Social Trend Watch – Edition 3

IG Adds Story Likes to Provide Insight on Viewer Engagement

To quote Adam Mosseri himself:

Starting to roll out today (14/02), you can now send some love by liking people’s stories without sending a DM. Likes on stories are private and do not have counts. Rather, they appear as hearts next to people’s handles in your Stories view sheet.

The heart icon will appear down at the bottom of IG Stories, which when tapped, will send the creator a Story like. These are not public, only the creator will be able to see them and creators will be able to view their Story likes in insights. The new metric is a great way to increase Story engagement, potentially adding another signal for IG to use in ranking Stories in-feed, however IG hasn’t indicated as yet that this will be a ranking factor at this stage of the new features roll out.


Super Bowl Ad Central

Another year, another Super Bowl and another load of phenomenal, celebrity, sports star, multi-million dollar Super Bowl ads have graced the internet.

My personal favourite is definitely Zendaya’s Squarespace SB commercial and the story of Sally’s Seashells, narrated by André 3000 see here. I have dropped a couple of links below of some of the best 2022 SB half-time commercials featuring Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan for Lays, Salma Hayek and Arnold Schwarzenegger for BMW and Eugene Levy and Brie Larson for Nissan.


TikTok – The Future of Fashion

The official fashion month hub on TikTok  is here . From the hottest trends to the coolest creators, the future of fashion really is coming to TikTok. From thrifting tips, tricks and destinations, to high fashion models sashaying away down the haute couture runways, TikTok wants users and FashionTok to share all of their looks this month using #FashionForYou.

Scrolling down the page there are also a bunch of TikTok live sessions lined up across fashion month, including:

  • A get ready with Love Island and JD ambassador Chloe Burrows – 16th Feb
  • Hypebeast chatting all things sneakers – 16th Feb
  • For an hour out of her 24, Molly Mae is discussing all things PLT – 16th Feb
  • Michael Aldag is live from LFW – 18th Feb

There is loads more to explore across the page including features such as Future Faces, Spotlight On and British Fashion Council x Newgen to showcase the fashion stars of tomorrow! 

ID Magazine have been utilising #fashionforyou across their last 4 days worth of TikTok’s – with their most viewed posts including Euphoria star Alexa Demie’s Style evolution – see here – and their sustainable wardrobe DIY classes – see here – ensuring their Fashion Month content is trending and reaching followers and wider target audiences on TikTok.


Series Spotlight – Bel-Air – The Fresh Prince is Back…But With a Dramatised New Angle and Cast

This is still a story all about how Will’s life got flipped and turned upside down, but just not as comedy centric as the 1990’s Will Smith series. Bel-air is executively produced by Will Smith, and backed by his and wife Jada’s Westbrook Studio production company alongside Universal, however it’s a re-imagination of the beloved sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” set in modern-day America through a new, dramatic take on Will’s complicated journey from the streets of West Philadelphia to the gated mansions of Bel Air.

This has been one of the NOW Team’s key February titles, so check out our assets shared across IG, FB and TW.

WDS x NOW – Bel-Air Pre-TX TW Thread Frame 1

TikTok – Rimmel London #KindAndFree – Campaign Spotlight

Seen #KindAndFree on your FYP this week? Well the # and trend is sponsored by Rimmel London and they, along with their influencers used across the campaign, want users to:

  • “Express your confidence and show us how you live #KindAndFree! The best beauty look is being kind to yourself and others — join in with your unique spin on self-love and share clips of you feeling good! “

Rimmel products from concealer, foundation, brows and lashes are featured across creators videos. Currently, RL’s #KindAndFree TikTok campaign has generated a total of 1.7B Views, with their two pinned campaign videos on their page, see here and here, generating a total of 43M views, 150.3K likes and 1.6K shares.


The Batman is Coming…

Arguably one of Warner Bros biggest releases of 2022, and the press tour has already started for the stars ahead of the films March 4th release date. The Batman cast of Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Colin Farrell, and Jeffrey Wright, all sat down with Fandango All Access last week to share which past Batman they love the most, why they were drawn to Matt Reeves’s new take on the DC classic, and how each other actors’ performance choices informed their own. Robert Pattinson also sat down with GQ last week to break down his most iconic characters, with The Batman arguably getting the longest feature from 05:15-10:40. There is definitely a lot more media and press to come for this film before it’s highly anticipated release next month!