In an exciting announcement Instagram posted on their own business blog that scheduling posts will now be part of the Instagram Graph API.

This is great news but isn’t being rolled out to the public. The feature is exclusive to software developers using Instagram’s platform API like Cortex, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, etc.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, this won’t be native to the product itself.

Of course if you work with an agency, like Pandemic Labs, all your weekend and 3am posting is covered. No need to worry and now all it means is that we don’t need to set an alarm to wake our Creative Director so he can do it.

Cayman Cookout, Grand Cayman

Each year, over President’s Day weekend, The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman and Eric Ripert host the island’s most anticipated culinary event – Cayman Cookout. World-renowned chefs come together to create an unforgettable and delicious experience, including the hilarious José Andrés, legendary Emeril Lagasse and most interesting man in the world, Anthony Bourdain.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend their 9^th installment to cover the events through social media on The Ritz-Carlton brand’s major channels. From watching José Andrés and Emeril Lagasse jet ski onto Seven Mile Beach and pop champagne, to playing shot roulette with Tim Love after he showed us how to cook the perfect steak, these four days were some of the most memorable of my life (#RCMemories).

But it wasn’t all fun and games. My 10+ years as a social media consumer and 1.5 as a social media account executive prepared me as much as possible for the comprehensive campaign we had planned; but with about 10 events happening each day on opposite ends of the hotel, candid moments among spirited chefs and unpredictable weather, being flexible was also integral to the campaign’s success.

Our strategy was to capture as much live content as possible for Twitter and Instagram stories (The Ritz-Carlton brand’s debut on this format) to raise awareness for the event, while also gathering recipes, quotes, videos and images to later turn into long-form content for @RitzCarltonChefs Instagram account, Pinterest, and Facebook. Understanding each channels’ strengths, formats and the ways in which they are consumed was key to allocating my time and attention to each event.

I began every morning by trying to memorize times and locations of cooking demonstrations so I could be in the right place at the right time. I was never without my bag of essentials – press pass to enter events ahead of time, Theta for seeking out 360 photo opportunities, itinerary, shot list, phone and portable charger. Overlapping beach demos meant obnoxiously sneaking to the front of the crowd to take pictures of the chefs, listening intently to their ingredients and tips, and waiting until the dish was handed out to snap a picture. Once I got the shot (and devoured the dish) I rushed to the opposite side of the beach to do the same for the next demo.

By Sunday evening we had published 28 live tweets, daily Facebook posts to recap the days’ events, 20+ Instagram Stories, 6 @RitzCarltonChefs posts, and a big enough bank of images for me to #tbt for the rest of my life.

What I got out of this experience was not only an enviable “highlight reel” (and a sunburn), but a fully immersive social media experience. I learned that being able to adapt is just as important to a strategy as a step-by-step plan, as long as you know your overall goal and target audience. I got the chance to meet, collaborate, and learn the crafts of really interesting people also working the event including Tasting Table contributors, incredible photographer Trey Ratcliff and the seasoned Cayman Cookout professionals from the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism. Of course, I couldn’t have done it without my amazing Pandemic Labs team who helped proofread and schedule my content, and FaceTimed me when I needed a reminder to just breathe and enjoy the view.

Speaking of highlight reel…

“What should we watch?”

The rallying cry should ring familiar. Netflix, Hulu and their ilk use sophisticated algorithms to provide tailor-made recommendations based on your viewing habits, and those of your friends.

And Chill takes this to the next, logical inflection: a chat bot you interact with in natural language. The bot analyzes words and phrases to deliver personalized movie recommendations, complemented by a YouTube trailer for the flick it’s suggested. Coolness factor aside – because chatting with an A.I. as if it were a human is nothing if not cool – And Chill is just one more bot heralding the renaissance of chat.

Let’s get something out of the way: there is no static measure or definition of engagement. The word is amorphous, and inherently resistant to a hardline definition. Anyone that tells you that Engagement = X+Y with a  dash of Z mixed in is either deluded or deceitful. The definition cannot be static, by virtue of the varying metrics of success placed on a social media campaign by the brand running it.

In the past hour, while doing my daily blog crawl for news & notes, I’ve come across FIVE articles that address “Facebook Engagement” or “Driving Twitter Engagements” or “Pinning for Success”. All of them lost me within the first two lines of text. I’m done with articles that start out telling me “Social Media is here to stay!” or that “People are 10 Trillion times more likely to engage with PHOTOS on Facebook”. Really? This is still news?

There are fundamental drivers of every human action. Many people are aware of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but there are other theories about our innate motivations as well, such as William Glasser’s ‘Choice Theory’. I’d venture a bet that 95% of readers have encountered one of these lists at least once in their lives. Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, in almost all lists of the basic human needs there is a need called “Love/Belonging”, the need that is fulfilled by acceptance of family, friends, and society at large.

This need to be accepted and respected by others is powerful and universal. We all feel it, and now social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare have thrown us all quite a curve ball in terms of what must occur for us to feel fulfilled in this area. As a result, what was once a genuine effort to fulfill our need for love/belonging has mutated into the most widespread and deep-seated epidemic of narcissism the world has ever seen.