to step up your Snapchat game, below are the three ways you can start using the platform to your advantage. 

BEHIND THE SCENES ACCESS

If you create content for your blog or website, and your followers wait to see everything when you put your posts live, chances are they are interested in seeing what a day in the life is when you're creating content, especially if you are an influencer. Snapchat is made to give your audience a more candid and personable view of you and your brand, so when creating content, feel free to bring them along with you when at photo shoots, fun meetings, or events. Make sure to cross promote on your socials to let your followers know that they can have a behind-the-scenes view on your Snapchat as well. Not only will you see that your following will grow, but becoming much more personable brand will also grow followers' brand loyalty towards you.

GIVE FOLLOWERS ACCESS TO EXCLUSIVE DEALS

Now that you have your followers on Instagram, reward them! If you are selling product or tickets for a special event, drop special discounts that can last as long as the Snapchat is live (24 hours). These can be exclusive to only your Snapchat followers, so always make sure to cross-promote from your other channels and drive them to follow you for access to those deals. 

DROP SURPRISE GEOFILTERS

Snapchat now encourages you to create on-demand geofilters for any occasion, be it a birthday party, a concert, or any other special event. However, as a brand, you don't have to be limited to event geofilters. If you know the top cities and areas that you are most popular (be it a workplace, college campus, or shopping centers, etc.), feel free to drop geofilters that your audience can use as an option. They already use tons of filters to make their own content more dynamic, so why not give them a filter that is much more dedicated to them that they can use?
 

CREATE INTERACTIVE GEOFILTERS

Another element that you can add to surprise filters is making them interactive. Make sure to design your filters in a way that can engage people to use them, by adding a fill-in-the-blank element to it, or also creating graphics in the filter that the audience can interact with when creating a Snapchat. 

Another great way to generate more engagement from your interactive geofilters is by holding scavenger hunts that will encourage your followers to travel to destinations close just to find those filters. They can win a prize by using the filter and screenshotting it to ensure that traveled to the location to win a prize. Not only is it fun, but it's a great way to tie in an IRL element to a digital activation.

How have you used Snapchat for your brand? Do you like these ideas, or do you think that your brand will start moving towards the popular app? If you like these or have any other ideas, please let us know below!

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Classifieds Jenay Ross Classifieds Jenay Ross

C&C Classifieds Nº16: Richer Poorer, Snapchat, Small Girls PR, and more!

The next step in your career is right here. 

A new week is here, and you just started on your job hunt. Or you're still keeping your options open to make sure that the next step in your career is the right one.  Whatever it is, we're always on the lookout for your next career move.

This week, we've got listings from Richer Poorer, our great friends at Small Girls PR, Snapchat, MOO, Birchbox, and many more. To get full access to this week's classifieds, enter your info below!

If you have signed up for access to the C&C Classifieds before, click here.

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Lifestyle Arianna Schioldager Lifestyle Arianna Schioldager

Links We Love: Are You Prepared for Election Night?

Sign us up right now for Election Meditation. 

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Digital Downlow, Digital Arianna Schioldager Digital Downlow, Digital Arianna Schioldager

Instagram Just Released Snapchat-Like Feature, But Here’s Why You’ll Use It

Carbon copy cat? Maybe. But it's in the prime position to work. 

Gather 'round, it's story time kids. 

This morning Instagram introduced Instagram Stories, a new feature that lets you share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile. As you share multiple photos and videos, they appear together in a slideshow format: your story.

In a blog post the app announced, "With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about over-posting. Instead, you can share as much as you want throughout the day — with as much creativity as you want. You can bring your story to life in new ways with text and drawing tools. The photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear on your profile grid or in feed."

Instagram has long been the "curated" social media. It's where users, brands, and influencers give the public a highlight reel of their life. No more. TechCrunch scored an interview with IG CEO Kevin Systrom who admitted to publication, “They deserve all the credit,” while insisting, “This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it.”

Stories is the spot where you can upload all of the stuff that isn't great for your grid-- because from a brand and gaining follower perspective we've heard over and over again how important it is to "get your grid right." 

With Stories you can doodle, draw, and like Snapchat, they'll disappear after 24-hours. 

At the top of your feed there will be a bar featuring stories from your best friends and favorite accounts. When the user adds something new to their story the profile will have a colorful ring around it. To see said story you tap the profile photo. 

The feature follows the privacy settings on your account. You can also hide Stories from followers you don't want checking in. 

 

According to the post, "Instagram has always been a place to share the moments you want to remember. Now you can share your highlights and everything in between, too."

It also solves the "too many apps, NO MORE!" crisis that many people have expressed anxiety over. Instagram Stories is the first useful attempt to consolidate the overwhelm of social. Clone or not, people will use it simply out of convenience. Snapchat showed that people wanted more than a highlight reel-- IG followed the crowd. 

"Instagram Stories is the first useful attempt to consolidate the overwhelm of social." 

Tweet this. 

It will also prove useful for brands hiring influencers for campaigns to engage followers in BTS footage or event photos. Bloggers and influencers wont have to switch back-and-forth between apps and they'll be able to share moments on their IG without overcrowding the feed. 

However, unlike regular posts there are no likes or public comments, so for the time being it might be difficult to measure engagement. But that's not going to stop the social platform's 500 million users from jumping on board. 

Instagram Stories will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks on iOS and Android. Your move Evan Spiegel.

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Digital Jenay Ross Digital Jenay Ross

Snapchat Adds The Old With The New In Its Recent Update

Maybe some snaps were meant to last forever. 

We’ve only known Snapchat as an app that only lives off of what’s going on in the now, only to be erased after one view or the span of 24 hours. As of yesterday, Snapchat is changing that. 

Snapchat has introduced its newest feature Memories, which allows you to collect all of your saved snaps and stories in one memory bank for you to look back at. Not only that, you’re able to add older snaps to your story and send it to friends as well for them to look back on, and even add stickers and geofilters to the snaps even if you’re not in the area. These older snaps will appear with a time stamp when they’re viewed by your friends if added to your story. 

However, this new update is a game changer for the real-time based app. 

SCHEDULED INSTAGRAMS

If you want to make sure your Snapchat followers are able to see something that’s confidential til a certain date, you will now be able to post it at a later date instead of having to not post on Snapchat at all. 

When the day comes that you want to snap something on a scheduled day, just take the snaps you are going to take, but instead of posting them to your story, save them to your memories. 

From there, you can pull any snaps that you have saved and post them all to your Snapchat story.

WEAVING IN OLD WITH THE NEW

Snapchat storytelling for brands and influencers is becoming more and more important each day, and storytelling is all based on the narrative you build for your audience to watch. 

If you are adding snaps to your story and want to allude to an older snap, you can weave it in to your Snapchat story for a more substantial and longer narrative. 

Also, the Memories feature allows you to share memories with certain people, and even hide other memories you rather not show to anyone else. You can place these in a section called “My Eyes Only,” which are only accessible after you enter a pin for privacy.

So no more screenshooting snaps onto your camera roll and having it take up all of your phone’s memory. Safe to say that this new update to Snapchat will redefine its dependency on real time content and its expiring snaps. 

Maybe some snaps are meant to last forever.

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Digital Arianna Schioldager Digital Arianna Schioldager

SnapChat Is Now Shoppable Thanks to This App

All it took was two emojis. 

When there's an app, there's a hack. Especially when it comes to brands figuring out how to monetize social platforms that aren't yet shoppable. Like Snapchat. 

Since its launch Snapchat has been the mystery meat in the social media sandwich, confusing brands and influencers alike on just how to use it. There are a couple of kinks in the snap chain: it's difficult to know how many followers you have, the videos are only available to your followers for 24 hours, and there is no way to link out. 

Until now.  

"Since launch Snapchat has been the mystery meat in the social media sandwich, until now." 

Tweet this.  

PopSugar owned ShopStyle is offering the first solution to the "what now" problem of Snapchat, introducing a new e-commerce app called Emoticode™. PopSugar CEO Brian Sugar told Digiday, "It was clear that people wanted to take action from our snaps and it wasn’t as easy as it could be. The lightbulb went off." 

That lightbulb lead the way to Emoticode™, a Snapchat companion app which uses the combination of emoticons and screen shots to create what is effectively an affiliate link program. Sugar again, told Digiday, “It works for shopping. It will work for recipes, workouts, articles, really anything you want to engage more with beyond a snap or an Instagram post.”

Here's how it works: 

ShopStyle Collective members can search a product they want to share on Snapchat or Instagram. When they tap “Copy Emoticode” below the product, a shortened affiliatized emoji link is created. The first two characters are emojis. They paste the unique emoticode in their post.

The Collective members receive credit for the clicks and conversions made through the Emoticode™ integration.  

Followers will need to download the ShopStyle App or the Emoticode™ App, screenshot the post with the unique emoticode, and upload it in the ShopStyle app to shop the product that's being shared. 

It's not completely seamless because there is still no way to link out directly from Snapchat, which has yet to introduce brand integration into the platform, but it is the first app that has addressed the two main issues everyone has asked from gate: why do we use this and how does this make us money?

Emoticode™ is the first way to track sales and facilitate revenue sharing for influencers. It may also encourage bloggers who have yet to really engage on Snapchat to integrate the app into their social playbook. 

"Emoticode™ is the first way to track sales and facilitate revenue sharing for influencers."

Tweet this. 

Julia Engel of Gal Meets Glam (and C&C DTLA mentor) told Digiday, “I really like the idea of Emoticode, especially because the screen-shotting behavior is so natural. I screenshot everything.” 

It will also save time for bloggers who are spending time answering individual messages from followers about what they're wearing. 

For brands, the power of Snapchat is yet to be seen, but this is the first real step in Snap monetization.  

via Brian Sugar

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