We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #281

Mashup
laura.muldoon

Facebook comes top of the class for Social Ad Effectiveness
eMarketer has released a catchily named new report called “Social Advertising Effectiveness Scorecard: Industry Execs Grade the Leading Platforms,” where executives were asked to rate different social platforms in terms of their paid advertising effectiveness. The results left Facebook with a healthy report to take back to its parents this half term, with a B+ for ROI and the only A in the class (made up of Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat) for its targeting capabilites. Snapchat was commended for its creative capabilities but as a relative newbie to advertising came bottom of the class with some of the lowest scores in the categories judged. ‘Good effort’ Snapchat.

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Companies using Instagram set to double next year
It has been reported that 88.2% of US companies use at least one of the major social platforms indicating they are almost at saturation point. Despite this marketers are now rapidly embracing Instagram which is reported to be one of the only major social networks which will continue to show significant growth over the next two years according to the latest eMarketer forecast. Currently 32.3% of US companies with over 100 employees use Instagram for marketing activities but this will increase to 70.7% by 2017, overtaking Twitter for the first time.

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Facebook improves search features
Three major improvements have been made to Facebook’s search capabilities. The first is that it will now offer personalised search suggestions, secondly you can search through publicly shared posts by strangers or your friends and finally you can search for what people are saying about specific topics and viral posts. Facebook will also highlight topics which are currently popular so you can keep up to speed with real-time news.

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GIFs appear to be working on all Facebook pages
And social media managers be like…

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Facebook: “Unleash the Instant Articles!”
Thousands of Instant Articles were released onto Facebook for iPhone users last week. The rollout comes after it launched with just a few select publishers but now the number has increased to include people like USA Today, The Daily Mail and Cosmopolitan among others. Instant articles are fast-loading, image heavy and housed within Facebook, promising a richer reading experience than regular mobile web articles. You’ll know when you’re seeing an Instant Article as it’ll be marked with a lightning bolt as seen below. Many publishers are keen to get involved despite concerns within the industry that they’ll lose control to Facebook over content. Some of these concerns were alleviated when Facebook said the publishers could keep all of the advertising revenue sold within their Instant Articles in exchange for the soul of their editor’s first born child. Seems reasonable.

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Instagram releases third content creation app in a year
A new app for Instagram has been launched called Boomerang that lets users create short videos that endlessly loop. This is the third app released in a year to encourage users to create interesting content, following on from Hyperlapse and Layout.

Even just one day after launch some brands have been spotted trying it out for the first time.

On a testé #Boomerang, la nouvelle appli d’Instagram : on vous en parle sur elle.fr !

A video posted by ELLE (@ellefr) on

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink Who else is playing with #boomerang today!? #benefit A video posted by Benefit Cosmetics US (@benefitcosmetics) on

Testing out @instagram’s new Boomerang app with social ed @carinahsieh and the bubblegum of your childhood: BUBBLE TAPE #boomerang #bubblegum # #

A video posted by Cosmopolitan (@cosmopolitan) on

A few keep ups outside the East Stand this morning ⚽ #boomerang #oldtrafford #eaststand #manchesterunited #manutd #manchesterutd #mufc #mufcfanpics A video posted by Manchester United Foundation (@manchesterunitedfoundation) on

Twitter Polls are rolled out
This month sees the official launch of Twitter polls, where users can now pose questions with two options for answers e.g. ‘Do you like lamp? a) Yes I Like Lamp b) No I Do Not Like Lamp’. It has been said by Twitter that answers you submit will not be shared publicly or with third parties (so they can sell you some lamp if you like it) and you will be notified of the final result when the poll is complete, which could be a little annoying if you become addicted to the polls.

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Twitter to let brands link Twitter handles to customers’ accounts
Twitter is working with Fabric and Gnip to help businesses run their customer services more smoothly over Twitter. Early testers like Hilton are now able to link up customers’ Twitter credentials to their main customer accounts so all interactions with the brand on Twitter can be tracked for quicker history overview to assist with resolution. Twitter’s fast-paced nature now means that it dominates customer services on social, with 80% of all customer requests coming through this platform.

Twitter announces improvements to and future plans for embedding tweets
At a recent Twitter Flight developer conference it has been announced that there is to be a new “ecosystem” of products for publishers coming out which are tied to how tweets are embedded in published content. These include already existing Twitter products like Tweetdeck and Curator which help find the best tweets to feature in content and also partnerships with companies like Spredfast, Wayin, Dataminr, ScribbleLive and Flowics. It’s also introducing a new grid format (see example below) for those who don’t want to just stack tweets on top of each other (guilty!🙋). Twitter’s Michael Ducker argued that embedded tweets have now become the “modern day pull quote” and has also announced a partnership with JCDecaux to bring tweets to out of home digital displays.

Google reveals its subscription video service
 It has now been announced that Google will be offering a subscription video service called YouTube Red and the cost? $9.99, which also encompasses a music service called YouTube Music (formerly known as YouTube Music Key) and includes a full subscription to Google Play Music. The service which is only currently available in the US will allow users access to all content on YouTube without the ads and they’ve announced that they’ll be 10 new original shows launching for subscribers. Unfortunately for YouTube content creators, if you make content with advertising support you HAVE to participate in the subscription service or your videos will be set to private and no one will be able to find them.

Amazon sues 1000s of people for writing fake reviews
Determined to not lose the integrity of its review system, Amazon is targeting 1,114 people that have used a website called Fiverr.com asking users to leave fake five-star reviews on products to boost their rankings. Julie Quick, the SVP of Insights and Strategy at shopper marketing agency Shoptology said: “Amazon is coming out hard against this,” and that it’s a “symbolic gesture that they’re not going to tolerate this.” She said it’s also meant to reassure customers that its review systems, which is Amazon’s backbone, is “authentic.”.

Twitter’s first ‘Promoted Moment’ is an ad for new film ‘Creed’
The first marketers to use a Promoted Moment after its Moments channel was launched earlier this month are the people behind new movie Creed (A Rocky spinoff FYI). No details of pricing have been released but Twitter has said that it is more in the range of a Promoted Trend than a single promoted tweet. A promoted trend costs around $200,000 a day. Why not get 10!

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Skittles score a touchdown as the NFL’s first sponsor on Snapchat
 After seven weeks of Live Stories from the NFL on Snapchat, it introduced three 10 second ads from Skittles that played in between videos shared by fans at the stadium during a game between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers on Thursday of last week. It is believed that advertising was not started right at the beginning of the season as the NFL would have been taking the first seven weeks to sum up what its audience is like. Snapchat stories have been seen to command more than 10 million views in 24 hours with a minimum cost of 2 cents per view but the NFL will most likely charge a lot more than the minimum.

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Wendy’s get creative with Snapchat style ads on Facebook
As some brands are just waking up to the new possibilities of Facebook’s full screen ads, Wendy’s is racing ahead with a fun interactive ad which uses, photos, videos and GIFs which people can swipe (a classic Snapchat move) to see the whole process of burger making step by step. Other brands testing Facebook’s new immersive ad format include Gatorade, Michael Kors and Bacardi.

TCL is inviting people to talk to its new TV set
 To tie in with Halloween Chinese smart TV manufacturer TCL will be encouraging Periscope users to join in its “ask me anything” Q&A session. Users can then ask questions to a spooky virtual face which can smile, frown, nod and speak (with help from a comedian who will be providing the voice of the TV). Pete Lin, MD of We Are Social in China, added:

“This campaign shows how forward-thinking TCL is. Periscope has huge potential, yet we’ve still seen very few creative executions on the platform away from a simple event live-stream or product demo. TCL is an exciting brand with big global ambitions, and this is just the first step towards taking it to a wider audience.”

Trix starts its search for real rabbit to be the face of its cereal box
 Since Trix has promised to stop using artificial flavours in its cereal by 2017 and become more ‘real’, it’s only right that it ditches its fake rabbit and finds an au naturel replacement. If you think your rabbit is a real looker who could shift cereal with its sweet ass ears, simply share its pictures on social using #RealTrixRabbit and be part of one of the biggest brand icon shake-ups since Captain Birdseye got HOT.

Here is an embedded Twitter grid wot I made after reading this very informative Mashup:’America’s Next Top Rabbits’.

Doc Brown uses Facebook Messenger to talk about the future
As part of Back To The Future Day on 21st October, not only did Universal launch social campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram but Doc Brown himself chatted about the future (and a bit about BTTF products like Pepsi) with fans on Facebook Messenger. The Back To The Future chat created by startup Imperson allows users to have a quick exchange with the doctor and is an attempt to crack the messaging medium where many brands have failed but which sees a reported 104 million monthly users in the US alone. Imperson has already revealed that their next chat character will be Miss Piggy, free, single and ready to mingle!

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Of course lots of brands wanted to hop aboard the hover board of social conversation (see what I did there). Here are some of the good, bad and downright ugly to wrap up this week’s epic mashup.

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly