This Week #18: Week beginning Monday 4 November

Joseph Freeman
Nov 8 · 4 min read

Here are a few things that I’ve been mulling over. I hope you’ve been having a good week. A little light this week (busy job + house renovations ramping up = little time on my hands) but still some interesting stuff nonetheless.

More on social issues advertising on Facebook

Remember last week when I wrote about Facebook and verification around ads of a political nature? And how we were wondering how this would impact health messaging if, say, you were a large organisation responsible for national health? Or anyone running health-related ads?

Well, such ads don’t fall under this category, according to a chat with Facebook. So your health-campaigns — despite health being technically now classed as a “social issue” — do not need the “Paid for by…” disclaimer. Which saves some trouble, I can tell you. It’s good news because Facebook recognising the needs to share positive health messaging on their platform is helpful, and helps everyone to counter the more questionable advice that’s rife online.

Facebook’s view is [that these] campaigns are purely public health messages, and therefore do not meet their criteria around political issues aimed at, essentially, generating political debate or influencing the public during an election period. Whilst health campaigns can generate discussion of a political nature in the comments left by the public, this engagement is not taken into account when deciding whether an advert is about a political or social issue.

So campaigning ads for a charity, where they’re calling for the government to do something perhaps, would very likely fall under this category. So you might want to check that out.

New Twitter features

I think these are all pretty good. Still people want to be able to edit their tweets but honestly, I’d be very surprised if that came along. New features:

  • remove me from this conversation: oh yes please. When you’re tagged in a load of tweets and it’s just people having a conversation *argh*
  • don’t allow RT of this tweet: I get this. But people screenshot tweets anyway so not overly helpful?
  • no @ mentions without permission: this is good. Just a bit more control, especially when it comes to the more hideous side of Twitter
  • tweet only to a certain group: a little like Instagram’s close friends, in a way I suppose. Make sure your tweets only go to a certain group. An extension of lists (if you have any) perhaps — allowing you to communicate with those certain people only
  • bonus feature: threads labelled as threads:

Facebook’s new identity

Launched this week, Facebook unveiled their new corporate identity. It’s interesting, and will probably help people understand that their favourite apps are actually owned by Facebook, which is a good thing or bad thing, depending on how you feel about them.

We all know which apps they use, but I don’t know how widely it’s known the FB own Instagram and WhatsApp. I suppose this all helps with that. Anyway, I quite like what they’ve done. Here’s their official blog post on it.

And just quickly…

  • Google’s Lighthouse helps you build accessible websites, giving you a score to show how you’re doing. But some people have worked out how to make the most inaccessible site possible, yet with a perfect accessibility score. It gets a bit techy but is very interesting.
  • Bloodwise are rebranding and they’re handling it really well. Open, honest, brave… All good things. TCT’s CEO sums up the Third Sector headline very well for us all. Excited to see it all roll out.
  • Dr Richard Berks is on fire right now, and here he is with some great end-of-year round up content advice, specifically aimed at medical research charities. It’s good stuff with some great examples.
  • This NHSuk tweet about rice had an engagement rate of 49.35%. Seriously. And accounted for 33% of all link clicks from our Twitter in October.
  • Hit me up if you’ve run an app download campaigns across social, I would love to talk to you!
  • Marie Curie launched a new TV ad. It’s below. Definitely a great call to action — talking about death is important and this looks great. I’m good with the light-hearted approach. Tbh though I think the song is unnecessary. It’s not catchy enough to get stuck in my head like the NSPCC’s pants song (click at your peril), and I don’t think it really adds anything. Obviously different audiences etc etc. And it could just be me. The shorter, preview/social edit is better content imho.

Joseph Freeman

Written by

Social & digital media lead in healthcare. London-loving husband & father of two. Social media, digital culture, charities, tech for good. Just my thoughts.

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