Half of Facebook post reach happens in the first half hour
Research by Socialbakers has revealed that 50% of the reach of a Facebook page’s posts occurs in the first half hour, and 80% in the first 3 hours. The below chart, based on a sample of 1,000 posts, displays the real-time minute-by-minute increase in reach.

Time spent on Google+ far behind Facebook
Google+ users spent an average of 6 minutes 47 seconds on the network during March, a far cry from the 6 hour 44 minute average on rival platform Facebook. Whilst this does represent growth from the 3.3 minutes spent in February 2012, in contrast to Facebook’s dip from 7 hours 9 minutes in March 2012, the rate at which G+ is catching up can be, by these figures at least, dismissed as negligible. Figures reported by Nielsen also revealed 20 million unique US users of the G+ Android and iPhone apps, a 238% increase from March 2012 and 28 million desktop users, up 63% in the same period. However, there is likely to be some crossover between the two groups. In fact, accusations have come in that Google+ is essentially a ‘desolate wasteland’, based on the activity of the top 100 global brands. According to research by Millward Brown, 40% of these posted to Google+ either infrequently or not at all, with seventeen (including Nike and Pepsi) not having posted anything for over a week. McDonald’s, as shown below, have never had a single post.

How much Vines are shared
Research has been produced into how much branded Vines are shared to celebrate the app turning 100 days old. They discovered that branded Vines are shared 4x as often as branded online videos and, of the top 100 most shared, 4% of Vines were branded, compared to 1% of online videos. In total, 5 Vines are shared per second; more of these come during the weekend than the rest of the week combined. Time-wise, Vine frequency peaks from 10am-11am Eastern Time.

75% of top US retailers and restaurants are on Foursquare
Three quarters of the US top 100 retailers and top 100 restaurants are now on Foursquare, of which a full list can be found here. As for smaller businesses, Foursquare claim that over 1 million businesses have been claimed, but this includes some chain stores; only 17% have ever tried a promotion with the network. Larger businesses are seeing a positive effect from their campaigns; Bloomin’ Brands had 678 users redeem an offer for Outback stores in Richmond, VA, which gave a free appetiser for every second check in. Karen Soots, VP of media services at Bloomin’ Brands, praised the campaign’s effect, saying that if they were to do that nationwide at many restaurants over three weeks, it’s “millions of dollars in incremental revenue”.

Facebook about to spend some more pocket money
After last years acquisition of Instagram, it was widely considered that Facebook’s major acquisition strategy was primarily defensive rather than offensive. Yet this week there are rumours that Facebook are in final stages of talks with mobile-device driving application Waze, in a deal that could be worth as much as US$1 billion. Waze is a crowd-sourced GPS driving app with just shy of 50 million users, and this acquisition sees Facebook taking another step into the mobile world, whilst acquiring a hugely valuable asset in the map space. It is a hugely proactive shift for Facebook, looking to cement their positioning in the mobile market place, after the launch and subsequent fall of Home in the past few weeks. Keep. Your. Eyes. Peeled.

Hamilton Island and Weibo Announce Landmark
In an industry first, Tencent, China’s largest social network with over 800million+ active users has partnered with Australia’s Hamilton Island to broadcast the Great Barrier Reef island to the booming China market.

This week Hamilton Island is launching its official Tencent Weibo channel, kicking off the partnership and commencing its strategic deep engagement with China’s affluent travellers of the future. Working closely with Tencent, and Hamilton Island’s first Chinese ambassador Chao Xian Yang, Hamilton Island plans to build a strong Tencent Weibo community and fan base for Whitsundays’ island.

When should you pin?
A new study by Digitas and Curalate recently shed some light on Pinterest engagement specific to the Fashion/Retail, Automotive and Electronics sectors. For all three markets, the study revealed that, unlike Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest is all about users telling the brand story. In fact, 70 percent of brand engagement on Pinterest is generated by users versus brands. See more here

Target launch deals with Facebook
Retailer Target has produced a set of offers, which will automatically generate Facebook posts when claimed, unless the user turns this feature off. Starting with around 700 discount offers and expected to grow to 1,000, the campaign is set to be hosted on a Target website called ‘Cartwheel’. Users can claim a deal at any point, producing a unique barcode that tracks every offer they claim. This barcode is then scanned at checkout. Cartwheel works seamlessly with mobile, meaning that a discount can be claimed at any point in the process, even as you’re walking towards the checkout.

AA’s first class lounge open to those with high Klout scores
American Airlines have decided to open their ‘Admirals Club’ lounges free of charge to those with high Klout scores, regardless of whether they’re due to fly with AA. Anyone with a score of over 55 will qualify for a free one-day pass in any one of 40 airports and can take advantage of the benefits including free WiFi and beer. The campaign hopes that these people will then tweet or post to Facebook expressing their gratitude, though this is not a requirement of claiming the offer.

Huggies ‘TweetPee’
This week, in weird app news… introducing ‘TweetPee’, a nappy sensor plus Twitter alert that tells parents when their baby needs changing. The campaign from Brazil also allows parents to keep track of the number of Huggies they’ve used and even order online when they’re running low. The campaign is certainly a fun and innovative one – we wonder how many parents will be hooking their children’s nappies up to Twitter.

Coke zero’s #motherpiece campaign for forgetful children
Yesterday marked Mother’s Day in many countries across the world, the day of the year that celebrates children forgetting to get their mum anything. Coke Zero to the rescue! They targeted absent-minded children (particularly boys, for some reason) and asked them to tweet their best excuses with the hashtag #motherpieces, pushing the campaign through a set of promoted tweets. The best entries were then selected to send in a personal photo, with 10 classically-trained painters on hand to create a ‘motherpiece’ of the winner. If they sent in their home address, they’d also receive a framed copy. Mother’s Day salvaged.

A social farewell to Sir Alex Ferguson
Last week, the news broke of Sir Alex Ferguson retiring after 27 years in charge of English Premier League football club Manchester United. Twitter was quick to react, with over 1.4 million mentions of the story in the hour following its announcement.

Sir Alex Ferguson retires. #thankyousiralex

— ManUtd_PressOffice (@ManUtd_PO) May 8, 2013

The hashtag #thankyousiralex, used in all of MUFC’s communication surrounding the topic, was mentioned more than 100,000 times in the first hour. The hashtag ended up being one of many trends – the story took up 8 of the trending spots in the UK and 4 worldwide. A number of brands managed to jump on the bandwagon, too; both Nando’s and Premier Inn poked fun at the idea of ‘Fergie time’, the inexplicable period of extra time added whenever Manchester United needed points.

In honour of Sir Alex Ferguson we’re proud to introduce #NandosFergieTime – all our Manchester Nando’s will be open 5 minutes later tonight.

— Nando’s (@NandosUK) May 8, 2013

As tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson’s 26 yrs at #MUFC you can request a #fergietime checkout this Sunday in Manchester to get 26 extra minutes

— Premier Inn (@premierinn) May 8, 2013

Our tribute to #siralex: Special Edition Packet: ow.ly/i/242tV #mufc #fergie

— Golden Wonder (@GoldenWonderUK) May 8, 2013

Our friends at Salesforce sent me this quick guide to creating the perfect Facebook post. It highlights some very useful tips on how to structure a killer Facebook post.

I would also add:

• Create content that appeals to emotions rather than our rationality
• Create content that hits the sweetspot between brand goals, community interests and conversation trends
• Post with positive sentiment generate high engagement than posts with negative sentiment
• Amplify highly engaging posts using Facebook Promoted Posts to add fuel to the fire.
• Use status updates if your goal is to deliver higher reach (up to 10x photo posts)

This week; Ryan Gosling hits Vine, pantone food pairings and a year away from the Internet. 

It’s that time again, see the highlights of this week on the web.

OPEN-WIDE: Ryan Gosling won’t eat his cereal.

INSPIRING: Kellin Quinn makes this girls dream a reality.  

DISCONNECTED: Finding Paul Miller.

PAIRED: Pantone food pairings.

MESMERISING: A video made for Pictoplasma Festival.

ALMOST: You had one job.

BREATHTAKING: Some pretty awesome photography.

PAT-A-CAKE: World Baking Day.

CRACKERS: Crazy cat people have nothing on crazy squirrel people.

COPYCAT: 16 reasons you should never reenact Pinterest photos.

(Image via)

8 out of 10 Australian users connect with brands
According to eMarketer, this year 11.4 million people in Australia - more than half of the population - will be social network users. And that’s not all. According to a December 2012 survey from Latitude Insights and The Social Hatch, 82% of social media users had connected with a brand via a social site.

On Facebook nearly three out of 10 users reported connecting with 11 or more brands.

Half of Australia’s social brands don’t talk to customers
A recent survey has shown that of the ASX100 companies, only 50% are using social media to talk to their customers. Telstra, Coca Cola and Woolworths have more than 340,000 Facebook fans each, but at the time of checking, none of the companies had responded to any of the last of 10 posts on their timelines according to The Australian.

Retailers Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi have disabled comments on their Facebook pages.

With Australians being some of the most brand friendly social media users in the world (see above article), not engaging these users in conversation or actively listening and creating a dialogue is not just a missed opportunity, but a misunderstanding of the role of social media in marketing.

Social is a conversation. If you want to talk more about how you can be part of the conversation, then let’s chat.

Facebook report Q1 earnings & increase in monthly active users
Facebook has reported its earnings for Q1 2013, announcing revenue of $1.45bn, up 38% from Q1 2012. 85% of total revenue came from advertising, amounting to $1.25bn, up 43% from Q1 2012.

The network simultaneously noted an increase in Monthly Active Users (MAUs). While growth slowed down in markets like the US, Canada and Europe, MAUs were up from 901 million in Q1 2012 to 1.1bn a year later, while Daily Active Users (DAUs) increased from 526 million to 665 million in the same period.

A great deal of this growth was down to mobile. Q1 2013 saw 751 million mobile MAUs compared to 488 million the year before, while there are now 189 million Mobile Only MAUs.

Twitter appoints Cynthia Gaylor as head of corporate development
Twitter has fuelled rumours of plans for an IPO with the appointment of ex-Morgan Stanley investment banker Cynthia Gaylor, who worked on the public offerings of Facebook, LinkedIn and Zynga. In what was her first ever tweet, she said:

@amac @twitter @jess look forward to joining and focusing on M&A + strategy. pointed north … let the migration begin!

— cynthia gaylor (@cynthiag) May 2, 2013

Twitter was valued at $9bn after an offer to staff in January and is set to hit global ad revenue of $1bn by 2014. This, along with the above appointment, has led to speculation by The New York Times that “next big step is to go public on the stock market, and insiders say the current goal is to have an initial public offering in 2014″.

Twitter ads now available to all US users
Twitter’s self-serve ads interface, launched in March 2012, is now available to all US users. Previously accessible only by invite, Twitter has used the period to improve on a number of features, from targeting to reporting, and decided to open the self-serve platform to everyone in the US. All you need to do to gain access is visit the page at business.twitter.com and answer a few questions. There has been concern that the increased demand will lead to either a boost in the number of ads appearing in users’ streams, or the price of ads. Russ Laraway, senior director of small- and medium-sized business at Twitter, has stated that “There will be no change in the frequency with which ads show up in timelines”, though it is not clear how price will be affected.

‘Photos of You’ on Instagram
Instagram has launched ‘Photos of You’, which essentially allows Facebook-style tagging of people and brands in photos. Previously, users would @-mention one another, as if on Twitter, to perform a similar function. This form of tagging comes with another key feature: it makes a full archive of all photos someone has been tagged in that appear on that user’s profile, assuming they have given permission. To prevent privacy complaints, Instagram has built controls that allow manual selection of which photos are visible to others. The feature looks to foster increased communication between individuals, but may also be beneficial for brands to interact with each other, as well as influencers with high follower counts and normal users.

Twitter updates Vine for iOS
Twitter has produced a couple of updates for the Vine iOS app, including the ability to shoot with the front-facing camera and tag others in posts. Where it was previously only possible to shoot with the camera on the back of the phone, the screenshot below displays a small button in the bottom left of the screen that allows switching between cameras. You can also see that @-mentioning is set to work much like on Twitter, Vine’s parent platform.

Path exceeds 10 million users
Path, the social network that limits you to 150 friends, has exceeded 10 million users for the first time. After reaching 2 million in Feb 2012 and 3 million in June 2012, the figure sees a large milestone for the platform. They’ve since added a search feature in December and released version 3.0 in March this year, which supported messaging. While the number of registered users is an impressive start for Path, it will be interesting to examine how many active users they manage to retain.

Where does brands’ Pinterest engagement come from?
According to a study by Digitas and Curalate, 30% of engagement on Pinterest comes from brand accounts. The remaining 70% comes from users pinning content from outside of brands’ Pinterest accounts.

J.C. Penney asks fans to come back on social media
Last year, J.C. Penney decided to get rid of sales and coupons, focussing instead on regular, low prices. The move was a disaster and they’ve recently taken to social media in an attempt to remedy it. They took to Twitter with the hashtag #jcplistens, whereby fans were asked which changes should be kept and which reversed. The move is a nice example of a brand using social media honestly, in an attempt to connect with fans. It will be interesting to see if it helps their ailing figures.

Mountain Dew purchases promoted tweets for apology
Another example of a big brand mistake was Mountain Dew’s ‘Felicia the Goat’ advert, which was criticised as both racist and misogynistic. Last week, they purchased promoted tweets to expand the reach of their apology, letting users know that they had pulled the advert. It’s an interesting idea: on the one hand, it allows the apology to be seen by as many people as possible. However, it also provides potentially unnecessary promotion to the original issue.

Lowe’s post six-second tips on Vine
Lots of brands are using Vine. Some are doing it well, some aren’t. Hardware storeLowe’s has strongly entered the former camp with their latest campaign, using Vine to post six-second home improvement tips. The medium brings to life content that is relevant but not necessarily exciting, while the tips themselves are useful, not an unnecessary experiment with a new medium. As such, the form and content compliment one another perfectly.

Stripped screw? No problem, just use a rubber band. #lowesfixinsix #howto vine.co/v/bU61aqq2YOp

— Lowe’s (@Lowes) April 21, 2013

Any sticker peels right off when you use a hair dryer. #lowesfixinsix #tip #stopmotion vine.co/v/bPH2WPpnA7r

— Lowe’s (@Lowes) April 24, 2013

Red Bull’s ‘Imaginate’ Pinterest puzzles
Red Bull is asking fans to solve Pinterest puzzles based on stunts performed by trials cyclist Danny MacAskill. Six videos will be released, each showing a different trick, which fans must watch in order to solve a puzzle on Pinterest. This involves pinning content in the correct order to create an image of MacAskill. Those who do so correctly will be entered into a draw to win signed photos of the cyclist.

Hugh Jackman answers Wolverine questions
To promote the upcoming release of ‘The Wolverine’, in which he plays the title character, Hugh Jackman answered the Twitter questions of 11 fans in a series of YouTube videos. He also tweeted the answers and posted links to the videos from his official @RealHughJackman account. This is the latest in a series of social stunts around the film, including a 6-second ‘Tweaser’ released through Twitter’s Vine app.

This week; kitty exercising, the worlds best mum and Obama the movie. 

Sit back, relax and have a laugh at what’s going on this week on the Internet.

DELIGHTFUL: Cute babies in mugs.

CREEPY: One tiny hand.

RETWACT: A chance to retract a tweet.

TRIPPING: Taking screenshots to the next level.

ATMOSPHERIC: A sexy sax player gives the public a show.

MEOW: Sports balls replaced with cats.

PREMIERED: Spielberg presents ‘Obama’ the movie.

SUPERMUM: Artist draws super powered canines on her son’s lunch napkins.

SWEATY: Give your kitty some exercise.

BOOGIE: A bird with some serious moves.

(Image via)

The following article is syndicated from yesterday’s B&T article on the AP Twitter hacking scandal.

The article features We Are Social’s own Julian Ward who lays down insights and a few ideas on how to offset a potential crisis.

–

The hacking of Associated Press’ (AP) official Twitter feed last week was a sobering reminder of the unparalleled and unchecked power of the Twittersphere.

Last Tuesday a cyber hacking group known as The Syrian Electronic Army broke into AP’s account and posted a bogus Tweet declaring there had been explosions at the White House.

The Tweet, which claimed president Barack Obama had been injured in the attack, sent the stock market momentarily into freefall as Wall Street responded to the news.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped almost 150 points in a matter of seconds before bouncing back when traders realised the tweet was fake.

The event showcased the enormous degree of trust global corporations have put in the social network to deliver them true insights – a trust which is now in question. Twitter’s simplistic security measures clearly need to be addressed.

But it also threw the spotlight on the shortcomings of automated data monitoring services used by corporations and businesses the world over to gain real time insights, Julian Ward, MD of We Are Social told B&T.

“It probably wasn’t even people the hackers were targeting. The real target looked to be the automated monitoring services for social media and the news sites.

“Some of these services scan 50,000 news sources and millions of social media sites and profiles, sifting through the data in an attempt to make some sense of the mass of information.

“Whereas an agency like ours is looking for real insight and emerging issues to offset potential crisis, the trading world is looking to execute on relevant strings of words in a micro second, so effectively without human analysis and without time for intervention,” he said.

The Tweet, posted at 10:07am on the 23^rd of April, read: “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured”.

According to Ward, the style and tone of the post was not typically ‘AP’. But data monitoring services don’t pick up nuances, and therein lies one of the greatest dangers of automated analytics.

“Questions have arisen around the unusual style of the news post, with it clearly not looking to blend in. It seemed to be a blatant attempt to trigger set up monitoring alerts which connected the string of keywords, packaged this as trading system data and delivered it in less than one thousandth of a second, triggering the algorithmic trading spiral – straight down,” said Ward.

“Access to this sort of data is incredibly powerful if you have the means to accurately interpret it. The scary side is the ease at which you could manipulate the systems in the trading domain.”

One of the major issues raised by the hacking has been Twitter’s lack of security.

According to international reports, Twitter is currently considering adding a two-step approval practice which would see Tweeters forced to log in with both their regular user name and password in addition to an extra code, which would be sent to a different device or email.

“Security is definitely an issue they are going to have to have a look it,” said Tommy Tudehope, social media strategist at Social@Ogilvy. “All organisations need to consider their security software and passwords and who has access to accounts. We know that hacking is on the rise and those who are engaged in hacking often have the best tools at their disposal and are pushing the boundaries every single day. So there is a case for increasing the security around social media tools.”

While Tudehhope believes stronger passwords might solve the problem – “ Many organisations still use the most simplistic password like ‘password’” he says – Ward believes the two step process has merit.

“Two step verification can help protect an account if a password is obtained,” he said. “It’s a simple enough approach that stops more basic attacks and means that dedicated hackers will need to have your physical phone or to have compromised the secondary device as well.

“The real world issue is many of the accounts that would be prime hacking targets would be using various management applications and possibly have multiple people contributing, so there are some obvious questions around practicality and whether this could or even would be used.”

And if not to protect reputation, publishers will no doubt be pressuring the social network to improve security to prevent severe legal ramifications from the distribution of false information.

Nick Economidis, an underwriter with Beazley, a financial-services company in London that sells data-breach insurance, told The Age at the time of the hacking:

‘‘A media publisher conceivably could be sued for negligence if things are published under their name that is not true and if they didn’t take reasonable steps to prevent the erroneous publication of information.

‘‘Some people may have lost money in the market today based on the news story. Those people may seek redress against the Associated Press.’’

The FBI is currently investigating the hackings.

6 Winning Vines from Tribeca Film Festival
The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival in New York took the term ‘Short Film’ to a new level this year by acknowledging Vine videos. Over 400 submissions were received, from which 6 winners were chosen.

“We were most impressed with the creativity at play when it came to the submissions, after all, making a film or even telling a story in six seconds is not an easy feat,” said Genna Terranova, Tribeca Film Festival’s programming director.

The app, owned by Twitter, is proving to be hugely successful for brands, filmmakers and public alike.

Australian kids turn apps into record numbers
A 2013 survey published by Cartoon Network has recently revealed that around 7 in 10 children between the ages of 4 to 14 are now using apps. This is almost two times the figure recorded in the same survey done in 2011.

Kleenex “Share the Softness”
Kleenex Australia have recently launched a campaign asking consumers to pledge to do something special for friends, loved ones or anyone they care about. The campaign – called “Share the Softness” – drives customers to visit the Kleenex Australia website and ‘make a pledge’ to add to the wall of softness. Here’s the ad:

The Guardian Twitter accounts hacked
The Guardian’s Twitter accounts have allegedly been hacked. Over the weekend the British newspaper claimed that several of it’s Twitter accounts were compromised, and that they’d suspended their other account, including those on books and film, until control was recovered.

New layout for pages on Facebook mobile
Facebook has updated the way pages appear on mobile, citing a number of benefits for users and page owners. For the former, they note a ‘cleaner, simpler look’, with relevant information, such as photos and location, positioned alongside interaction buttons at the top of the page. These seem to constitute benefits for page owners too, who will look to benefit from higher engagement as a result of the changes. As well as this, they’re set to be provided with the ability to pin important posts and a streamlined management tool. To see how the changes will appear for different users, see the image below:

Twitter testing two-factor authentication
Twitter has begun testing two-factor authentication, in a move that looks to prevent a continuation of the high-profile hackings that have happened recently. From the Associated Press to FIFA president Sepp Blatter, a number of large, verified accounts have been taken over, posting strange and often embarrassing content. Whilst two-factor authentication would be unlikely to be rolled out universally, for the sake of avoiding hassle on smaller, personal accounts, it would likely be a welcome move for brands and public figures. Google and Facebook both already offer a similar system.

LinkedIn launch ‘Contacts’
LinkedIn have introduced a new service called ‘Contacts’. Essentially, it takes details of contacts from various areas of your phone or computer, including email accounts, calendars and address books and compiles them in one place, allowing you to interact with people more easily and maintain important relationships. The service will be launched both on the LinkedIn platform and as a standalone mobile app. The full details are contained in the following slides:

Tumblr introduce in-steam mobile ads
For the first time, Tumblr will include ads on mobile that look like normal posts. Previously, adverts only appeared in “Radar”, where now mobile users will see up to 4 ads per day in the home stream. With collaborators including GE, Warner Bros and ABC, Tumblr are really set to bulk up their advertising revenue, but claim to be devoted to maintaining the current Tumblr experience. Head of sales Lee Brown has stated that:

This mobile advertising opportunity is native to how our consumers experience content on our apps; as a continuous stream.

Advertised posts will be differentiated from others with a $ symbol. Tumblr have stated that, ultimately, the move will expand to desktop, but there is no timeframe given as yet.

Budweiser’s ‘buddy cup’ app
Budweiser’s new campaign looks to play on the emotional connection created by touching cups during a shared beer. Their new ‘buddy cups’ link to Facebook, so that you can become friends with someone on the network by tapping cups with one another. Now when you drunkenly agree to add someone on Facebook, you won’t have until the morning to change your mind.

We Are Social UK’s design campaign for Kleenex
We Are Social UK have launched a competition to design the new Kleenex Box, partnering with internationally-renowned designer Kelly Hoppen to create a brief asking young creative talent to decorate the box in their own style. Using Talenthouse to collect entries, the final decision will then be made by Kleenex’s Facebook community, who will vote on which design gets made into the next tissue box.

Urban Outfitters and Converse’s joint Vine competition
Fashion retailer UO and trainer brand Converse have partnered to produce a competition on Vine, which asks fans to post a video of ‘A day in the life of your Converse’ for the opportunity to win $1500 in UO gift cards, 10 pairs of trainers and 2 different music related trips, in San Francisco and Brooklyn respectively. Whilst a number of brands have started using Vine to produce content, this is one of the first examples of a more in-depth campaign usage.

Ours go to play Chuck Chuck Goose. Where do #YourChucks go? @converse vine.co/v/bUzhzq5mFUK

— Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) April 17, 2013

Evans support ‘golden bikes’ activity on Twitter
UK bike shop Evans Cycles have partnered with record-holding British Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy for a campaign called ‘Hoy’s Golden Bikes’, for which the Olympian has hidden 3 gold coloured bicycles around the country. Whoever finds them can trade one in for a brand new bike of their own, worth £1000. They’re supporting the activity on Twitter, with clues coming both from the official @chrishoy account and via the hashtag #hoyshiddenbikes.