Hello, we are social. We’re a global conversation agency with offices in Sydney, New York, London, Paris, Milan, Munich, Singapore & São Paulo. We help brands to listen, understand and engage in conversations in social media.
We’re a new kind of agency, but conversations between people are nothing new. Neither is the idea that ‘markets are conversations’.
We’re already helping Heinz, Paypal, Ebay, HP, Kia, Expedia, Sony, Roadshow, Seven Network, NRL, Dilmah, ARIA, Harper Collins & Sydney Water.
If you’d like to chat about us helping you too, then give us a call on (02) 8353-3410 or drop us an email.
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 23rd 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.’’
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.
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.
We Are Social London have launched the Red Bull ‘Instagram Your Inspiration’ campaign and it’s an important milestone for us, as we launch the first ever We Are Social designed billboards.
For those who missed our last blog post about the campaign, here’s some background. To celebrate the launch of Red Bull Editions, we’ve been asking people from all over the country to Instagram inspirational shots featuring red, blue or silver (the colours of the new Red Bull Editions) to @RedBullUK using the hashtags #rededitionplease, #silvereditionplease and #blueeditionplease.
The response has been incredible – we’ve been astounded by the volume and quality of the submissions we’ve seen so far. It’s massively exciting for us to know that across London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Sheffield, passers-by will see a celebration of some of the amazing shots we’ve received. It’s also pretty special to see our campaign blown up on posters too (hey, even we need a break from our screens now and then).
If you’re a budding Instagrammer or you know someone that loves sharing their snaps on the platform, there’s still plenty of time to get involved. If you’re UK based and your Instagram makes it into the Gallery you instantly qualify to try a can of Red Bull Editions, available until early May. If you can get your entry to us by Monday next week you might even be featured on our next round of posters.
Get inspired before you shoot over at redsilverblue.redbull.co.uk. And when you’re ready, follow the instructions below – and happy snapping. Just no boring food photos. And don’t even think about sending us pictures of your cat…
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Tuesday Tune-up!
The value of a Facebook fan? The average value of a Facebook fan has risen by 28% to $174 since 2010, according to a study by Syncapse of 2,000 US residents in January and February 2013. The research compared fans and non-fans in a number of topics, including product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value, cost of acquisition and brand affinity, in order to come up with a monetary value of the average fan. It’s worth noting that there are huge behavioural differences between fans and non-fans in terms of social media, with 2/3 of the former group also fans of more than 10 brand pages. 3/4 are likely to share a good brand experience with Facebook friends and 2/3 a bad one.
Brand page questions up 30% on Facebook From Q4 2012 to Q1 2013, the number of questions asked on Facebook brand pages has increased by 30%, from 953,000 to 1.2 million. This has been accompanied by a 49% increase in answers, from 499,000 to 744,000, suggesting that brands are catching up with the necessity of responding via social media. In fact, the percentage of queries that receive a response is up in every sector; Finance are leading the way with 80%, followed by airlines with just below 80%, whilst alcohol brands prop up the other end of the table with under 40%. Despite this, the time it takes for brands to respond has spiked in the last quarter, bucking a decreasing trend. Down from 20.9 hours in Q2 2012 to 19.5 in Q3 and 13.7 in Q4, the waiting time shot back up to 22.6 hours in Q1.
New Facebook app for iPhone and iPad Facebook has launched a new Facebook app for iPhone and iPad. Major new features include stickers, chat heads, an updated news feed and some changes to photos. Stickers are basically large emoticons; these may present a revenue stream in future with an announced ‘sticker store’, but are currently free. Chat heads, previously announced in ‘Facebook Home’ for Android, will allow users to keep on top of chats wherever they are in the app. The updated News Feed and filters, allowing users to organise what they see depending on whether it was posted by certain friends or people they follow, have been integrated, whilst a couple of photo filters have been added, along with a ‘shared photos’ album containing any images you have sent to particular friends.
Facebook’s Ads API allows cost-per-action pricing Facebook has announced a new method of pricing available through its Ads API, which allows advertisers to choose their favoured action and set a maximum price per action of that type. This means that, rather than limiting budget to ‘price per click’ or similar, brands can choose the action that they value the most and allot spending accordingly. The system is currently available for page likes, link clicks and offer claims, but is likely to expand further in future.
Facebook set to price video ads at US$1 million Despite being yet to finalise the format for its upcoming video ads, Facebook is reportedly asking for US$1 million per day from advertisers to use the system. The adverts, set to be introduced in June or July, will play automatically within the desktop version of Facebook. Four broad demographics have been identified: under-30s and over-30s, divided in turn by gender, with each of these intended to see no more than 3 adverts per day. If Facebook can achieve its asking price, this could serve to be lucrative business for them; however, it’s far from a forgone conclusion that they will succeed in doing so.
Facebook experimenting with ‘Tap to Call’ functionality? Facebook has reportedly been in talks with ‘tap to call’ vendors RingRevenue, Freespree and Synclio, with a view to integrating the functionality to ‘Home’ and its mobile app. ‘Tap to Call’ functionality would allow a button within adverts that users could click to instantly call the brand advertised. If done right, this could see a world of advertising opportunities on Facebook, with the idea already working wonders for Google. However, there are a couple of counterpoints; critics have wondered about how the service may be impacted by the fact that Facebook ads are currently targeted by interests, rather than intent, and how cautious the network is likely to be with the service, potentially more useful for interacting with friends than advertising.
Facebook’s TV ad for ‘Home’ Hot on the heels of their first TV advert, Facebook has produced another, this time starring Mark Zuckerberg himself. The video, below, shows Facebook’s CEO giving a speech to the engineers who built ‘Home’, until one of them drifts off into the imaginary world of the service itself.
Facebook VoIP voice calling rolls out to US users
Late last week it was reported that Facebook had started rolling out its free VoIP voice calling feature to US users of Home and its Android Messenger app, meaning all US iOS and Android users can now call their friends via the Facebook feature. Facebook has been rolling out the feature in different countries since January when they started tests in Canada.
Positive tweets directly linked to sales A study presented by Deloitte at last week’s Twitter4Brands event in London found that not only does Twitter produce valuable word of mouth advertising, but that positive tweets directly drive sales. One case study was particularly illuminating: that of EA Games and their world-famous title ‘FIFA 13′, which concluded that a 30% increase in positive tweets was more effective in driving sales than a 30% increase in above-the-line advertising. By tweeting about major events they were able to get people talking about the game at the same time as football in general. For example, they launched a giveaway under #86messi when the Argentinian star’s 86th goal broke the record for most times scored in a year, and saw the hashtag mentioned over 50,000 times.
Twitter launch #Music app Last week, Twitter launched its new #Music app, a platform for fans to locate new music through the social network. Available in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, it is divided into four sections: ‘suggested’, ‘popular’, ‘now playing’ and ‘emerging’. The first three are fairly self explanatory: ‘suggested’ and ‘popular’ suggest artists and tracks based in turn on what you follow and what’s trending, whilst ‘now playing’ allows your friends to see what you’re listening to. ‘Emerging’ is particularly interesting, allowing users to find new music through an algorithm that locates music that might not be too well known. Currently, the system seems designed at increasing conversation around music, but there may be opportunity for advertising from record labels and sponsorship.
Twitter introduce keyword targeting to Ads API Twitter has bulked up its Ads API with the introduction of ‘keyword targeting’, allowing advertisers to target users based on specific words in their Tweets. The key benefit is that this will allow the targeting of intent; Twitter themselves have given an example based on a touring band, whereby the band’s management can target tweets at those who have mentioned them, letting them know that the band are playing in their area. This is a signifcant contribution to Twitter’s increasingly profitable advertising base: eMarketer have predicted that they will make $582.8 million in 2013 and nearly $1 billion in 2014, on the back of $288.3 million in 2012.
Twitter partner with BBC America for branded video Twitter has launched a partnership with BBC America, looking to expand its branded video output. Video clips will appear in-stream when users click on a Tweet. Having already done so with sports for NCAA’s ‘March Madness’ basketball event (shown below), this represents the first time that such a link has existed for entertainment television.
WhatsApp is bigger than Twitter
According to WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum, the service now has more than 200-million users, making it a larger overall network than Twitter. Moreover, it is being employed heavily by those users, with 8 billion inbound and 12 billion outbound messages every day and no reported drop off since its decision to charge $0.99 a year. With competition growing from Chinese rival WeChat and its 300 million users, of whom 40 million live outside of China, it will be interesting to see how WhatsApp’s growth continues going forward.
New LinkedIn app for iPhone and Android LinkedIn has updated its iPhone and Android apps for the first time in nearly two years, with a vast overhaul of the activity stream and navigation systems, as well as the introduction of ads. The personalised activity stream is now sleeker, with more visual content, much like the updates that have been made to recent Facebook mobile apps. From here, users can simply swipe the left side of the screen to navigate around the app, creating a more well-rounded overall experience. Adverts will see the network attempt to monetise its success on mobile, in the form of sponsored content within the stream. More detail on the app can be found in the below video:
Google+ comments now visible on Blogger Those using ‘Blogger’ to update their blog can now integrate Google+ Comments with other responses to their posts. Google has cited the benefits to this, including more straightforward comment management, as well as the ability for readers to filter blog comments, leading to more meaningful engagement and potentially higher traffic as a result. Bloggers can turn on the system, shown below, by selecting ‘Use Google+ Comments’ in the Google+ tab of the Blogger dashboard.
Twitter donates trending spot to #OneBoston In the wake of the terrorist attacks at the Boston Marathon, Twitter donated the top promoted spot, free of charge, to the hashtag #OneBoston. As people used the hashtag to send messages of respect and condolence, or even in some cases to encourage charitable donations, the social network released the below tweet:
We’ve provided the City of Boston the Promoted Trend today free of charge through Twitter Ads for Good. Learn more: bit.ly/171q0O9
We Are Social win The Outnet account for social media The Outnet, discount fashion website owned by Net-A-Porter, has appointed We Are Social as its worldwide social media agency. The company, which previously managed its social media in-house, has 411,000 likes on Facebook and 103,000 followers on Twitter, communities which will be key to We Are Social’s initial focus on “social listening and reporting”, followed by strategic recommendations, content production, audience engagement and creative campaigns. We Are Social US’s managing director Leila Thabet said:
The Outnet is well placed to innovate in social media due to its unique position in the discount luxury market. We’ll leverage our fashion experience to develop a social strategy together, and constantly look to The Outnet fans and shoppers to shape how we create content, position the brand and devise campaigns.
Nike PhotoiD – Designing shoes from your Instagram photos
A great new campaign launched by Nike called PhotoiD gives users the opportunity to customise a pair of sneakers from the colour scheme in one of their own Instagram photos. Once created, the shoe can be tweaked, then shared to social media channels and purchased through the Nike website. Click here to create your very own dream Instagram Nikes!
Brother is Reviewed by the Internet
Just launched in Australia, printer maker Brother is running a new point of sale campaign led by a Tumblr blog aggregating product reviews from across the internet. As well as the Tumblr blog, the campaign is also running banner ads, POS signage and out of home banners running at sites including airports. The premise behind the campaign is that the modern day consumer will check a range of review sites and social media channels prior to making their purchase decision, and this one single blog brings a range of reviews from multiple websites into just one place easing the initial review process.
Cancer Council NSW Infographic goes global
Launched last year by the Cancer Council NSW, an infographic created to demystify cancer myths and instead provide facts about cancer causes, primary risk factors and key pillars of prevention has gone global with people from over 100 countries viewing it. To drive even more traffic to the infographic an animation movie has been created as well raising even more awareness.
Epicurious posts insensitive Boston tweets As many took to Twitter to discuss the tragic events at the Boston Marathon, Epicurious posted tweets suggesting whole-grain cranberry scones “in honor” of the city. The two tweets shown below received a huge backlash from offended Twitter users, eventually prompting the following apology: “Our food tweets this morning were, frankly, insensitive. Our deepest, sincere apologies.” Epicurious is another in a line of brands coming across as “insensitive” at the very least when posting about tragedies. This should act a lesson for brands about keeping your mouth shut when you have no right to enter a conversation.
Application overload for Best Job in the World
The ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign launched by Tourism Australia received over 600,000 applications for six jobs from over 200 countries. Each job advertised will have received on average over 70,000 applications, and the applications had to be posted in video format on Facebook or on the Best Jobs website. This campaign is similar to one launched by Tourism Australia in 2009 which received 35,000 applicants. The campaign is “designed to target the international youth market” and that it does.
Facebook users Like on average 40 Pages
Since 2009, Facebook users have gone from liking on average 4.5 Pages to 40 – as a result of this, and brands increasing their use of social media, users’ News Feeds are now bombarded with roughly 1440 updates per month according to Socialbakers.
The number of Pages Liked varies around the world, with the US currently leading the way with an average of 70 Pages. In the US CPG brands are struggling to engage fans as they have the most Liked Pages. Brands are now having to pay more attention to the type of content they share, the time they post and how often to determine what works best for their community.
66% of tweets about brands sent from mobile devices
A study by Socialbakers that looked at Brand engagement on Twitter revealed that a whopping 66% of user generated tweets that mention brands are sent from mobile devices. Twitter for iPhone is the most popular application with 44% of mobile users tweeting from it, this is compared to Android accounting for 20% and Blackberry users 11%.
Twitter may soon to be the most popular network for teens
Piper Jaffray’s 25th Semi-Annual teen research project has revealed that Twitter may soon be the most popular social network amongst teens. Twitter experienced a 3% increase in popularity whereas its rivals popularity dropped by 9%, a worrying figure for Facebook as teens are often used as an indication of future trends. Another social network that experienced growth is Instagram, increasing its popularity by 5%, whereas other social networks such as Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest have stayed much the same. The study also showed that 53% of female teens and 52% of male teens online purchases are impacted by social media.
WeChat has over 40 million users outside of China
Tencent’s WeChat mobile application now has more than 300 millions users, 40 million of which are outside of China, and the success of the application could be attributed to mobile internet growth. The growing use of internet on mobile devises has allowed numerous Chinese and Asian technology companies to put themselves on the global stage, but for now WeChat is leading the way as it is currently topping the app store in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia and has become the favorite smartphone application for Malaysia and Indonesia.
GM return to Facebook ads as MGM are having their best quarter yet
After almost a year, GM returns to Facebook advertising through a ‘mobile-only’ pilot campaign for Chevrolet. The automaker didn’t explain why it’s returning to Facebook ads now or why it waited so long. What’s clear is that GM is returning to Facebook ads despite not getting its way. Facebook has since introduced its ad exchange, FBX, and has shifted its focus from social ads to more traditional web-advertising models, such as re-targeting. MGM is one the main public supporters of this model. The Las Vegas-based company has a three-pronged approach—retargeting consumers via Facebook Exchange, pitching discounted Facebook Offers and employing the social giant’s custom-audience features. At the same time, the brand is buying page post ads in mobile News Feeds, Sponsored Stories and Facebook Marketplace promos.
Facebook adds third-party data to its offering for advertisers
Facebook has partnered with third-party data providers which will allow US advertisers to be more specific when targeting users. The categories available through Power Editor and ad API partners will allow advertisers to create ad-targeting parameters, e.g. ”home owners who are retired, own a Ford pick-up truck, buy over-the-counter allergy relief medication and take cruises.” Facebook is allowing advertisers to use Power Editor to click and see how a segment was compiled to combat trust issues with the data.
Enhanced Facebook status updates to be rolled out in US
Last week Facebook announced improvements to how users compose status updates. The update will allow users to share what they’re doing and how they’re feeling in a more visual and structured way, applying the vision of Open Graph. And as Facebook have now made it easier for apps to include Open Graph actions, the users sharing processes across all areas of Facebook will be more in sync. In the new status updates users will be able to include emoticons to represent their feeling, tag pages, friends or locations or include photos or links. As it has been possible for companies to sponsor third-party Open Graph actions since 2012 it looks as though these new post types will also lend themselves well to sponsored stories.
Facebook updates: Home goes live, new Android Messenger
Last week Facebook launched Facebook Home for Android, and updated its standalone Messenger app. User opinions on the new Facebook Home were split, with 44% of individuals who reviewed the app on Google Play giving it just one star and 19.5% awarding it 5 stars. The mixed opinions were more a matter of preference as reviews clearly stated that the Home worked exactly as it said it would without hiccups. Facebook have also updated their stand-alone Messenger app on Android, which now includes Home’s chat heads functionality. When users are using other apps on Android phones the chat head icon pops up allowing you to engage in conversation immediately without leaving the current app, improving the user experience.
Facebook users around the world can now buy gifts for US friends
As of last week Facebook has granted access to people using Facebook in English outside of the US via its gift service. Facebook gifts has been growing slowly so the company will continue to expand the gifts offering and experiment with its design and functionality in order to increase growth.
Twitter to expand its offering to include music
It was rumoured that Twitter will expand its offering to include music following the recent acquisition of We Are Hunted, a music app which finds the most popular songs trending across the world. It’s become know that US celebrities have been given a preview of the new service and are now promoting it to their followers, so far Ryan Seacrest has tweeted “lovin the app…shows what artists are trending, also has up and coming artists.” We Are Hunted founder Stephen Phillips has also been tweeting, using playable tracks from Rdio and Soundcloud which implies the services may be part of the app.
Vine hits the Apple App Store top spot in the US
Just six months after it first debuted, Vine has hit the top if the Apple App Store free apps chart in the US. The app did not bask in instant success, and the new features that have been added in the past month have no doubt helped it reach this point of success. The addition of a trending hashtag section and giving users the ability to utilise web embeds no doubt pushed it to the top.
Foursquare has launched version 6.0 for iPhone
Foursquare launched a new version of its app for iPhone, making the app a ‘discovery tool’. The apps will now suggest attractions as soon as the app is opened, giving the user more options of activities going on around them. The key features of the app are a prominant search box, a map which highlights friends check-ins and near-by interesting places, a feed of recommendations and friends information, and a new check-in button.
Foursquare data to be used in targeting ads on other platforms
Foursquare is said to be pitching a new ad product which is said to include data behind the 3.5 billion check-ins made on its platform and data it receives from the more than 40,000 developers that have integrated Foursquare’s location database in their apps, including Instagram. Eventually this ad product will give advertisers the ability to use Foursquare data to target ads more specifically via networks and ad exchanges across other platforms. The success of the ad offering is very much dependant on how valuable agencies, advertisers and brands view the data. Foursquare is under pressure to prove it can “generate enough revenue to justify a valuation that was once reported to be as high as $760 million” and this new ad offering will hopefully do just that.
Foursquare announced funding to help grow and expand the business
Just last week, straight after announcing its iOS update, Foursquare have announced they have raised a $41 million in debt financing to help grow the company and expand its business offering. With this injection of cash Foursquare plan to continue development of the app, as well as expanding its sales force. This increase in numbers will enable Foursquare to sell their ad product and credit card offers to more companies, allowing companies “like Samsung the opportunity to advertise their products when a user checks in at Best Buy.”
Live voting on Twitter and Instagram at the MTV Movie Awards’
MTV are making history again, this year they allowed movie fans to live vote for the Best Hero category using Instagram and Twitter photos and hashtags during the MTV Movie Award’s last night. MTV supported the activation on its Facebook page to give the community deeper access, and the Facebook Thank You cam captured winner’s backstage messages thanking fans for voting for them.
Jaguar gets digital for the launch of its two-seater F-Type
Jaguar F-TYPE digital campaign has launched and it’s aimed at a younger audience than ever before which has been dubbed the enlightened elite. The campaign will start with 12-minute short movie featuring Homeland star Damian Lewis at the Sundance Film and Music Festival taking place in London at the end of the April. The pre-launch social media phase was kicked-off in March by We Are Social London.
Nescafe tests Facebook friendships
It’s easy to fall out of touch with our Facebook friends. We rarely interact with the majority of them online, let alone in real life. Realising this, Nescafe are putting Facebook friendship to the test with their new campaign, ‘Really friends?’ Armaud, the campaign’s protagonist, turns up at the houses of his Facebook friends with two cups of Nescafe, in the hope that they might reconnect over a cup of coffee. It’s an interesting premise and the channel has notched up almost 55,000 views so far. If you’re interested – and fluent in French – check out the campaign’s Youtube channel.
This went down well with the Twitter community and was followed up the next morning with another reactive tweet poking fun at the #DoggingTales storm.
The timeliness of the tweets was essential to balancing out the negative opinions with the positive, this all coincided with Lynx’s image as a fun, conversational brand in social spaces.
George Osborne parking scandal goes viral Fans of Mini UK have been having a little chuckle at George Osborne’s expense this week. The UK’s Chancellor had decided his fast food needs were greater than obeying the rules of the road when he parked in a disabled parking bay outside McDonalds. Mini responded with a simple, but timely post on the Mini UK Facebook Page, that generated 485 Likes, 62 Shares, and 16 Comments, showing that reactive content can perform better than pre-planned.
Social soap-opera set takes to Twitter over TV
The idea of creating social media accounts for fictional TV and film characters is nothing new. But Seven Sisters, a london-based “social soap opera”, has decided to forego television altogether, playing out the entire narrative on social media. The shows writer’s say that the characters will be responding to one another and trending topics in real-time, as well as developing pre-written plotlines across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and short-form video. It’s an interesting premise, if they can pull it off, although they’ll have to get pretty creative with the content if they want to provide their ‘viewers’ with a truly immersive, entertaining experience. The show launches on April 25th, so keep an eye out!
VivienneArkley
stoneykun
samwdowning
BinkBaulch
BreezyGene
totesawse
julianward
chrisjbridgland![January 5 [Where I'd Rather Have Stayed]](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2793/4246429893_41c37e6897_s.jpg)
![January 5 [Sidewalk Says]](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2698/4246429757_9bfcbe2961_s.jpg)
