We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #278
Facebook predicted to be Mondelez’s biggest e-commerce channel
After recently announcing an e-commerce tie-up with Facebook, Mondelez International has claimed to have already seen a 5% increase in overall sales of Philadelphia. The snack brand has been successfully experimenting with online selling on the platform, such as allowing consumers to buy products through Facebook videos. A great start towards Mondelez’s ambitious target to raise e-commerce sales revenue from less than $100m today to $1bn by 2020.
It’s time to pimp your Facebook profile picture
Some exciting new changes are afoot at Facebook. Probably the jazziest one is that you will soon be able to add a 7-second looping video as a profile pic a la Mandy Cheng. I know what you’re all thinking: can I do this with a hand dryer in the loo at work? Much to my chagrin and heated face, I can confirm it’s a no.
The option to select a temporary profile picture is also being rolled out, so you can select a special picture with an expiry date for when it will revert back to normal.
There is an improved personal information section, to sit at the top of your profile so people can quickly learn a bit more about you / Facebook can mine a bit more data about you – but that’s none of my business 🐸☕️. A new mobile first design also means that profile pictures will now appear centred and bigger for a more visually engaging experience.
Facebook unveils clever new ad targeting product
A new Facebook ad targeting technique has been announced called brand awareness optimisation. Instead of targeting ads based on other page likes, it analyses the quality time Facebook users spend viewing a certain newsfeed, video or display promo. Graham Mudd, Facebook’s director of ads product marketing said:
We can see if a consumer spent more time looking at that ad then they typically spend looking at ads. When you see someone slow down and consume the ad in ways that’s different from his or her previous behaviours, that’s a very strong predictor that the person will remember seeing the ad.
Using common interests, Facebook then finds other users who it predicts will have a similar reaction, as well as weeding out those who probably won’t engage with the campaign.
Are the days of the 140 character Twitter limit numbered?
Although a Twitter spokesperson has declined to comment, it is alleged that Twitter is developing a product which will allow users to go beyond the 140 character limit. There has also been talk of removing links and user handles from the total character count. Jack Dorsey continues to shake things up at Twitter HQ in an attempt to reach a more mainstream audience – but as we’ve only just picked ourselves up after the ‘Instagram pictures no longer need to be square’ shock revelation, one has to ask oneself, is nothing sacred anymore?
YouTube introduces its most native ad yet
We’ve all enjoyed ads on YouTube right? Currently they’re usually found at the start and dotted through the middle as well. Now just in case you haven’t been made aware of pregnancy tests enough at those opportunities, ads are going to be incorporated into the actual videos themselves, so you can shop the products as you see them in any videos. This comes from YouTube’s insight that product videos (such as reviews and tutorials) have seen a 40% viewership growth in the past year, making this new ad format a natural way to monetise this growing trend.
Snapchat gets clever with new advertiser-funded selfie lenses
Snapchat has introduced sponsored selfie lenses, with brands paying up to $750,000 for just one day’s exposure to its young, digitally native user base. After quickly ditching more traditional ad formats which went down about as well as a Facebook outage on a Thursday afternoon, Snapchat will be hoping this one will prove more popular.
Pinterest ramps up buyable pins
Given that Christmas is literally just around the corner, social platforms are making sure they’re providing brands with as much incentive as possible to invest in them. Pinterest, which rolled out Buyable Pins last June, has now brought on three new e-commerce companies to power 60 million pins, up from 30 million that initially launched. Sounds painful!
LinkedIn rolls out new content sharing platform called Elevate
A new content curation and social sharing platform has been designed by LinkedIn that turns employees into brand advocates for their company. Employees already post positive news and stories from their companies on LinkedIn – Elevate formalises this behaviour, with companies like Visa, Unilever and CEB among the first to try it out. Visa’s social media team has worked to collate the stories from inside the business and from the web at-large which are then fed into Elevate. Employees can then log on and select content they’re interested in to share with their personal LinkedIn network. At CEB they’ve reported that profile views for those using Elevate have increased by an average of 150% and job views by 100%.
Facebook trials its Place Tips at Disney World Food and Wine Festival
Facebook has partnered with Walt Disney World to offer live event coverage for the park’s annual Food & Wine Festival. Anyone attending the festival with Facebook will, as if by Mickey magic, be presented with a banner notification in their newsfeed when opening the app, along with a map of the park, special event information and a reminder of who your nearest and dearest are for when you’ve sampled too much grappa*.
*NAHHHT!
Lenovo invites you to discover your #GoodWeird
We Are Social has been working with Lenovo to launch a new multi-year campaign called “Goodweird” based on the idea that often innovations that become familiar and accepted started off as frankly, a bit weird looking. Lenovo has recently been pursuing greater brand awareness among millennials in particular by designing a new logo and through a series of different video campaigns. The brand has tasked prominent YouTubers and Viners to create videos around the Goodweird theme, with Buzzfeed also creating content. Quinn O’Brien, VP-global brand strategy, content and design at Lenovo has said:
The whole goal around this is to get people to engage with Goodweird and put it out the right way so people associate Lenovo and Goodweird. We want to push people to go out and look at the world and see what is good and weird and tag it with the hashtag.
I have of course submitted a small video of my intricate but ultimately satisfying hair-removal techniques. #GoodWeird
Twitter’s blue tick continues to elude Captain Obvious
After months of campaigning for Twitter verification Captain Obvious (a Hotels.com spokesman) is still chasing what the Pumpkin Spice Latte has already achieved, verification from Twitter. The account, which has 216,000 followers and has commented on everything from the GOP presidential debate to National Punctuation Day has, and I’m sorry to state the obvious, been a bit moany about it as well.
The baristas get my name wrong every time too. Just like a real person, which I am. @Twitter#VerifyCaptainObviouspic.twitter.com/uX3aKpRvuc
— Captain Obvious (@CaptainObvious) July 29, 2015
Twitter’s FAQ doesn’t give away much on how it decides which accounts get verified stating just:
We concentrate on highly sought users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business and other key interest areas.
Hollister target high school students with Snapchat geofilters
Hollister has partnered with Snapchat to geo target 19,000 high school students in the US and Canada who will be able to overlay ‘Friday Vibes’ onto their snaps in the form of a filter. It’s the first time filters have been used at a high school according to Snapchat and Hollister but they declined to comment on pricing at this time.
Joe Boxer undies take a tour Down Under
We Are Social has been working with the international underwear brand Joe Boxer as they embark on a journey onto the newsfeeds of Australians to celebrate their introduction to much loved Aussie retailer Best&Less. In a series of videos users will be introduced to the underwear as they personify a typical American family getting to grips with some of the interesting nuances of Australian culture.