Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) were high on the agenda at last night's social media festival held by Guernsey Marketing Forum and sponsored by Specsavers.
Dubbed 'Camera Marketing' at Snapchat, it's fast becoming a key tool in every marketeers' utility belt, with Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter all announcing their plans to take a step towards immersive design.
Michelle Capp, Client Partner at Facebook and Snapchat's Tariq Slim dazzled the audience at St. James explaining how Facebook and Snapchat are evolving, introducing Facebook Spaces and Snapchat's 'shoppable' Augmented Reality Lens feature for advertisers.
A/R Jordan from Dan Harbison on Vimeo.
Tariq demonstrated how augmented reality reached new heights in this recent campaign for Air Jordan, offering insight into the endless possibilities now available.
The new capabilities of the technology certainly proves that Snapchat is so much more than just 'rainbow vomit' and 'puppy filters'.
Facebook Safety Checker
Facebook have also evolved through other core features, some helping to improve social welfare such as their new 'Safety Checker', a feature that is activated by the social network during natural or man-made disasters and terror-related incidents, that quickly determines whether or not people in the affected geographical area are safe.
Michelle summarised with a review of Facebook's mission, "to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected". Looking at its progress as 1% complete, it's clear that the big blue app still has plenty of miles yet to venture and with that, many more innovative features to come.
Ripples on YouTube
Roya Zeitoune, YouTube Content Specialist, drew attention to the ripple effect that video has, not just throughout media but global society. The speed at which opinions and responses are formed is incredible, demonstrated through the recent release of the video "This is America" by Childish Gambino.
Following the release of this music video, there came the ripple of subsequent content, from the first wave of videos depicting the hidden political meaning behind the video and its choreography, through to the uptake from countries making their own versions of the music video. The BBC even created their own tongue in cheek version of the video, "Wildish Bambino: This is the TV" with Lenny Henry appearing front and centre. Although well received it still took 3 months for the British Broadcasting Corporation to take up the opportunity.
The point here is that video is big, it has a massive impact on today's culture. There is approximately 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute and with an increase in mobile and uninterrupted connection to the internet, users are now able to watch, upload and share a wide variety of inspirational and unique content with minimal effort.
The Brand Safety Crisis
The brand safety crisis was also a topic of discussion in the closing of the social media event, stressing that it has never been taken more seriously. Being huge from a societal aspect not just revenue and brand, Michelle indicated that it is a main focus for the Facebook engineering team.
David Wilding, Director of Planning at Twitter, expressed how the social network values the safety of their users and that they strive to continually improve user experience and interactions by monitoring its policies and the network avidly to limit abusive interaction.
Interestingly, Tariq highlighted that by Snapchat stripping away vanity metrics it has resulted in a less competitive nature, which in turn, assists with the safety of users.
Having industry experts from four of the biggest social networks in the world on stage in Guernsey has certainly raised the bar for Guernsey and the digital industry. We look forward to seeing more like this!
