From now on, when your friends ask if you want to go to happy hour, your reply can be “is the Pope on Instagram?” because the answer is most definitely yes. Read more on today’s Weekly Rewind.
#NoFilterNecessary
Pope Francis decided to get an early start on his Easter celebration and expand his social presence. Already known as the only Pope to take selfies, he has once again confirmed his status as the hippest leader of the Vatican by joining Instagram. He chose @Franciscus as his handle and gained more than a million followers within the first 12 hours. Talk about giving a whole new meaning to #blessed.
Happy Birthday, Twitter!
This week Twitter used exactly 140 characters to thank users on its 10th birthday. To celebrate, the social media site made a video montage recapping revolutionary moments from the past decade, both personal and political. Although it has seen a recent decline in usage, Twitter managed to remind us of the amazing things it has made possible, giving us a major case of #thefeels. Thanks for the memories, Twitter, even though you have distracted us from our creative process more often than not.
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work.
Expedia has teamed up with St. Jude Children’s Hospital to launch “Dream Adventures,” a virtual reality program that allows patients to adventure across the world while never having to leave their treatment facility. The experience is made possible with interactive live streaming from a 360-degree camera in places like Argentina and Playa del Carmen. At the end of the video, Expedia encourages customers to donate their rewards points to the children of St. Jude. Props to you, Expedia. This partnership is not only a great way to drive sales and increase awareness, but there are also far worse ways of spending marketing dollars than by making children happy.
Apple’s (not-so) Big Reveal
Apple just announced the first new iPhone nobody seems to care about. The Apple SE comes with a 4-inch display and is available for $399, bringing good news to your bank account, but what does it mean for digital advertisers? Will the smaller screens negatively affect conversion rates or will they leave less room for competing ads? The phone has received mixed reviews among industry pros, but fret not, the Apple SE is expected to have limited sales in the U.S.
Prince of Madness
After a devastating loss to Yale in the first round of the NCAA tournament, Baylor forward Taurean Prince had no time (or patience) for dumb questions. When asked how his team was outrebounded by Yale, Prince kept his cool as he gave a very literal explanation on how rebounds worked:
“You go up and grab the ball off the rim when it comes off, and then you grab it with two hands, and you come down with it, and that’s considered a rebound. So they got more of those than we did.”
A tad bit patronizing, but we love it. Let this be a lesson to all media: stop being so lazy when asking questions.