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; Giant Easter eggs, the cutest dog in the world and getting creative on Facebook. 

It’s a four day week guys, which just means you get your Internet fill early!

GRIM: Actresses without teeth.

ANTISOCIAL: One way to avoid shopping crowds.

BRIGHT SIDE: Things can only get better…right?

POPULAR: A collection of the most creative Facebook posts from brands.

MANTERESTING: Pinterest for dudes. 

TECH-HEADS: More through Google glass. 

TALENTED: Sounds you would never expect to hear from a walrus. 

GIANT: The worlds largest Easter egg up for auction. 

EQUALITY: Gay marriage equality box turns red and spreads on social media.

BUNNY-DOG: The dog that just can’t get enough of Easter.

(Image via)

Seven News faces angry backlash after deleting grieving mum’s post
Seven News has apologised after it deleted a post on Facebook from a mother angry at the network’s coverage of her daughter’s death. Seven claims it deleted the comment from Linda Goldspink-Lord “in error”.

Before it was deleted the post had received more than 32,000 likes, and 2000 comments.

The post, screen-grabbed below (courtesy of Mumbrella), accused the network of intrusive reporting of her 13-year-old daughter Molly Lord’s accidental death on July 11.

The page has been flooded with angry comments, and Seven has since posted the screen grab along with an apology. The station also made the unusual claim that it has the means of reinstating the comments which were left over the weekend.

We’re not sure how they hope to accomplish that, but it goes to show again that dialogue is the answer, not the delete button.

Study from Facebook shows ASOS’ success with Ads and Friends of Fans
What makes this clothing brand stick more in its fans’ minds? The third ‘Power of Like’ paper released by ComScore and Facebook reveals that Facebook Ads gave ASOS a 130% increase in purchases on the website, even across consumers who had the same affinity toward the brand.

Other juicy details in the paper include how much more likely a brand’s Facebook fans are to visit the brand’s website and how persuasive Facebook Ads are to Friends of Fans.

The value of a Facebook fan
If the ASOS study above revealed that a brand’s Facebook fans have higher value, just how much is that value? Here at We Are Social we tried to answer that question, along with TNS, as Bulmers wanted to understand the value of investing in social.

We calculated that each Bulmers Facebook fan was worth £3.82 more per week, or £198.64 per year, than the average cider drinker. Cheers to that.

Auto-publishing blog posts garners more exposure
New research from HubSpot says that companies that automatically publish their blog posts to social media sites get 50% more hits than companies that don’t.

And what’s more, scheduling blog posts for the ideal times when fans are checking their social media feeds got three times more clicks. Let me guess, you found this blog post by reading Twitter at work just after you arrived?

More Google+1s mean higher rank in search results
Much to the annoyance of those who aren’t Google+ fans, the search giant has thrown its weight into the social search arena and, perhaps unsurprisingly, having more +1s for a page is more likely to boost its rank in search results.

Having 23 or more +1s for a URL puts you in the top 35% of search results, and 63 or more puts you in the top 20% of results. Compare that with Facebook ‘Likes’, and you need 35 Likes to be in the top 35% of results, but nearly 160 Likes to be in the top 20%.

Facebook adds more third-party app actions within Facebook
You just saw a friend’s Foursquare check-in at an amazing restaurant posted to Facebook and want to save that location for later. Now you don’t even have to leave the Facebook app to add the location to your Foursquare to-do list. Facebook has included a handy button at the bottom of the post, very catchily called an ‘action link’.

Click it and voila, it’s added and you’re still in the mobile app. These action links have so far been seen for Foursquare and Spotify and have lots of viral potential for other brands.

Less than 10 percent of Facebook’s traffic comes from outside the site
Facebook is a very interconnected site without much traffic coming from beyond Facebook’s walls, according to research from PageLever.

From March 2011 to February 2012, just 7.5% of traffic to Facebook pages came from external sources.

Facebook tests Sponsored Search Results
Will Facebook finally become a heavyweight in the search category? TechCrunch spotted sponsored search results on Facebook, which look identical to the normal results, save for a tiny “sponsored” at the bottom of the result, similar to Sponsored Stories.

These ads don’t target keywords, but instead specific pages, places or apps. No word yet on whether this will roll out to all users.

Are Promoted Tweets or Sponsored Facebook Stories more effective?
A corrected study from TBG Digital says Promoted Tweets get 1-3% clickthrough rates on desktop and even higher than that on mobile, which beats Facebook’s Sponsored Stories, currently sitting at about 1%.

The study originally compared Facebook’s ad suite to Twitter’s Promoted Accounts, which had much lower engagement scores because they didn’t appear directly in a user’s feed, but has since been updated to make a more apples-to-apples comparison with Promoted Tweets instead.

Twitter offers new geographically targeted Promoted Tweets
Here’s one that brands have been waiting a long time for: Promoted Tweets can now be shown just to followers in specific locations.

This makes it even easier for brands to dole out content that’s relevant to a subset of their users without creating noise for the rest.

A Google experiment sends pages from search to Google+ without +1
Google has confirmed that it’s testing out a new share feature without Google+’s familiar +1. Instead, a share button appears, and when a user clicks it, a box to add a comment pops up.

This has not rolled out for all users, but does it show an early demise of the +1 idea?

Foursquare gets local and business-savvy
Is an author coming to your bookstore for a reading? Have a new dish that you’d like to test out on your biggest fans?

Foursquare has just launched local updates so that businesses can use the platform to send updates to people that have liked their venue in the app or who check in often.

ShareThis launch new social reader tool
ShareThis have announced a new tool for publishers that will allow them to turn their sites into social readers without having to build custom apps.

This means sites without big budgets can use Facebook’s Open Graph features so their users share the stories they’re reading with their friends on Facebook, just by reading them.

Twitter gets into Olympic training
Twitter has launched its Olympics hub in partnership with NBC Universal, marking a landmark moment that sees Twitter serve as an official narrator for a live event.

Alongside this, it appears NBC will also provide on-air promotion and links to athlete interviews and video clips. This sounds like it will look similar to the NASCAR hashtag page that Twitter launched a few weeks ago.

It would seem that Twitter is hoping that this trial will lead to wider adoption and maybe even woo potential investors with an eye towards a public offering.

British cynicism to be displayed on the London Eye?
British tweeters will be posting their sentiments on to the London Eye during the Olympics and Paralympics. The mood of the tweets will dictate what colour the London Eye displays each evening.

Reports suggest that up to 60,000 daily tweets have been posted since the commencing of the Olympic torch relay, and this is predicted to increase to more than 100,000 every day of the Games. Fingers crossed we see a yellow wheel for the next two weeks!

The IOC gets social
The IOC and Foursquare are offering a new badge that gives users a chance to win tickets to the Olympics by following the Olympics page and checking in to the “to-be-announced off-site venues” around London.

Wonder where this Olympics trail will lead tourists…

Nike to get real-time with promoted tweets
While the Team USA men’s basketball ‘dream-team’ is running up and down the court, Nike’s Jordan brand will be tweeting real-time comments through Promoted Tweets during all of the team’s games.

These Twitter ads will also contain pre-planned brand content and links. The brand hopes that by tapping into the real-time nature of Twitter, non-followers caught up in Olympic fever will retweet and share its promoted tweets, and the buzz around the Jordan brand’s #riseabove campaign will be amplified.

BMW celebrates 10 million Likes with infographic generator
To celebrate 10 million Facebook likes, BMW have launched a new app infographic-creation app that revolves around users’ Facebook data. The data is then tied in with BMW products, such as telling you how many of your friends you could fit into a typical BMW 3 series.

The campaign target appears to be about acquiring even more likes, and it uses an enticing ‘BMW experience’ prize as an aid. The competition is based on your “social score”, which can be increased by inviting in as many friends as you possibly can to ‘Like’ all sorts of different pages that BMW owns.

Waterstones gets a new voice
Waterstones’ Oxford Circus store is getting rave reviews for providing amusing, geek-filled tweets in the voice of a new character that stands in stark contrast to the official feed.

The success of @WstonesOxfordSt is in no small part down to an amusing series of short stories that have been stitched together on Storify.

Got a favourite social story this week? Leave a comment!

It’s Friday, and not a moment too soon!

Pretend to work while we entertain you with the internet…

Stoned: The greatest music video ever made is on crack

Unfortunate: These poor hilarious children

Available: Your favourite bands for a price

Alcoholic: You after playing these internet-themed drinking games

Found: Holy shit Manbearbig is real

Shocked: Guy suing The Oatmeal finds why you don’t sue the internet

Explained: How to live based on advice from Yahoo Answers

Ruined: Your favourite movies by these on set pictures

Blogged: The adventures of the man from all the news

Followed: Ben Affleck joins Twitter

(Above: The Bacon Sundae by Burger King. Yes it’s real.)

We Are Social featured in The Australian
Our MD Julian Ward had some choice words in an article in The Australian this week, discussing the benefits of social media for brands;

“The ability to actually maintain attention with a consumer is immensely valuable, especially when other channels are less able to do this.”

“The challenge is crafting a content and editorial strategy that holds value and continues to intrigue and engage those on the receiving end. As a brand, do you want to answer customer questions or do you want to be the most talked about and engaged brand within your category?”

To find out more on how you can be engaging with your customers, and finding new ones, drop us an email.

1 in 5 viewers start watching a show after hearing about it in social
According to a Horowitz Associates poll of US heads of TV households conducted in January, 19% had begun watching a show after reading about it on a social network or blog.

Facebook holds IPO, share price drops
Facebook held its IPO on Friday, with the company listed on the NASDAQ. Despite the share price returning to the initial $38 price after the first day of trading, this was partly due to the banks underwriting the share price to stop it falling below $38. Regardless, 421.2 million shares were sold valuing the company at a whopping $104.2 billion, a price which has since fallen significantly in early trading today in New York.

General Motors suspends Facebook ad spending
General Motors, America’s biggest automaker and 3rd biggest advertiser, in an interestingly timed move announced last week that it will stopped buying Facebook ads for the forseeable future. Industry reaction has been mixed.

With Forrester also saying Facebook doesn’t pay enough attention to marketers, this can’t have helped Facebook’s first day of trading. Ironically, a source close to the GMhad said their move was partly due to Facebook telling them to prioritise community management over ads. Something, it should be noted, that GM is still wisely planning to invest $30 million in.

Facebook redesign mobile apps
Facebook has updated its mobile apps so that images will now appear larger and at a higher quality in a bid to improve engagement.

Facebook also acquired Lightbox last week, once hailed the ‘Instagram of Android’ – perhaps in a bid to assure investors that Facebook will do what it takes to win in the mobile-centric future of social networking.

New Facebook Page Manager App
Managing Facebook Pages on a mobile has long been difficult, but this could all be about to change: Facebook is testing an app called Facebook Pages Manager which should make all of this far easier. Good news for marketers.

Twitter re-launch recommendations
Moving forward, new Twitter users will now receive a number of auto-generated recommended followers from the Twitter ecosystem. According to Twitter:

These tailored suggestions are based on accounts followed by other Twitter users and visits to websites in the Twitter ecosystem. We receive visit information when sites have integrated Twitter buttons or widgets, similar to what many other web companies — including LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube — do when they’re integrated into websites.

Interestingly, viewers will also be able to view tweets from these users in an example timeline.

Twitter teams up with Nascar to enhance hashtags
Twitter has teamed up with Nascar so that consumers worldwide can create a “complementary live race experience”. The Twitter page will combine race-related tweets and photos giving behind-the-scenes exclusive for individual races. In effect, for one advertiser (Nascar), they’ve made a pretty radical change to the hashtag experience:

Up until now when users click on a hashtag, they are shown a page littered with tweets which have included that particular hashtag. But in Nascar’s case, Twitter will curate those tweets through an algorithm, and by hand to give users a behind-the-scenes look at the race.

Twitter hits 10m UK users, 140 brands have used promoted products
For a company that has only had an office in the UK for one year, Twitter is going from strength to strength. It’s now reaching 10 million UK users of which 80% are active on mobile. 340 million tweets are sent per day and brands have bought into the product: 140 have used Promoted Products in the last year.

Tony Wang from Twitter UK gave Marketing Magazine an interesting Q&A about Twitter’s advertising approach going forward – it’s worth a read.

YouTube video views are falling
Since December, views on YouTube have fallen by 28% – but it’s an intended consequence of the Google-owned site’s shift from a video search engine filled with snack-size content to a full-fledged, couch-potato-optimized entertainment destination. At YouTube, the “view” is out and “engagement” is in – although time spent on the site hasn’t risen like execs will have hoped:

New Google+ study reveals minimal activity and weak user engagement
A new study has shown weak user engagement and minimal social activity on Google+, giving greater credence to the theory that it’s just a ghost town. Google has refused to give metrics for the Google+ active user base, probably because compared to other social networks it has far less activity. A study showed that within a sample size of 70,000 public posts, the average post receives less than one +1, less than one re-share and less than one reply. Another problem is that users don’t return to post again:

As the report sums up:

At the end of the day, Google+ simply does not show the same level of ravenous user adoption and engagement that we’ve seen in other social networks.

Pinterest is worth $1.5bn – at least according to investors
Pinterest has recently gained $100 million of funding from Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten in a simultaneous attempt to increase revenue (which is currently minimal) and mark a shift away from big American tech players; the deal values the company at $1.5 billion.

Quora raises $50M valuing the company at $400M 
Quora has raised $50 million from its co-founder Adam D’Angelo and other investors including Peter Thiel and Josh Hannah, both of whom are familiar with the online Q&A space, valuing the company at $400 million. It will be interesting to see what it invests in to try and grow the daily active user count again.

vKontakte loses important court case
vKontakte, Russia’s largest social network lost an important court case last week, which ruled that the site’s proprietary file-sharing system – and arguably its biggest selling point – is illegal and breaches copyright. Facebook has long struggled to even come close to over-taking vKontakte, but the fall-out from this court ruling may well help Facebook.

Ronaldo stars in Facebook challenge for documentary
Football star Cristiano Ronaldo took part in a live-streamed Facebook challenge last week called #RonaldoLive which tested his ‘sporting expertise’. The live-stream came from a testing facility in Madrid, in which Ronaldo had to receive, control and shoot a wave of footballs from chutes suspended above his head.

The first 100,000 people who connected to the #RonaldoLIVE Facebook app were automatically be entered into a competition to challenge Ronaldo, giving them the power to choose which goals he shot into.

Manchester City partner with Foursquare
English Premier League champions Manchester City have partnered with Foursquare, in the social network’s first official partnership with a football team. What the deal means is that City fans can now check in at the Etihad Stadium, City Square, City Stores and other official venues in return for special offers on merchandise and food and drink. They’ve also launched their own badge.

Foursquare launch two new badges
Foursquare have launched two new badges for two of the year’s biggest sporting events. Saturday night’s Champions League Final had a badge which users could obtain simply by checking in and using the words ‘UEFA Champions League’ and the Olympic Torch Relay also has a badge. To acquire the badge, users have to check-in to the nearest Olympic Torch Relay venue when the flame passes through their city.

Ikea turns to Pinterest to promote new range
Ikea are promoting their new Indian range of products partly through Pinterest. They’ve built a micro-site to draw awareness to the new range which includes an option to view a showcase of the range on Pinterest. As it’s a flat-pack campaign, you do actually have to build the pinboard for this one.

Intel launches employee curated digital magazine
Intel have launched a digital magazine which will allow many different staff members to chip in. Intel iQ is a social-publishing platform which resembles a digital magazine. A story gets to the iQ front page when a certain number of people recommend it, and as recommendations grow, so the size of the story on the front page increases. Intel have said they expect the number of contributors to the site to grow to thousands, which is really quite impressive.

Wickes rolls out first social media campaign
Wickes, the DIY retailer, has made its first foray into social media with the launch of a Facebook app which allows fans to create a sharable digital portfolio of their DIY projects. It’s based on the idea that people are very happy when they complete a project. It seems a bit useless – papering over the cracks of a lack of a real social media strategy.

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!