We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-up #65

News
debbie.mundell

Australian brands told to check their Facebook pages at least once a day
The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has issued new guidance on what it considers to be best practice for brands, including Facebook. Brands have been advised that they should check their Facebook pages at least once a day and periodically during weekends as well. For the high proportion pro-actively utilising social media such levels of monitoring are already being undertaken, however there may be others that decide to re-examine how they manage their communities during weekends for example or set more specific SLA’s around response times and social monitoring practices.

‘Gangnam Style’ now most viewed video in YouTube history
It’s official! Psy has now overtaken Justin Bieber on YouTube with the most viewed video of all time. His song ‘Gangnam Style’ is currently sitting at over 828 million views, and is averaging about 11 million views per day. Aside from this the video had previously set a Guinness World Record for ‘Most Likes on YouTube’ with currently over 5.4 million likes and the Official Psy YouTube channel has approximately 1.7 million subscribers. Just in case you haven’t yet seen the ‘Gangnam Style’ video (and would love to see Psy really cement his number 1 position!), you can click here!

Amazon Launch Brand Pages 
Brands are now able to create their own page on Amazon including a specific URL, dynamic design, social media links, Amazon Analytics for measuring success and also Amazon posts which can be shared on Facebook and in Amazon. The feature has been launched by the Amazon Marketing Services division who have also included a PDF walk through for brands to learn all about the process and creating their own page. The pages themselves give brands the opportunity to add photography including large ‘hero’ images, social buttons linking to Facebook and Twitter plus ‘merchandising widgets’ letting brands place links to specific products of theirs available on Amazon. The pages, posts and analytics features offered by Amazon are all currently free for brands to use.

Twitter now sends a billion tweets every 2.5 days
During a recent talk given by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo he shared a few interesting statistics about the brand including:

A further promise that Costolo made was that Twitter users will be able to download a full archive of their tweets and that this is something engineers are currently working on.

Furthermore, it seems that Twitter is finally looking seriously towards expanding into Australia. Aside from starting an official @TwitterAU account, (and sending a few tweets) it is beginning to meet with key bloggers, celebrities and sports people organising a ‘secret’ invite only breakfast to present insights, case studies and where the company is heading in the future.

Facebook add iTunes to Gift partnerships
Facebook has just added the Apple iTunes store to its gifting catalogue. The ‘Gifts’ feature has just been rolled out in the USA after initial beta tests and this Christmas will definitely be a good opportunity for Facebook to analyse the potential global success for the feature as well. Aside from Apple, another couple of high profile partners of the ‘Gifts’ feature include Starbucks and Fab.com.

Orange announce partnership with Facebook to launch social calling app
It was announced last week by French telecommunications company Orange that they have partnered with Facebook to offer a social calling application that will give users the opportunity to call each other either by mobile or desktop. Set to launch initially in France and likely during the 2013 European summer, the app will let users connect through a single identity rather than a phone number. The official partnership with Orange is in some ways similar to how Facebook works with Skype and therefore gives both organisations the chance to enhance the way the service is marketed, collaborating together.

Alcohol brands see highest engagement on Facebook
Alcohol brands score the highest marks for engagement on Facebook, with the average post engagement rate sitting at 0.40%, according to new research by Socialbakers. Engagement with automotive pages on Facebook came in a close second. Interestingly overall engagement for all pages has increased 2-3x since the first quarter of the year.

Facebook says it’s ‘way too soon’ for F-commerce for luxury brands
Facebook’s director of retail says luxury brands should wait for Facebook to launch the ‘want’ button before they dive into F-commerce, which should be coming next year. So far, only a handful of UK brands have created Facebook stores for their products, but Facebook has made its payment platform more robust, especially for gifting and gaming.

Facebook adds photo sync to iOS
Some Facebook users can now sync their iPhone photos to a private album in real time, a feature already available on Android and also seen on Google+. Facebook will store up to 2 GB of photos, which can be synced via Wi-Fi or 3G. Facebook has tried to make it clear that these photos will remain private until users are ready to share them. Facebook has posted about the feature in its Help Center but hasn’t yet rolled it out to all users.

More tweets from retailers mean more purchases from Twitter users
Twitter users who see tweets from retailers are more likely to visit their online shops and to make purchases, according to new research from Twitter and Compete. Additionally the more tweets users see, the more likely they are to visit a retailer’s website and click ‘Buy.’ Twitter users who see these tweets visit a retailer’s online shop with a higher intent to make a purchase, meaning that high-quality and frequently posted tweets can help drive sales.

Tumblr breaks into top 10 sites in the US
Tumblr is now one of the top 10 sites in the US, and now has a global audience of 170 million. The graph below says it all. Bravo, Tumblr.

Foursquare’s paid ad platform still waiting in beta
Foursquare announced a platform for paid ads four months ago, but it looks like the company wants to get it exactly right before rolling it out to more brands. The feature is still in beta, and it’s not looking like it will be available outside of the small test group of 20 before the holiday season. CEO Dennis Crowley has stayed tight-lipped about all of the details, but in an interview, he describes Foursquare’s ads as a combination of Promoted Tweets and Google Adwords and says that the powerful Explore button is a strong indicator of footfall for brick-and-mortar stores.

Sephora attributes its online success to early adoption
From early on, makeup retailer Sephora has been quick to integrate digital into all of its marketing efforts, including Instagramming Halloween looks from in-store staffers and offering their Facebook fans a sneak peek into Black Friday deals before they went live on the day. The brand also recreated its online shop in April to coincide with the launch of its page on Pinterest, and the photos and Pinterest-integration show how important digital is to the company’s DNA. Read the full interview for more juicy details.

TV ads for Halo 4 include real gamers from Facebook page
The popular video game series Halo has created a Facebook app to recruit gamers with the promise of being featured in a series of TV ads being aired in the UK, France, Germany & Spain. This campaign is a fantastic way of tying social into other platforms, and we’re sure more will soon be in the pipeline for other brands.