Hello, we are social. We’re a conversation agency with offices in London, Paris, Milan, Munich, Singapore, Sydney & 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, HP, Unilever, Tesco, Orange, Eurostar, Kleenex, PayPal & Hotels.com.
If you’d like to chat about us helping you too, then give us a call on +44 20 3195 1700 or drop us an email.
Facebook recently announced a new apps permission process, and it appears these changes are already live.
The changes appear to be designed to make apps more transparent to users, as this excerpt from the Facebook Developers blog highlights:
More Control & Clarity for Users Similar to the inline privacy controls people have when they post content, we are introducing a new, inline privacy setting that allows a user to control who can see their app activity on Facebook.
So what do these changes mean for marketers?
Here is a screen shot of the permissions dialogue for Schweppes’s new Unexpected Future app:
Interestingly, users now have the option to choose which of their friends and networks the app can share activity with – including the option to limit permissions to themselves (‘Only me’). It’s worth noting that the drop-down options also include user-defined lists.
Once the user has selected their sharing network, they are also given control over exactly what the app can do, and can choose to remove certain elements if they desire – note the grey ‘x’ to the right of each option in the screenshot below, which turns off specific functionality:
These changes have some quite fundamental consequences for branded apps, not least because they offer people the chance to totally remove the social element of an app (if they want to).
That may seem to go against the very purpose of a Facebook app, but Facebook state that:
By introducing new ways for people learn about an app and giving them more control over their data, we believe this update will benefit both users and developers.
Indeed, many users will likely welcome these developments, but if users regularly choose to limit visibility of their app-related activities, it may require a significant re-thinking of Facebook strategy amongst brands who rely heavily on apps for social amplification.
You can read more about the technical implications of these changes on the Facebook blog.
You may well be familiar with our “Get Well” Soup campaign for Heinz last year, which Ad Age crowned as one of the best social media campaigns of 2011. Heinz’s Facebook fans fell in love with it and it caused some consternation when the campaign came to an end.
Heinz have a deep commitment to their fans on Facebook and we’re happy to announce that they have responded by giving the fans what they wanted.
We asked fans which Heinz soup variety they’d like to be able to personalise and send as a gift (alongside the perennial favourites of Cream of Chicken and Cream of Tomato). Four varieties made the final vote, and in a close run contest, Potato and Leek was finally elected as the fan’s flavour of choice.
Fans are able to personalise a Heinz soup can with the ‘Get Well Soon’ message and the name of a friend or family member then purchase the can through the page.
Demand for the cans has been even higher than before, with over 1,000 cans purchased already – if you’d like one, whether for yourself or a friend or relative that needs cheering up, this time around you have until the end of February to snap one up.
As you can see in the screen shot, the ‘ask a friend’ option sits at the bottom of the first page of Google’s search query results, just before the links to subsequent pages.
As such, it’s a great way to extend the brand’s meaning beyond what its existing algorithms can deliver – especially considering that 85% of users never look beyond the first page of search results.
Clicking on the ‘Ask on Google+’ link brings up a dialogue box directly on the search page that allows the user to post a question to their Google+ account:
The question is even pre-populated – the image above shows the text it chose for my original search query, which was “the future of social media”.
While ‘ask a friend’ is a fantastic addition in itself, it feels like an opportunity for Google to appease critics of the search / social integration; giving users the option to ask the same question to different networks – e.g. Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook – would make a lot of sense.
It would also allow Google to start mapping the kinds of content people feel are most appropriate for their different social networks – data which, in the long run, would allow them to optimise Google+ for different kinds of audience.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on how this on-going integration evolves over the coming weeks and months, but please feel free to share your own interesting discoveries and observations too – just give me a shout on Twitter if you see anything!
US online ad spend to grow to almost $40 billion
Online spending on ads in America will grow 23.3% to $39.5 billion in 2012 as the internet proves its worth to advertisers in a tough economic climate.
Fast growth has seen online pull ahead of some traditional media and this year US online ad spending will exceed the total spent on print magazines and newspapers for the first time, at $39.5 billion vs $33.8 billion. This is the sort of thing that a faux-savant would described as ‘a seminal moment’.
31% of ad impressions are never even seen
Online will still need to continue to prove its worth, as comScore last week produced research that claimed over a third of ad impressions on the web are never even seen.
Working with 12 “national premium brands” in the US, including Chrysler, Ford and Kellogg’s, the report found that in many cases, ads are delivered but not in-view or on target and therefore never have a chance to make an impact.
Where users go, marketers will follow…
Nonetheless, with social media sites beyond Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn seeing significant boosts in usage, both in the US and elsewhere in the world, it is only natural that marketers plan to capitalise on this in 2012:
Rethinking information diversity in networks – the power of weak ties
New research from Facebook appears to validate the use of social networks in understanding the spread of information first popularised by economic sociologist Mark Granovetter, as well as discrediting popular notions of the web as an ‘echo chamber’ where web personalisation algorithms like Facebook’s News Feed force us to consume an ever more dangerously narrow range of news.
In his seminal 1973 paper, The Strength of Weak Ties, Granovetter found that, surprisingly, people are more likely to acquire jobs that they learned about through individuals they interact with infrequently rather than their close personal contacts.
In a scale unheard of in academic sociological studies the Facebook study observed nearly 1.2 billion instances in which someone was or was not presented with a certain link. The results confirmed the power of weak ties and highlighted how weak ties “are indispensible” to your network as they have access to different websites that you’re not necessarily visiting.
Facebook becomes the premier social network in Brazil
Earlier this week comScore released results showing Facebook surpassed Google’s Orkut in December, becoming the largest social networking destination in Brazil for the first time. In the past year Facebook tripled its audience in the region, but even more impressively increased user engagement, from an average of 37 minutes spent on the site to 5 hours. It remains to be seen whether Facebook can replicate this success and capture the lead in other markets where it doesn’t lead such as Japan, Russia and South Korea.
Some Facebook Pages only reach 17% of fans
Since all the changes in late 2011 it’s clear Facebook has made it tougher for community managers. Teaming up with EdgeRank Checker to examine what was going on, AllFacebook found that (in a review of 4,000 Facebook pages) the average page post is only reaching 17 percent of the Page’s fans.
The advent of the ticker and various apps’ inclusion – like The Guardian and Spotify’s – has clearly had an impact, but it’s worth emphasising that this is the number for an average Page; put simply, effective community management, based on statistical insights and a thorough understanding of how EdgeRank works, can overcome this.
Introducing new apps for Timeline
60 new apps were launched for Timeline last week, with sites such as Foodily, Ticketmaster and Pinterest teaming up with Facebook to encourage users to “enhance your timeline with apps that help you tell your story”. The idea behind it is to share ‘your favourite activities’ with your friends.
Twitter seeing 3 to 5 percent engagement on Promoted Tweets and Trends
Defining engagement as a “click, retweet, reply, or favorite” Twitter have declared their Promoted Products — including Promoted Tweets, Accounts and Trends — a success, with advertisers seeing 3-5% engagement rates on campaigns. Twitter Chairman Jack Dorsey suggested that “advertisers are coming back… [the market] is proving that this is something people want to see more of”. Or so he thinks.
McDonald’s lose control of a hashtag
However, McDonalds show that buying a promoted trend is not necessarily a good thing, as their McStories campaign spun rapidly out of control amid a McFlurry of negative tweets. A big McFail.
Google+ hits 90M users Google+ is racking up its numbers with Larry Page unveiling a host of impressive stats:
Users can now record and share videos straight from their webcams. Been posting nothing but photos of your cat? Meme-ify them instantly on Google+. We can’t even imagine the number of animal photos that are going to live on the Internet after this.
But the biggest new feature lets users post directly from Google search results to Google+. Searching for your favourite team might leads to news about, say, Thierry Henry, and then you can share this directly to your Circles.
What’s cooking at Foursquare? Foodies rejoice: mobile check-in app Foursquare has added restaurant menus with prices. So far, they are only available for big chain restaurants in the US, including Dunkin’ Donuts, Panera Bread, Starbucks and Applebee’s, and only on certain platforms (not on iPhone). This comes on the heels of the improved “Explore” tab, which lets users find the hidden gems near them based on tips from other users and begs the question: will Foursquare take over Yelp as the top grub finder for foodophiles?
Tumblr soars past 15 billion pageviews a month Micro-blogging site Tumblr continues to produce impressive numbers, with it now accounting for over 15 billion pageviews a month. The half-blog, half-Twitter hybrid owes its continuing success to making sharing effortlessly easy. Just 10% of the content on Tumblr is original, but the average post will be reblogged about 9 times.
Sina Weibo’s incredible record over Chinese New Year
Sina Weibo recorded some incredible statistics in the first minute of Chinese New Year, with an average of 32,212 messages per second. It’s a number even larger than Twitter’s tweets per second record, and goes to show just how powerful some of China’s social networks are.
LiveJournal wants to live again in the U.S. Americans had nearly written off LiveJournal as nostalgia of the Noughties, but the site is trying to make a comeback by attracting users to tight-knit groups around specific subjects. It doesn’t hurt that George R.R. Martin, the author of the popular ‘Game of Thrones’ programme, writes avidly on his blog there.
Ticketmaster + Spotify = concert-goers paradise Welcome to the world of social music through Facebook Timeline. A new app from Ticketmaster will recommend gigs based on your listening habits and history. Yet another reason to delete those tunes you’re a bit embarrassed about, lest you tell all of Facebook that you’re going to (another) Justin Bieber concert.
What you want from Auto Trader
A new app on Facebook Timeline from Auto Trader gives users the option to show friends cars they would like to own. Interestingly, rather than the traditional ‘like’ button, it will include a ‘want’ button instead.
Just like The Dude Lionsgate is the latest studio to rent films through Facebook and has made its latest film ‘Abduction’ more interactive. Pop-up boxes appear on screen with quotes or a 20-second grab and give viewers the option to post it on Facebook. If one of your friends watches the film later, he can see the comment you left at that point in the film. You can also ‘Like’ the products that your favourite characters are using. Watching ‘The Big Lebowski’? Then perhaps you’d like some Kahlua.
Brewing in the hive mind Crowdsourcing is bubbling up in the beer world. Untappd (a beer check-in and recommendation service) now lets breweries claim their pages, allowing them to see which of their beers is the most popular and be in contact with their biggest fans. They’ve already picked up 150 breweries thus far, including Dogfish Head, Kona, Boston Beer and Tenth & Blake.
In the same vein, Sam Adams has developed a Facebook app so that fans can create a custom beer, which will be brewed next month. Fans can comment on categories such as colour, body and sweetness. Will the result be delicious or taste like a bad batch of home brew?
You’re in Stephen King’s story Could your mug be on Stephen King’s next book? To celebrate his next book, the publisher has invited fans to upload their photo onto a Facebook app and revel in their few ‘pixels of fame’.
MINI fans the Facebook flames Pyromaniacs will get a kick out of this: at the Brussels motor show, MINI launched a new competition so that when Facebook users like their page, it lights a Bunsen burner under a rope attached to a MINI Countryman which one lucky fan won. MINI are on fire at the moment.
Discover Berlin with Hugo Boss For Berlin Fashion Week, Hugo Boss sponsored Foursquare specials on drinks and starter deals at trendy bars and restaurants around the city. The best boss around.
Katie Price isn’t herself Most thought that when Katie Price tweeted about the Eurozone crisis and China’s GDP over the weekend, she wasn’t acting like her usual self. And as it turns out, she wasn’t – it was a cleverly played PR stunt from Snickers, who paid to take over her Twitter account.
Cadbury says a big thanks — bar none To celebrate reaching 1 million Facebook fans, Cadbury built a giant thumbs up out of 1 million chocolate bars. Two days and three tones of chocolate later, fans were rewarded with the sight of the massive treat.
Magical mystery tour with Burton A new competition from Burton Snowboards lets Facebook fans pack a ‘bag’ with three items of Burton kit, and then pick two friends to join them on their trip (destinations have not been disclosed), should they win one of the three grand prizes.
One Like, One Balloon Heineken Brazil launched a simple yet effective campaign to get more ‘Likes’ on Facebook: turn a ‘Like’ into a balloon. Soon an empty office was filled with thousands of them, and fans could see updates of the disappearing office.
Secret menu for tavern’s Twitter followers Way better than In-and-Out’s famous “secret” menu, The Opera Tavern in London is announcing a special burger and the password to order it to only its followers. Just ask for Pierre the manager and tell him, “I’ve got the horn”.
Bald Barbie coming?
After a popular social media campaign, Mattel are still unsure about producing a bald Barbie because of the possible ramifications. Two women whose daughters lost their hair after cancer treatment are adamant that ‘bald is beautiful’.
Hirsute We Are Social MD Robin Grant is uniquely qualified to give his opinion on the issue:
The obvious thing to do would be to release a limited edition bald Barbie with a percentage of the proceeds going to charity. Some companies have a fear of being seen to bow to consumer pressure – but corporate marketing teams must guard against being unchanging and monolithic.
Vince Lombardi famously said “show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser”. So if I read from this that Vince approves of bad losers then he would have been delighted by my reaction to this particular defeat.
It may have ended 6 – 3 in Razorfish’s favour, but it started ever so promisingly. Within 5 minutes, Olly had ‘megged their onrushing keeper to put us one nil up. Then Joe Weston scored a goal so good I thought the referee had asked him for his autograph. In fact he just wanted his name for the post match report, but still, the goal merited it.
Anyway, after this surprisingly good start it all went rather downhill. I was caught trying to dribble out of defence, before another defensive error saw them equalise at 2-2. I’m not sure this one was down to me, but the way I played it may as well have been. Needless to say, at half time, with momentum against us, and with no substitutes available to call on, there wasn’t a great deal of optimism to go around.
But within a minute of the restart, Adam miraculously (and I say that without a hint of hyperbole) pinged a first time shot-cum-pass into the bottom corner to put us back into the lead. The kind of lead that flashes a bit of leg and flirts with you all too briefly before dashing off into the night without even a second glance back in your direction.
Apparently somebody on the Razorfish team had donned their shooting boots (adidas Predators I think they were) for the second half. He was curling in shots from all over the pitch, most of which were flying into the top right corner, giving our keeper Dan not a sniff of a chance.
They were, Olly proffered, the kind of strikes which go in at most 30% of the time. So by my reckoning he must have had 12 shots on goal. Needless to say I was marking him for much of that half. Had him in my pocket… right up until the moment he scored his 4 goals.
Little else to report in the second half other than several instances where the referee failed to understand the nuances of handball rule, Olly being accused of “taking a dive” into a metal post, and Adam urging us to “push up” out of defence apparently to catch our opponents offside. A tactic straight out of the Arsenal playbook. But not such a great call in 5-a-side, where there is no offside rule.
A recent McKinsey Global Survey revealed that marketers see clear value in social media when it comes to driving customer engagement, but they feel they are ill-equipped to transform insights into action because they do not have sufficient familiarity with skills such as data analytics.
How companies are using digital tools In the past 2 years, 56% of marketers surveyed felt they were better able to use digital channels to deliver mutual value to customers and their own brands.
For example, marketers are increasingly using Facebook as an online commerce platform, where customers can seek opinions from the brand or their peers before purchasing products from within Facebook itself. Many companies are also harnessing Twitter for customer service – Best Buy’s Twelpforce being a great example.
However, less than a quarter of those surveyed are using analytical tools to refine their decision-making processes, even though 39% have increased access to data and insights.
This reflects an important imbalance: while companies believe that social media are valuable to their brands, their ability to use analytics to better understand their ‘digital customers’ is hindering their ability to use online channels as effectively as they’d like.
The shift towards social Reassuringly, McKinsey found that there would be a clear shift in focus towards digital tools over the next few years. Interestingly, there will be a diminishing focus on company websites and email as brands invest more in social media.
47% of the marketers McKinsey surveyed plan to use social media sites in future, compared to the 39% that currently do. Their greatest interest currently lies in mobile applications, with 48% of marketers planning to engage customers via mobile apps, compared to the 11% who are already doing so.
Challenges marketers face 32% of marketers agree that being able to generate and leverage deep customer insights is central to effective marketing, but they also say that this poses the greatest challenge to them.
Interestingly, 11% of marketers stated that they face difficulty in assessing the effectiveness of their digital marketing because of the difference between traditional and online metrics.
However, given the vast array of available data about online marketing, and the opportunities to customise tools to report the metrics that matter most to individual marketers, our sense is that this may be more an issue of awareness and comfort levels with the tools than it is one of actual potential.
Widely available tools like Google Analytics provide an incredible wealth of data, and can also include enlightening social tracking, but many marketers are yet to get actively involved in the set-up and analysis of the tracking these tools offer.
Similarly, Facebook’s free Insights offering provides valuable details of the demographics and location of a Facebook Page’s ‘fans’ – data which marketers can use to identify key cultural trends within their audience, or identify areas for growth that can inspire highly targeted communications activity.
The good news is that, although only 14% of respondents have implemented concrete plans to address ‘the data challenge’, almost half are developing, or are in the process of implementing, steps to generate customer insights from online data.
Transparency and fear Understandably, 22% of those surveyed find managing brand reputation online a challenge, largely because of the open nature of social media. Besides the 19% who already have social media policies in place, a further 38% of marketers surveyed are developing or implementing social media guidelines.
The struggle with online metrics and analysis Marketers are struggling to assess the impact of digital marketing because of their inability to translate analytic results into insight, or identify the right metrics in the first place.
31% of marketers feel that online metrics do not adequately quantify the financial impact digital marketing has generated for their companies. Alarmingly, 24% can’t even understand what these metrics actually measure.
27% of respondents said they feel that they lack internal leadership on analytics. Meanwhile, one-quarter face difficulty in finding internal talent, and one in ten thinks that their HR department is ill-equipped to identify candidates with analytic skills. The greatest challenge, unsurprisingly, lies in funding.
As a result of all these issues, only 4% of McKinsey’s respondents believe that they possess the necessary capabilities to effectively manage their business.
Our interpretation of these findings is that there is a degree of the tail wagging the dog though; digital and social media provide a variety of tools that can help to deliver greater value to a business, and are not merely obstacles that marketers need to try to ‘get around’.
Metrics should be at the service of the marketer, helping to measure return on investment, and identifying ways to improve the business approach. Our assessment is that, too often, measurement is an after-thought, and too few companies are setting clear objectives for their digital or social media activities before they get involved in execution.
Planning for a digital and social future Just as the Industrial Revolution turned into an Industrial Evolution that lasted hundreds of years, so will it take time for present-day companies to adapt to and master this ‘Digital Revolution’. This is an on-going process, and it will take time to effectively fuse digital approaches and technologies into all business functions.
In their analysis of the findings, McKinsey reassures marketers that “there’s no single solution” for companies struggling to define their online business model, but they highlight the importance of making use of data rather than merely collecting it.
They also suggest that many marketers may be expecting too much of themselves, and too soon. The world of digital and social media is changing rapidly, and it’s unrealistic for any one person or team to understand everything.
Consequently, marketers should not be afraid to reach out to third-party partners who can help with data analysis, insight, and subsequent strategic interpretation.
There’s certainly a lot of change in social analytics as we begin 2012 – and some of the “hottest” platforms to follow are among those you probably never heard of. I’ll run through some of these here, but if you come to my Social Media Monitoring Training in London on 26th January (hosted by Our Social Times) you’ll hear the “lowdown” on these platforms and others, and learn how you can use them to advance your business.
1. VenueLabs – Venuelabs.com is a dashboard that listens to Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, Gowalla and CitySearch for brand mentions and delivers insight that you can look at by location and history. The platform identifies specific customers / fans with influence or specific views on your business.
2. Recorded Future – Most people don’t realize it yet, but most monitoring platforms are absolutely useless as predictors of what people will say and do next day, next week, next month, or whenever. As something more innovative, I did a webinar with Recorded Future a few weeks ago that covers the full gamut of what The Recorded Future can do for you and it’s my favorite webinar to date that I’ve done, I hope you all listen to it in full.
3. InfiniGraph – InfiniGraph tackles social analytics from a different perspective than anyone else I’ve come across. Instead of trying to monitor what people are saying about your brand, or a brand you’re interested in, InfiniGraph tracks the interests of your Facebook and Twitter fans. Smaller organisations won’t find it that useful, but if you’re a bigger brand and have a ton of followers and friends then Infinigraph could be really useful. Luke Brynley-Jones explained how Infinigraph can be used for “social media amplification” on his blog earlier this week.
4. 6Degree- You probably never heard of 6Degree, but you will, pretty soon. 6Degree is an Australian Analytics platform that is going international, and has evolved a “persona” tracking approach and applied it to social media monitoring and analytics. The founders of 6Degree have apparently been inspired, partly, by my thoughts on audience segmentation, and built persona modelling around my ideas. I’ll be doing some demos of 6Degree in my London class. Others will see in it politics, mark my words.
5. PeekAnalytics – PeekAnalytics take a different approach than 6Degree. It uses up to 30 different sources of information to verify a person’s identity and interests and also does ‘persona segmentation’. One thing I can see PeekAnalytics being used for is detecting the real nature of someone’s followers, including if they are real or ‘bots’. I see this being a growing field of interest as social media becomes more competitive. I’m on the PeekYou Advisory Board so I get to see all the neat stuff PeekYou is cooking up on a regular basis.
6. SoDash – I’m going to be meeting with SoDash soon but I want to share some exciting capabilities of this geo-location platform. SoDash uses artificial intelligence to “generate leads, manage your brand, watch the competition and look after your customers”. The artificial intelligence handles the workflow automatically, which makes it very intuitive. It can handle multilingual messaging (and will translate any message for you) and can be configured to search for messages search by location (down to postcode).
So there you have it, 6 monitoring platforms that are under most people’s radar that could have profound impact for your campaigns and branding efforts in 2012. Join me in London on 26th January where I’ll give you a deeper dive than anyone has ever had outside the labs of these platforms. You’ll also walk away with a free copy of my book, to boot!
Marshall has kindly offered We Are Social readers a 10% discount on the Social Media Monitoring training price, by entering the discount code “WAS10” when buying a ticket directly from their website.
Last week the Drum announced their New Year’s Honours list, and we’re delighted to say that We Are Social was named Social Media Agency of the Year! We feel a bit like Sir Terry Wogan did in the photo above (although we’re glad we don’t have spouses that look like Margaret Thatcher). Anyway, we are very honoured. Thank you, Drum:
If one agency is synonymous with consistently innovating in the social space, it’s We Are Social. The stand-out campaign from the past year has to be Heinz ‘Get Well’ soup – personalised cans of soup available to be ordered for ill friends on the brand’s Facebook page. With offices in seven countries and premium brands like Moet & Chandon coming on board, it’s hard to believe the agency is still only three years old.
At Ford, social media is bigger than advertising
Matt VanDyke, director-U.S. marketing communications for Ford has told Ad Age:
At Ford, social media is bigger than advertising
How long will it be before we hear other major brands say the same?
Bad reviews may be good for business In a report by social commerce company Reevoo, it’s been suggested that bad reviews may actually be good for business. The company found that 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores, and consumers fear tampering if there are no negative reviews.
Over the last year YouTube has seen some pretty impressive growth and has even had six consecutive months as the fastest growing social site in the UK. Year on year this means that YouTube’s market share has increased by a total of 7%.
Facebook places ads alongside social updates in the feed Facebook rolls out a new way of advertising to friends of fans. Comparable to Sponsored stories, which currently sit on the right hand side of the page, the new Featured stories will actually appear in the news feed. A small difference perhaps, but giving the ad an appearance of being a story rather than a paid for piece.
Although the addition of adverts within the news feed may irritate some users, the adverts displayed will only appear from brands yourself or a friend has already liked. To further reduce a chance of backlash, Facebook have also declared that there will only be one of these ads per day in the feed.
Facebook have also been trialing a new type of coupon promotion. The promotion, which allow pages to post coupons, then promote them with sponsored stories is being used by sandwich chain Which Wich giving fans a little extra for their like. Studies have found, users come to Facebook for exclusive offers and discounts suggesting these vouchers could be a big success if used correctly.
Listen to music with your friends on Facebook Listening to music with friends has always been seen as a social pastime. Facebook are now taking it that one step further by allowing friends to listen to music on Spotify at the exact same time as each other.
A new button will be rolling out on the ticker and a simple click will have you listening along. The feature will also open up a chat with all of the friends listening in, so when that riff you all love comes in, you can share the moment together.
Want a Twitter verified account? Buy ads As there is no longer an application form for the verified accounts, they are gained by demonstrating someone is wilfully trying to impersonate you, or if you’re an advertiser or partner. Twitter has been providing them to anyone who’s spent $15,000 on Twitter ads as a sort of perk, and as a way to prove the identity of the advertiser.
Google+ added to search, at what cost?
The big news last week was Google’s introduction of what it catchily called ‘search plus your world’ – basically a way of promoting Google+ in its search results. Adam has the full low-down in this dedicated post about the issue.
Of course, Google aren’t going to miss out an opportunity to show of its social network’s functionality, so users of Google+ will be able to hang out with Beckham immediately after the live interview.
Explore the world with Foursquare The guys over at Foursquare are busy rolling out their new web app, Foursquare Explore. The premise is a bit like Google maps, in that tips and information about local retailers, restaurants and anything interesting are layered over.
Not only does it allow you to search for general recommendations, but also it learns where you and your friends check in to give tailored and accurate results.
TV gets a bit more social Boxee allows users to find and play video directly from the Internet on their television sets, and now thanks to a partnership with Facebook, TV is to become a little bit more social. The new Boxee live and Facebook intergration allows users to post what they are watching to Facebook for the world to see. Friends can then click the links and ‘check in’ to the shows and find more information about them. Don’t worry just yet; this functionality is optional so your viewing habits won’t be broadcasted to friends without you knowing about it.
Social television seems to be going from strength to strength with TV check in app, GetGlue raising $12M in financing. Not only has the company been successful in raising this amount of money, but they have also announced that over 2M users are checking into their TV Shows.
Looking to capitalise the rise of duel-screen TV viewing, Sky have bought 10% of hot British social TV start-up Zeebox in order to offer an innovative augmented TV experience. The service offers users social media feed and conversations via Twitter and facebook as well as additional information about the shows. Users will be able to read up on actors, purchase music or even products on the screen without leaving their seat. The functionality will be integrated into existing Sky apps and will include the ability to access Sky+ boxes on the move, making it the perfect television buddy.
Latest to hop on the social television bandwagon is MySpace with the announcement that they’re launching a social television experience with Panasonic. MySpace’s service aims to connect viewers with content and each other utilising Panasonic Viera connect TV sets. The package will include Smartphone and Tablet apps so users can access Myspace TV even if they are away from their televisions.
Tebow-mania hits Twitter Last week during the NFL playoff game between the Denver Broncos and AFC champions Pittsburgh Steelers saw the highest rates of tweets per second (TPS) in Twitter history. As Tebow threw his 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime and secured a win for the Broncos Twitter erupted at a rate of 9,420 TPS – a new record for sports events.
To put this rate into perspective the previous record was 7,196 at the end of the FIFA womans world cup last summer, and it’s even more than Osama Bin Laden’s death (5,106 TPS), Steve jobs’ resignation (7,064 TPS) and Death (6,049 TPS). It’s a large number, but still far from the all-time record of 25,088 when Hayao Miyazaki’s castle in the sky was aired in Japan.
The most notable characteristic is that user data will include Facebook users’ private status messages and comments, a statement that may alarm some, however the mentions will be fed through a computerised analysis tool and never seen by Facebook employees.
Tiësto played through his signature tracks, but more importantly showed off the potential of the new Twitter brand pages for embedding live video and sound.
#SmokedByWindowsPhone
In this short, but sweet campaign by Microsoft, they offered users a chance to win $100 if they could complete certain tasks on their existing phone before the Windows phone could complete the same task. The penalty for losing was to bite the bullet and admit on camera that you got #SmokedByWindowsPhone, a bold but confidant move by Microsoft, however after winning in 88% of the challenges, it seems to have paid off.
Klout to Crown the First-Ever ‘T-Mobile Social King of CES’ A challenge by set out by Klout and T-Mobile, saw users try to aquire the most +Ks during CES 2012. The user who managed to use their Klout in order to gain the most +K during the event was crowned T-Mobile Social King and given a host of techie prizes.
Tiffany & Co. team up with the Sartorialist to showcase true love Tiffany and Co. have joined forces with fashion bloggers the Sartorialist & Garance Doré in an effort to discover true love from real couples around Paris and New York.
The venture, True Love in Pictures is the latest venture from Tiffany & Co. as part of their Whatmakeslovetrue.com project. The project has see an Instagram gallery created by the couple and now seeks out to find user generated moments of romance, all captured using the Tiffany & Co. downloadable Instagram filter.
Audi partners with Foursquare for a new badge for Skiers If you’re hitting the slopes this winter and can’t get enough Foursquare badges, the new Audi Winter Ride badge is sure to be up your street. User can unlock the badge by following Audi and checking in at any ski area, unlocking the badge and rewarding the user with a 20% discount on the Audi collection.
Kit Kat to decide new flavour through Facebook A new campaign by Nestle, asks consumers to vote for their favourite of four new Kit Kat Chunky flavours with the winner being sold permanently.
Fans will be able to vote on their favourite of the four flavours (double choc, peanut butter, orange or white choc) on Facebook until 24th February. To add a little incentive to the campaign fans have the chance to win £100 each day for their entry.
While Cadbury turns to Google+ to launch Bubbly Bar Continuing on with chocolate-based news, this week has seen Cadbury launch their new Bubbly bar exclusively on Google+ to their followers. The post (below) was released to fans and then quickly followed by posts on Facebook and Twitter.
Diet Coke launches fashion and beauty Facebook app Diet Coke have launched a fashion and beauty Facebook app dubbed the Get Glam app. The app is said to be the ‘perfect accompaniment for getting ready with the girls’ and includes fashion and beauty tips alongside a video chat tool. Launched as part of a three-year initiative across brands to link their activity to fashion, the idea is set to appeal to ‘young, fun loving woman’.
The Facebook sandwich Greggs have launched a new campaign, asking users to vote for their favourite limited edition sandwiches on their Facebook page. When a customer buys one of the sandwiches, the label directs them to the page to vote on which of the sandwiches will stay.
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