Happy Friday!

Here are some thoughts for the week...


Zoom Shirts
I'm busted. It's finally coming out that those of us who work from home have a handful of shirts we throw on before a video call starts but otherwise aren't wearing adult clothes most of the time. I personally have three Zoom shirts that I'm rotating through because the rest of my short sleeve button ups never made it to the dry cleaner, and it just seems like a waste to spend a hundred bucks on dry cleaning right now. Otherwise, it's a t-shirt and cargo shorts. Yep. I bought cargo shorts just for the pandemic so I can fill the pockets with snacks. I'm not even kidding.

Social media isn’t canceled, but it is broken.
This week a lot of well-known brands publicly announced they were pausing July advertising spend on Facebook as part of the #StopHateForProfit campaign. Others announced a pause on all social networks for the month or the rest of the calendar year. Others quietly have paused but didn’t tell anyone. Others were already paused but took this an opportunity to tell you they were paused. And many others have no intention of pausing any chance of making up Q2 revenue on social platforms that allow highly targeted ads tied to immediate sales.

I have client implications that prevent me from coming out with a strong public opinion here, but I do have some strong and informed opinions. Let’s just say I recommend reading Casey Newton’s insights on the situation.

One note I will share however… building on the conversation we had last week: Quick we need a social post; what do we believe? It seems a lot of marketers are still treating social media channels as “free” to set up, haven't invested in a sound organic + paid strategy, and are complaining about ROI of social in much too general of terms.

If you haven't figured out where social media figures into your 360 degree marketing ecosystem already, or have a business that can easily cut social budgets without skipping a beat, you have much bigger problems than whether to pause or reallocate budget for a month.

Social media is too important and too effective to cancel. But there’s a healthy debate on how it’s built, managed, measured, and moderated we should continue to have and use the means available to us to pressure, enforce, and improve changes. We can't repeat 2020. Things need to change. Anyway, if you want to chat about this, let's take it offline.

My Q2 soundtrack
Every quarter I maintain a playlist of the tracks I’m spinning on repeat. Share it. And then start over. So here’s SWAN WRAPPED – Q2 for your listening pleasure. You’ll note it started a bit melancholy but then smoothed out into some jams. What a three months this has been!!

The art must go on!
When schools changed to distance learning, my daughter Annie and I decided to keep going with Art Adventure sessions for her classmates, but do them on YouTube. The Minneapolis Institue of Art wrote about it. My daughter is SO TALENTED!! Read about it and watch our video here.

Hope you have a great holiday weekend. See you on the internet!

Greg

SOCIAL PULSE

Every week I keep tabs on what's trending, new technology and consumer habits that impact the social web. Here's what I'm tracking this week... 



Holiday Planning Season: There’s only 174 days until Christmas! No matter what you celebrate, it’s not too early to think about the holidays. Facebook launched its 2020 Holidays Hub. Pinterest launched a 2020 holiday report called “Earlier Than Ever” (PDF). And here’s Twitter guidance for holiday tweets. Bah humbug!

The rest of this week's Social Pulse trend report includes:

• A Credit Card for Influencers?  
• Finger on the App 
• Netflix Puts its Money to Work for BLM
• Podcast of the Week 
• TikTokker of the Week 
• Instagram of the Week
• and more!

• Quick we need a social post; what does our company believe? 
• Common Words & Phrases Steeped in Racism to Remove From Your Vocabulary
• You Need a Surprise Road Trip This Weekend