We Are Social's Monday Mashup #56

Mashup
adam.bernstein

Social Media Users ‘more demanding’
Research from IAB UK has found that social media users, in the UK at least, expect a lot more from brands – a quarter of people who complain through Facebook or Twitter expect a response within an hour and 6% want one within ten minutes. This contrasts with complaints through a brand’s website, where 50% of those surveyed were happy to receive a response within a day and 27% were happy to wait as long as three days.

But it ties in with the general findings of the report – that the 18-34 demographic are very active in their use of social media, with many using it first thing in the morning and last thing at night – and their constant use of Facebook means they expect an immediate response. Their addiction to social media is shown in that 47% of this demographic have uploaded a picture of a meal of theirs to a social site – considering this statistic, it is obvious how it is eating up so much of their time … (sorry).

Businesses more confident with social media
A survey from Econsultancy has found that more businesses are using social media for customer support with adoption rates up to 51% – an increase of 15% – since last year. The importance of social media to these businesses is highlighted in that it is the single biggest area which they plan to invest in to boost customer service.

Where does your organisation plan to invest to improve customer service?

UK marketing budgets cut
Amid a climate of economic uncertainty, a survey by the IPA of 300 leading UK companies has found that marketing budgets were cut by 5.4% in the final quarter of 2010. What’s interesting to note though is that in spite of  overall budgets going down, digital budgets are rising – perhaps reflecting the importance of social media in their overall plans.

Facebook almost at 600 million users
Facebook only hit the milestone of 500 million users six months ago, yet it now has almost reached the 600 million mark. Although this is partly down to the number of Americans (20 million in the last six months) continuing to join the site, what is more interesting is how Germany has seen 50% growth, Russia 70% and Poland 100% in the same period. You could say the only thing which is incredible about Facebook anymore is how it continues to produce astonishing statistics such as these….

Facebook grants developers access to your address and phone number
Facebook announced over the weekend that they’ve updated their API with functionality to access users’ address and phone numbers.

There has been something of a backlash about this. As All Facebook’s Jackie Cohen points out:

Unfortunately, the developers plying the user graph objects include rogue applications, such as spamware, malware and deceptive schemes that security staff seems to have a hard time keeping up with. This category of n’er-do-wells can now gain access to people’s mobile phone numbers and street addresses. So I really hope the social network devises a way to bar the rogues from using this set of code, and if that’s not possible, then perhaps get rid of the entire thing before any damage can be done.

It’s hard not to agree with her, with Sophos advising users to remove their phone number and address information from Facebook.

Update: Looks like Facebook have listened to the feedback and have suspended the new feature while they work on ‘improvements’.

MySpace cuts almost half its workforce
MySpace confirmed the rumours when it announced last week that it was cutting 500 jobs – 47% of its workforce. While its autumn relaunch saw a rise in numbers, it was not enough to save these jobs. The obvious question is where does MySpace go from here?

1 million photos on Foursquare
Three weeks ago, Foursquare began allowing Android and iPhone users to upload photos to the service and already one million photos have been uploaded.

Klout raises funding
Klout’s founder Joe Fernandez announced that as “measuring influence across the social web is a monumental task”, the company has brought in more investment. Impressively, they’ve managed to snag $8.5m, suggesting that some believe the company has clout … (sorry, again).

Levi’s impressive use of social media

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After running a contest last summer to become a ‘Levi’s Girl’ for six months, Levi’s are running a similar campaign, once again looking for someone to be the voice of Levi’s online. To win the contest, entrants will have to leverage their own network to vote for them – thereby helping Levi’s grow their fan page, as well as retaining their current fans.

They’ve also shown they’re on the ball in other markets. Levi’s Brazil have uploaded a series of pictures of their upcoming collection to Instagram (article in Portuguese), and by following selected influencers, they’ve managed to create substantial buzz around the new clothes. In short, very cool!

Labour bloggers being managed?
Dan Hodges wrote an interesting article for the New Statesman suggesting that left-wing bloggers in the UK were now being managed by Alex Smith, a member of Ed Miliband’s team, in a drive to provide a consistent opposition to the Tory government. It represents an interesting move if true (it has been strongly rebuffed by the bloggers accused). As an unnamed source put it, “bloggers are an unknown quantity – they play by different rules”.