This Week in Social Media & Style | Dec. 5th 2016

Home & Style Trends

• Now trending: South-American minimalism. A warmer, brighter, more exuberant, and colorful take on the minimalist trend we’ve been seeing for the past few years, this take on south-of-the-border style is a welcome change from the staid and stuffy black-and-white trend of years past. — Via Apartment Therapy

• Spotted: a move to ultra-minimal and contemporary flatlays and moodboards in the interiors, product, and apparel industry. — Via DesignMilk

Austrian designer Carl Auböck’s brass, metal, and leather decor pieces are getting picked up again by a variety of luxury retailers.

• The life and style of Austrian designer Carl Auböck is of new interest to those-in-the-know. As southwestern design, natural textures, organic elements, and brass continue to trend in the home decor and furnishings space, it’s no suprise that Auböck’s designs from the 30’s and beyond are getting picked up and re-purposed again.

“ A defining figure of Austrian modernism, Carl Auböck designed sculptural yet functional brass objects that created art of everyday items. Fusing craft and modernism, Auböck’s simple forms display a deep understanding and respect of materials and process. Carl Auböck bookends are a notable and sought after piece.After studying at the Bauhaus, Carl Auböck repositioned the workshop founded by his father by defining a playful design language for the line of metal objects produced at the Werkstätte Carl Auböck. Brass paperweights take on the form of hands or chains, skeleton keys hide corkscrews and sculptural forms also function as bookends. Today, Werkstätte Carl Auböck is a fourth-generation family-run workshop still operating from the original Viennese townhouse. The workshop continues to produce about 450 objects from it’s classic collection.”

Social Media News & Trends

• Smashbox cosmetics joins in on the VR trend with a six-minute long documentary designed to be viewed on headsets. The Estée Lauder brand used 360-degree video to take viewers on a tour of Smashbox Studios, the fashion photography studio in Los Angeles’ Culver City. — Via Glossy
• Twitter bans Trump bots on the platform, thousands of automated accounts replying to President-Elect’s tweets suspended. — Via IBTimes
• Snapchat has somehow managed to make wearable tech glasses that record and photograph your worldly view cool. More about their democratic approach to PR and product launches here. — Via Glossy.
• In a bold move away from the beauty industry’s status-quo, Lancome has ditched their mobile app in favor of a robust and agile digital experience on their website. The new site allows users to browse products by skin care, makeup and fragrance categories. It also features an online-only promotions section, a rewards program, and an editorial component titled “Beauty Mag” that houses lifestyle content. For their new and improved site, Lancome utilized Progressive Web App (or PWA) technology to build a responsive site that possessed the utility and functionality of an app.
• Everlane tests social shopping on Snapchat via a major push on Sweet Magazine’s Discover channel. Everlane, a company known for radical transparency and a millennial focus when it comes to their clientele, has an open and affable presence on line. Mirroring their commitment to transparency, “The company regularly teases new products, records factory and office tours and answers customer questions on its own Snapchat account. “ — Via Glossy.
• Viewership for Snapchat’s live stories are stagnating, proving that the feature is no longer a priority for media buyers and advertisers. Live Stories is one of two media-driven features inside the Snapchat app. Existing alongside Discover on the Stories and Discover pages, Live Stories provides content curated around different events and topics — everything from a big NBA game to the ongoing conflict in Mosul. Content includes photos and videos shot by users as well as the event organizers, when applicable. “[Live Stories] are for an opportunistic moment and less of a strategic pillar — the icing on the cake, but the cake is still user stories and video reach across the platform holistically,” said Mike McLaughlin, managing director of digital for WPP-owned Mindshare. — Via Digiday
• Compared to other social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, Twitter’s performance in regards to driving traffic to websites is ‘absymal’ according to a recent article published by Digiday. Some publishers and brands are making the move to dedicate less time and resources towards Twitter, while others are staying the course. Among those who count the platform as ‘essential’ are News publishers, who rely on Twitter as an essential source of news and lead-generating. — Via Digiday
• “As Facebook tries to become more like TV, one particular feature is proving to be a huge hit among analysts and media buyers alike. […]The company has been testing out a dedicated video tab inside its mobile app among a small group of users over the past year, as it aims to make video a more integral part of its mobile offering. The tab appears on its bottom menu alongside the notifications, timeline, marketplace and settings tabs, and opens up into a separate video hub, delivering a feed of live videos and other video content based on a user’s subscriptions or interests. For media analysts and media buyers, the dedicated video vertical firmly equips Facebook to grab more ad dollars from TV.” — Via Digiday

• “Google and Rag & Bone teamed up to show that virtual reality’s not just for gamers and geeks. The two have created a six-minute VR documentary that will be available on the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s YouTube channel. Produced by VR firm Two Bit Circus, the documentary gives an inside look at the brand just before and during its New York Fashion Week show in September. And although it is available to all YouTube users as a 360-degree video, Google is hoping that viewers will try watching with its new $79 VR headset, the Daydream View, which was released in November. The headset requires a Daydream-ready phone, which for now means a Motorola Z or Google’s Pixel.” — Via Women’s Wear Daily

LOFT’s Snapchat account offers up a fun and accessible peek behind the brand.

• “Loft is late to Snapchat, but it’s already rolled out a strategy to get its followers on the app to shop from its Stories. The women’s retailer (which dropped the ‘Ann Taylor’ from its name a few years ago) started its Snapchat account last weekend by posting about a trip to Chicago for an event. The social team incorporated its products into the trip, first with a packing tutorial, then a tour of the city, with Loft products serving as the subject. Loft then used Snapchat’s Memories function to upload straightforward product shots of the items featured during the tour. Some, like a shot of a belt, were photographed to give an idea of their size. A super-thin belt was rolled up and placed next to a lipstick to demonstrate how little space it would take up in a suitcase, for example. Other Memory uploads simply showed a product page with the name of the item. In case that wasn’t specific enough, to get Snapchat followers there, the brand included the style number, the unique SKU that can be Googled to get to an e-commerce store’s product page.” — Via Glossy
• “Snapchat might be a hard nut to crack for many brand marketers because of its lack of metrics. But Birchbox knows how to turn its Snapchat followers into buying consumers through a simple trick: Vanity URLs.

Kiehl’s monetizes Snapchat stories by providing shortened urls to product pages.

Over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, Birchbox created a simple URL — birch.ly/Steals — exclusively for Snapchat to showcase its special holiday deals like Kiehl’s skincare set. The company saw more traffic to its site from this hack than organic Facebook posts. “Previously, we had no way of knowing whether or not Snapchat could directly affect traffic,” said Julia Casella, social media manager for Birchbox. “But now, we’ve seen that our followers will actually screenshot our snaps and manually type in the URL we’ve provided.” — Via Digiday

• Finally, read how Herschel Supply Co’s Community Manager builds her brand’s story, voice, and direction across social media here. — Via Planoly.