Welcome to your weekly social status update, a round up of the biggest stories in social media.

Without further adieu;

Paying for Tweets a PR disaster waiting to happen
An ABC Media Watch revelation last Monday has opened a can of worms for organisations paying celebrities to tweet for them. The Australian highlighted the negative response by the Australian public to the South Australian Tourist Board paying chef Matt Moran $750 to tweet about Kangaroo Island. We Are Social’s own Julian Ward commented on how less than a dozen tweets can create a crisis for a brand:

The total reach of potentially damaging tweets was 3,453,843 and the cost is huge but unknown at this point. By doing what they have done, what does it say about the brand? Why go so cheap and why risk so much?

Facebook advertising revenue stalls despite strong growth
Figures from the 1st quarter of 2012 have shown that even the might of Facebook is not impervious to the advertising business cycle. Sales of $1.06 billion in Q1 were slightly down on the $1.13 billion reported in Q4 of 2011, though it’s not uncommon for marketers to tighten their belts at the start of a new year.

Even so, it’s important to emphasise how Facebook’s users remain enamoured with the site – the social network now has 900 million users, of which 526 million use the site every day.

Despite this Facebook has shown strong growth in areas beyond new users. A recent amendment to their filings for their public offering has shown that Facebook now hosts over 42 million pages and 9 million apps. Since December 31, 2011 the number of pages with 10 or more likes has increased by 5 million and  the number of integrated apps has increased by 2 million.

Facebook upgrades Android app
Late last week Facebook released an updated version of their Android app including updated messenger features and new shortcuts to encourage photo sharing. From the outside this seems like a direct attempt by Facebook to negate Google’s advantage on the platform.

As they own the operating system Google can integrate Google+ into the phone in ways that Facebook cannot. The updated app hopes to combat this by adding new icons allowing users to access Facebook’s camera feature with ‘one tap’.

Facebook have further enhanced their Android offering by announcing that Android apps will now work the same as web apps – if you click on a link to an app from your mobile Facebook News Feed, it will now load on your Android phone (or take you to the download page if it’s not installed).

Instagram sharing on Twitter increases 20x in 12 months
The Instagram juggernaut keeps on rolling. Not satisfied with being bought for $1 billion dollars this month the photo sharing app has been taking Twitter by storm. Sharing between Instagram and Twitter has doubled in the last two months and is 20x what it was a year ago.

Though some of this growth can be attributed to the new Android app, research shows that the average number of shares is also increasing. Impressive.

Facebook tests and launches a new set of features for select brands 
Facebook is testing a new button that will simplify the process through which Pages create Sponsored Stories directly from their posts. Rather than using a complex ad dashboard, the ‘promote’ button will appear on the Page publisher as well as on posts that have already gone live.

The feature is aimed at small to medium sized businesses that want to promote their content but cannot afford premium products such as Facebook Reach Generator.

Facebook has also made Offers available through the API to a select number of partners. Offers are a new type of story that enables Page Owners to post coupons that fans can collect through the News Feed.

Making this available through the API will allow developers to integrate the feature into their social media management systems.

In addition, Facebook have also relaunched their ‘Locations’ app to fit the Timeline layout. The app allows users to search from a company’s Page to find business locations near to them. At the moment the app is only available to select brands working with Facebook.

New Facebook Timeline apps
Christian Hernandez, Facebook’s Director of Platform Partnerships has revealed the latest set of Timeline apps to be released. JustGiving, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Sky Italy and Canal+ are among the 18 new additions to the Open Graph world.

LinkedIn launch iPad app
LinkedIn have added an iPad app to their iPhone, Android and Mobile Web products. The app has the ability to sync with the iPad’s calendar offering the user Linkedin profile data on attendees of meetings and conferences.

Google+ launch share button
Google+ have launched a share button available to publishers worldwide to add to their site. What’s interesting about it is that is stands alongside the +1 button, in case users want to share to their Circles without necessarily showing approval to a story. Particularly at a time Facebook are downgrading the importance of the share button, it will be interesting to see how this performs.

Barcelona vs Chelsea sets new Twitter record
There’s nothing like a sporting giant killing to get us all talking. Last Tuesday was no exception with Chelsea’s dramatic upset of the reigning European Champions Barcelona sending Twitter into a frenzy of excitement. The game knocked the NFL’s Superbowl off the top spot as the biggest sporting event on Twitter peaking at 13,684 tweets per second. This demonstrates the growing use of Twitter as a way people share experiences of live events on a mass scale.

Will.i.am live-tweeting during The Voice 
Building on the theme of enhancing live events through social media, The Voice judge Will.i.am was not satisfied with merely providing entertainment through the UK’s TV screens. Will tweeted from his judging chair during the show to provide followers with extra insight into how he was feeling about his act’s performances.

Channel 4 air live Twitter response ad
On Sunday night, in the first ad break for Homeland, the UK’s Channel 4 premiered the trailer for Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s new film. Viewers were then asked to share their thoughts on Twitter using the hashtag #areyouseeingthis, with the best tweets picked out to appear in a live response ad in the next break. It was the first time ever viewers tweets have been shown in a live response ad and it worked – the hashtag was a trending topic in the UK, and the response ad worked well:

With Prometheus also teaming up with Zeebox, a dual-screen TV app, to offer a pair of Premiere tickets to one winner out of the many who watched a synchronised ad through the app, it was a successful night for the film’s promo team.

Gawker’s new commenting service
Gawker have launched a new proprietary commenting system called Burner, which is based on anonymity.

What’s interesting is not so much the change itself, but the reasons behind it – namely, to disrupt commenting cliques. Removing names means that in theory, it won’t just be the same people repeatedly dominating commenting threads. Which all in all, is probably a good thing.

Elle launches Shoppable Trend Guide
Elle have launched a clever Facebook app where users can click ‘love’, ‘want’, ‘own’ or ‘buy’ on each product page. By default, all interactions with the app are shared automatically on their Facebook Timeline — so even if users don’t make a purchase, they may draw curious friends in to interact with the app. It’s a nice way of attempting f-commerce – including purchase as part of the app, rather than being the entire point of the app.

Pepsi launch global campaign focussing on social
Pepsi have launched a new brand campaign called Live For Now, which puts social at the heart of the campaign. This is partly through a ‘social media cheat sheet’, the #NOW board which pulls together the hottest stories from social media.

According to Techcrunch:

Beyond serving as a news aggregator, Singh says the site will include other features, like the ability for celebrities to pose challenges to their fans, and exclusive deals courtesy of sites like Thrillist. And naturally, the content can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

But according to Pepsi, the campaign will go above and beyond the Pepsi micro-site:

As part of the “Live for Now” platform in the U.S., Pepsi will present a series of exclusive pop-up, Twitter-enabled concerts this summer featuring major music artists. Additionally, Pepsi’s first of its kind Twitter music partnership will enhance consumers’ music experiences and bring them closer to what is hot in music today.

Considering their previous success in social media, it will be interesting to see how this campaign gets on.

Kraft personally thanks 4,632 Facebook fans with music video
Apart from competition prizes, there’s very little reciprocal love from brands on Facebook. Kraft tried to change this on Tuesday. First, they posted on their Facebook Page ‘LIKE this post, and you never know what may happen’.

The post garnered over 4,600 likes – with each person then thanked in a ‘Likeapella music video’:

C&A Brazil puts Facebook likes on store hangers
Before Mother’s Day, C&A Brazil put Facebook like counters on the hangers in their flagship store – and uploaded their collection to their Facebook Page. Then, whenever anyone liked one of the products, the numbers would update in real-time. A nice way of convincing people to purchase.

Volkswagen create innovative flipbook ad for their Facebook Page
Volkswagen have created a genius little ad on their Facebook page. Through a photo album that doubles as a flipbook you can click to watch the Volkswagen Tricari Arc drive through the desert into an urban area in a continuous loop. The ad builds on what Smart Argentina did in Twitter recently, but is the first of its kind on a Facebook page. (The comments are also worth a read).

Hasbro bully tactics create social media backlash
Toy manufacturer Hasbro have received large scale condemnation for the way they dealt with blogger Martyn Yang. The blogger, whose hobby was writing about the brand, was tricked into giving his home address so that Hasbro could press legal proceedings against him. It seems ridiculous that brands still operate in this way when a quick email or phone call would have most likely wrapped the whole situation up with a far more satisfactory result.

It’s Tuesday, you’re on the internet, and this is  your mostly social, partially mobile Tuesday Tune-Up…

1. Twitter beat Facebook in Q1 advertising performance
According to a study of 45 billion ad impressions on Twitter and Facebook in Q1 2012, Twitter gets considerably higher CPMs than Facebook.

The main difference between ads on Twitter and Facebook are that almost all Twitter ads appear in user’s streams, whereas Facebook ads appear to the side of the user’s page, perhaps this is no surprise and it underlines why Facebook have been recently pushing their ‘Featured Stories’ ads.

However, another recent study shows that Facebook’s average CPM has risen by 43% over the last quarter.

Remember though, what advertisers want is lower, not higher CPMs, and the accompanying news that the average cost per fan rose by 43% in the same time period is jut as unwelcome.

2. Facebook users tagging their location more
According to a presentation by Facebook product manager, Josh Williams, around a quarter of all users include location information in their updates every month, and they do so an average of 10 times each a month.

With their geo-coding and place editing API now open to third-party developers (including those at Instagram), expect this number to rise significantly.

3. Facebook introduces school-specific Groups
Facebook’s ‘Groups for schools’ allow users with school email addresses to join online communities related to their place of study. This new feature will give students the opportunity to share documents with one another whilst also communicating with class mates.

Not all schools are eligible for this yet, but once they are, individual classes, sports teams and clubs will enable users to join their relevant groups with the possibility to download and share documents.

Although this was already happening unofficially, it will give students more structure to their Groups.

The open question for us here at We Are Social is whether this is a precursor of a larger roll-out to companies and other organisations.

4. Facebook purchase Tagtiles
After having bought mobile sharing app Instagram, Facebook has made a smaller purchase: the Tagtile team and their assets. This mobile-based customer loyalty management startup, is described as ‘helping local businesses identify and engage with customers’.

With Facebook seeming to be establishing a strong-base of mobile-minded ideas, Tagtile, a hardware device that allows individuals to earn rewards after tapping their smartphone against the Tagtile Cube, have said they will not currently be taking on any new customers.

5. Instagram hits 40 million users
Instagram, the photo sharing app that was bought by Facebook last week for $1 billion, has had 10 million downloads in just 10 days, with only 5 million of them on Android.

6. Google+ reaches 170m users, redesigns
Google announced last week that Google+ had reached 170 million users, and released a re-design of the site:

In other news, Google+ updated their site to allow users  to include a larger photo, a move which was followed by Facebook just days later.

7. Pinterest beats Twitter and Facebook’s revenue per clicks
According to Convetro CEO Jeff Zwelling, Pinterest represented 17.4% of social media revenue for e-commerce sites in Q1 2012, up from just 1% last year, based on a measure of 40 of Zwelling’s clients sites. They project that Pinterest will stand for 40% of revenue by the end of the year, reducing Facebook’s ‘revenue drive’ to 60% from 86% a year ago.

More importantly, on a revenue per click basis, Pinterest crushes Twitter and beats Facebook by 27%.

8. Tumblr attempt to find money in creativity
Tumblr’s CEO and founder, David Karp, revealed to GigaOm that he hopes Tumblr will make its mark by enabling people to express themselves in a deeper way than other sites that are currently around:

We are one of the few tech companies that cares about creators. We are not trying to build a network but we’re giving people a way to express themselves. I’m hoping in the next one or two years, we will prove we are company that is bent on helping them do great.

Karp also gave a full interview to AdAge, which is interesting to both users and marketers, in relation to the future of the site.

9. Spotify becomes more web-friendly
Spotify, the music streaming service, has plans to spread itsself even further across the web. They are introducing a new feature that will integrate the service, via a “play button” widget, onto web pages. After downloading the Spotify software, you will be able simply press the ‘play’ button and listen for free.

They’ve also teamed up with Tumblr allowing users to post songs, playlists and full albums directly to Tumblr.

They’re also introducing brand apps, with launch parters ranging from AT&T, Intel, McDonald’s and Reebok. AT&T’s “Surround Sounds,” will place songs to the locations where they were written, recorded, played or performed, allowing users to find music by searching maps.

10. Brands try Pinterest competitions
Over the weeks ahead, we’re sure we’ll see more brands trying out Pinterest, and both Harrods and Confused.com have been running competitions this week.

Harrods are inviting consumers to design a mood board for a Jubilee themed window display for a chance to see their window display put into action. Confused.com have encouraged females to submit a picture to a Pinterest board of them in their biggest heels, as part of a ‘Driving in Heels’ campaign which highlights the danger of, surprisingly, driving in heels which are too big.

11. Kentucky Fried Fail
Amidst tsunami warnings in Thailand, KFC Thailand suggested people take cover – but crassly suggested they made sure to stop and pick up their favourite KFC first. Although no tsunami surfaced, KFC were forced to apologise for their misjudged post. Perhaps one they could have chickened out of…

What was the highlight of your social media week? Leave us a comment!

Welcome to our weekly super bowl of the top plays in social media, racking up the yards in activations, engagement and statistics from all over the web.

So get practising your end zone dance, because here comes the touchdown pass – the Top 10 stories in social media this week;

1. Companies boosting digital marketing budgets
According to Econsultancy’s Marketing Budgets 2012 Report, companies are looking to boost budgets for their 2012 digital marketing strategies. The growth is fairly significant with 68% are increasing their digital budgets in 2012 compared to compared to 45% of companies increasing overall marketing budgets.

2. Corporate blogging declines as newer tools rule
A study on the usage of social media in Inc. 500 corporations shows fewer of them are using blogging, message/bulletin boards, online video, podcasting and MySpace and more are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Foursquare.

The platform most utilized by the Inc. 500 is Facebook, with 74% of companies using it. Virtually tied at 73% is the adoption of the professional network, LinkedIn.

The use of corporate blogs dropped to 37% from 50% in 2010, as this mature tool evolves into other forms or is replaced by communication through Facebook or Twitter.

Social media tools are seen as important for company goals. Ninety percent of responding executives report that social media tools are important for brand awareness and company reputation.

Eighty-eight percent see these tools as important for generating web traffic while 81% find them important for lead generation. Seventy-three percent say that social media tools are important for customer support programs.

3. India is Now Facebook’s No. 2 Nation Behind the U.S.
India moved from sixth to second place on the global leaderboard for total number of Facebook users in January, though the world’s second most populated country has still got a considerable way to go to overthrow the world’s largest Facebook nation; the US.

Colombia was measured as having the fastest user growth on Facebook and Brazil and Indonesia, alongside India, were marked as countries to watch.

Looking to Europe, in one month alone Germany and Poland grew a respective 500k and 300k users and they’ve got even more room to grow. Japan have also had strong growth this month.

4. Facebook Files for IPO; Reveals $1 Billion in 2011 Profit
Facebook’s IPO filing this week has revealed:

• Facebook’s total ad revenue in 2011: $3.15 billion
• Share of revenue attributed to advertising: 83%
• Share of revenue that was advertising at the beginning of 2010: 99%
• Percentage of sales in the U.S.: 56%
• Amount of revenue sourced from Zynga: 12%
• Facebook 2011 profit: $1 billion
• Revenue generated from virtual goods: $557 million
• Global monthly active users: 845 million
• Daily likes and comments: 2.7 billion
• Likely Facebook market valuation: $75 to $100 billion
• Mr. Zuckerberg’s ownership stake: 28.2%
• Mr. Zuckerberg’s voting power: 56.9%

5. Facebook ‘likely to roll out mobile ads in weeks’
Given recent IPO filing admitting it was weak on mobile advertising, its unsurprising that its plan is to bring out mobile ads within the next couple of weeks in order to generate advertising revenues.

January 2012 saw featured stories within users’ news feeds for the first time so it makes sense that mobile ads would be the next logical step forward.

In December it claimed to have 425 million monthly active users using its mobile products, which is around half of its total monthly active users, and 21% growth from September’s 300 million figure.

7. Top 20 countries on Twitter
Semiocast have relased detailed statistics on global twitter usage:

The Next Web highlighted the interesting takeaways from the report – namely, how different countries use Twitter:

In the period from September 1st to November 30th, 30% of Japanese accounts posted at least once, while in Brazil the number slipped to 25%.

For both countries, the number is surprisingly low, meaning that at least 70% of those millions of accounts were dormant for at least 3 months, if not more.

The country with the highest percentage of active accounts is the Netherlands, with 33% of the accounts posting in the 3 month period.

The most active countries on Twitter include Spain, the US and Indonesia.

8. Google+ passes 100 million users
Paul Allen has been doing his usual research into Google+ user figures, and according to him, the site has grown by more than 10% between January 19th and February 1st, passing 100 million users.

If these growth rates continues, marketers will be unable to ignore Google+.

9. Pinterest drives incredible referral traffic
According to Shareaholic, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn combined, and is also showing impressive growth month-on-month:

10. Superbowl hits record for Tweets per second
Last night’s Superbowl broke a record for the most Tweets per second (TPS) for a sporting event. According to Twitter, the average TPS was 10,000, with the peak hit at 12,333 TPS.

The way records like these keep on falling, we can only speculate what, say, the 2014 World Cup final will be like.

The Week According To The Internets;

• Single-Serving Tumblr Of The Week: A Day In The Life Of George Clooney
• Twitter Bot Of The Week: (It’s always been) Horse ebooks
• YouTube Video Of The Week: Ok Go ‘Needing/Getting’