You can learn about all the latest social trends at our Festival of Marketing event on 11-12 November. But for now let’s look at what October had to offer.

Princestagram is here 

Hark! Prince is on Instagram. Not only that but he’s managed to combine his name with that of the image-sharing site, the cunning devil.  

The most popular post so far is this picture of P Diddy dressed as the Purple Rain singer at a Halloween party.  

‘Tea and Consent’ video by Thames Valley Police 

This video was actually published many months ago, but we only just became aware of it and we’re big fans so we’re going to break the rules. So there.

Thames Valley Police created an animated YouTube video as part of its #ConsentisEverything campaign, which aimed to highlight the importance of sexual consent by using tea drinking as a metaphor.  

It actually really works and is funny without being inappropriate or offensive, which is important given the subject matter. Are you listening, Merseyside? (You’ll get this reference later). 

I thoroughly recommend you watch the video all the way to the end so you can experience the genius of the closing line. 

Heineken and Land Rover the most talked about brands during Rugby World Cup

According to data from Falcon Social, Heineken was the most talked about brand during the Rugby World Cup right up until the final, when it was overtaken by Land Rover.

Rugby world cup brand engagement social media

Land Rover achieved a massive surge in mentions during the final after it posted a series of images of the winning team that were widely shared. 

Heineken did, however, achieve the highest proportion of positive sentiment online during the overall tournament, as you can see from the chart below. 

Rugby world cup brand sentiment on social media

New Zealand wins the Rugby World Cup on social media (and in real life, obviously) 

Not only did the All Blacks manage to beat Australia and become the 2015 RWC winners, they also had the most social media mentions during the final and the highest proportion of positive sentiment.  

The charts below from Falcon Social show the results in more detail, with the second graph showing the number of mentions for each team during the final.

Rugby world cup final team sentiment social media

Rugby world cup final team mentions social media

Twitter Polls launched

Twitter Polls launched last month, and there was global outcry when people realised the feature hadn’t yet been rolled out to Econsultancy’s account.  

Brands can now create two-question polls for their followers such as the ones below: 

Will this catch on or will it prove to be a gimmick? Only time will tell. 

Facebook launches major seach update: Search FYI 

Last year Facebook updated its search function so that search results would include posts from users’ friends and family members.

Now Facebook has updated its search function again so that results include all of Facebook’s 2tn posts. 

When users tap the search function to find connections and content, Facebook now generates personalised search suggestions such as timely topics and current events.

Facebook then organises the search results to include public posts it deems relevant to the query. Search results from a user’s connections will continue to be included as well.

Snapchat launches first Sponsored Lens campaign with The Peanuts Movie

As part of its marketing campaign for The Peanuts Movie, 20th Century Fox was the first to launch a Snapchat campaign using the site’s new Sponsored Lens feature. 

Launched on Halloween, users were given access to filters with Peanuts characters while the Peanuts theme tune played in the background.  

Snapchat first sponsored lense campaign with The Peanuts Movie

Merseyside Police cause Twitter storm with ‘rape joke’

In a somewhat dark social media fail, Merseyside Police have been heavily criticised for taking part in some awful ‘rape banter’ on the social network. 

The tweet was in response to somebody jokingly saying they wanted to ‘report an incident of rape that occurred at Goodison Park, Liverpool’, alluding to Everton’s football club’s 6-2 win over Sunderland. 

Despite the extremely sensitive subject matter, Merseyside Police tried to respond with a joke, which was predictably met with outrage from the general public. 

Merseyside police rape joke on Twitter

The following apology has since been posted: 

This is a clear example of an organisation having zero understanding of what’s acceptable when it comes to using humour online, something I covered in my post about humour in marketing last week. 

Facebook launches Slideshow

As part of its effort to build a presence in emerging markets across the world, Facebook launched a new advertising product last week called Slideshow. 

The feature enables brands to quickly create videos from a series of still images that are around five times smaller than an ordinary video of the same length, so they don’t use as much memory or data. 

facebook slideshow

Facebook says the ads will display consistently across the multiple types of device and connectivity used in these markets.

Twitter ad gets slammed by social media users

Twitter’s first foray into the world of TV advertising turned sour last month after a televised ad promoting its Moments feature prompted perplexed reactions from the public. 

The ad featured a collection of baseball-related tweets and was aired in the US during the World Series.

But critics were quick to express their bewilderment at the mishmash of fast-moving text and images. 

Greenpeace launces anti-VW Halloween campaign

Greenpeace had what some would argue was a well-deserved dig at Volkswagen this weekend with a Halloween-themed campaign on Twitter. 

The campaign featured a smoking pumpkin with the VW logo cut out of it, and was created in reaction to the recent emissions scandal.

The tweet links through to a Greenpeace petition asking VW to create a mass-market electric car.

Prince’s Trust teams up with LinkedIn in ‘Get Ahead’ campaign 

LinkedIn teamed up with The Prince’s Trust in a joint campaign in which the social network donated £1 to the charity for every person who uploaded a photo and 50p for anyone who shared the ‘Get Ahead’ blog post.

The campaign only applies to people who don’t already have a profile picture, but the charity hopes the money raised will help the Prince’s Trust give young people practical and financial support.  

Emirates’ Rugby World Cup competition

Emirates encouraged fans to fly their nation’s flag to win its #BringingRugbyHome competition during the Rugby World Cup. 

Emirates wurgby world cup competition instagram

The brand also recruited more than 100 flag bearers who lead out the international teams before every match. 

The flag bearers, aged 14-16, won the once-in-a-lifetime experience by finding the Emirates flags located in the 11 host cities using clues posted on the Emirates Instagram account.  

TCL runs Periscope campaign to target users outside of China

To raise awareness of its products outside its home country, Chinese smart TV manufacturer TCL launched a Halloween-themed Periscope campaign in partnership with We Are Social. 

Using an ‘ask-me-anything’ Q&A stream, Periscope users were invited to pose questions to the TV set.

A virtual ‘face’ appeared in the middle of the screen with the ability to smile, frown, nod and talk. Users who commented saw their questions answered by the face – voiced by a stand-up comedian – in real time. 

TCL periscope campaign