We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-up #76

News
debbie.mundell

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tune-Up!

Happy Birthday Julian!
Our Sydney Managing Director Julian Ward has just celebrated his Birthday and we decided to surprise him with our very own Harlem Shake, including each of us wearing Julian masks! What do you think of our dancing?!

Join the Tim Tam ‘Love More Than One’ Bus Tour!
One of Australia’s favourite biscuit brands Tim Tam has kicked off a three week bus tour entitled ‘Love More Than One’ travelling around Victoria, NSW and South Australia promoting the new Tim Tam Treat packs. The bus route can be followed on the brand’s Facebook page with fans even being asked which town’s the bus should visit next. During the campaign an estimated 200,000 Tim Tam’s will be given away. The campaign is also being supported with an above the line TVC (launched on Valentine’s Day), as shown below:

Good use of social media linked with brand perception and purchase intent
The J.D. Power and Associates 2013 Social Media Benchmark Study, released last week, has recorded a link between good use of social media and a number of factors affecting businesses’ bottom lines. The study of over 23,200 online customers found that of those who were considered ‘highly satisfied’, with satisfaction judged via a number of factors on a 1,000 point scale, 87% indicated that their social interaction with the company had strengthened purchase intent. Among those who were ‘less satisfied’, one in ten stated a negative impact on their likelihood to purchase from the company.

Human Brochure Campaign promoting tourism to Canberra
The second half of the Human Brochure campaign took place over the weekend with 250 participants travelling to Canberra. Last year over 31,000 people applied to be one of 500 people (plus could bring a guest) to visit the ACT and experience a weekend of events and unique Canberra experiences. The first group of 250 people had their Canberra weekend last October and this past weekend the second half visited the city sharing their experiences via the #humanbrochure hashtag to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram as well as the Human Brochure website. The estimated total campaign cost was $1 million with the social media approximate reach being 4.2 million Australians and hashtag becoming one of the highest trending on social platforms during both weekends. The results from the second weekend included approximately 2,200 images being posted on Instagram, over 3,500 tweets and 800 Facebook posts. Each participant had the opportunity to experience activities including Outdoor adventure, Food & Wine, Arts & Culture or Family friendly. This weekend unfortunately also took a slightly negative turn with spam accounts overrunning the stream with automatically generated spam and links, although for the most part all participants spoke of having a great weekend in Canberra and that the event had been well organised too.

Hackers take over the official Burger King Twitter account
The Burger King official Twitter account has been hacked, with key branding switched to include McDonald’s branding and imagery plus multiple tweets sent. Users also posted amusing responses to the hack and re-tweeted many of the hackers messages as well. The apparent hackers are an anonymous group called #OPMadCow. Some of the funniest responses from Twitter users included:

Facebook Hacked
Late last week Facebook revealed it had been hacked during the last month. The attack took place when some Facebook employees visited a mobile developer website that had been earlier compromised and this led to malicious malware being installed on the employees laptops. Facebook advised that they are running an investigation into the attack and have also been in contact with the police as well. No user data was affected – luckily.

Sass and Bide’s LFW Live Show on Instagram
Iconic Aussie brand Sass and Bide held their London Fashion Week show last Friday and broadcast live to Instagram, claiming a world first (although apparently P Diddy has something to say about that) for a brand to post real-time during such an event. The pictures were posted to their sassandbide Instagram account and used a couple of specific hashtags including #sassandbideLFW and #instawalk.

Pay Your Mate Back Week
The Commonwealth Bank has discovered that Australians owe their mates a huge $1.8 billion. So the CBA has created the ‘Pay Your Mate Back’ week taking place between 17-23 February as a way of reminding mates that they have forgotten that little IOU. The campaign, promoting the bank’s mobile App ‘Kaching’ is fronted by ex Australian cricketers David Boon and Brett Lee and is led by an interactive video on their YouTube channel and Facebook page. Payments can be made through the App using a telephone number, Facebook contact or email address. In addition integrated online and offline channels are also being used to promote the App.

TD Bank develop specific Google+ content campaign
The American TD Bank has created a specific Google+ campaign, including 96 videos targeting New York branch locations. The videos include an interview with the branch bank manager and will be utilised on the main TD Bank Google+ page plus individual branch pages as well. The unique part of the campaign is that the content has been specifically created for the Google+ platform, plus can also be deemed to incorporate aspects to improve the bank’s Google search rankings and will be used in a geo-targeted advertising campaign.

NBC’s The Biggest Loser teams with Pinterest
NBC is trying a new tactic with the latest series of their program ‘The Biggest Loser’. During each show viewers will be directed to the show’s Pinterest account for recipe, exercise and lifestyle tips as well as photo and video content from the series. Their account currently has 41,000 followers, which presumably will grow as the show airs and no doubt key to the success of the campaign will be traffic to their website, content sharing and potential to gain through branded advertising.

More women are using social around meal planning
US women are increasingly using social media as a tool for meal planning. Not only did nearly half admit to using their smartphone more while shopping, but particular social networks like Pinterest are providing sources of culinary inspiration: 30% reported using Pinterest at least once a week, with 75% of those stating that it provided aid with trying new dishes. In fact, Pinterest was one of the top five recipe sources amongst US mum Internet users, even more popular than finding ideas through friends.

Facebook introduce ‘buy tickets’ button for events
Facebook has introduced a new feature for events: a button that reads “buy tickets”, linking to an off site location for users to complete a transaction. Whilst those planning an event were previously able to include a link for the same purpose, the new button adds emphasis, highlighting the option to those visiting the event page. It is worth noting that it is still necessary to leave the page in order to go through with the order, though. The new feature, currently available only to pages, will look as below:

Eventbrite has announced seamless integration with the feature, allowing users to take advantage of it simply by clicking ‘Publish to Facebook’ from within the Eventbrite page. They have also announced that, once the button is rolled out to all users, they will extend their service to mirror this.

Facebook push ‘Gifts’ feature on Valentine’s Day
For last minute Valentine’s Day gifts, it’s hard to beat petrol station flowers. Or perhaps NOT! That stellar romantic advice aside, an alternative was offered this year by Facebook, who pushed their ‘Gifts’ feature by promoting limited edition $1 Valentine’s Day presents at the top of Newsfeed. Those who have listed themselves as ‘in a relationship’ received messages like the below, mentioning their partner by name and encouraging them to purchase a gift, whilst more generic messages were sent to others.

Facebook allowing you to promote friends’ posts
In a further attempt at monetisation, Facebook is allowing users with fewer than 5,000 friends or subscribers to promote and share their friends’ posts. The post will then appear in Newsfeeds, with a reference to who sponsored it. The platform is continuing to experiment with the cost of promotion, but InsideFacebook have identified $7 as a rough average.

Posterous to shut down on 30th April
Since being acquired by Twitter, blogging platform Posterous has decided to shut down for good, with staff set to concentrate on their partnership with the microblogging website. They have released details of how to download all of your posts, along with recommendations for the importer tools of WordPress and Squarespace in aid of those who wish to continue blogging.

Improved Twitter synchronisation from American Express
American Express has upgraded their save-by-tweet service, which allowed users to save deals by tweeting a certain hashtag, into a pay-by-tweet equivalent, which allows items to be purchased through exactly the same mechanism. Firstly, users sync their AmEx card to Twitter. Then, when they tweet one of the offer/product hashtags, they tweet it to claim whatever may be stored with it. All they then have to do is confirm the payment. The simple process is explained further in the below video.

Over 100,000 Vines posted to Twitter last weekend
Twitter users posted 113,897 Vine videos to the platform during the weekend of the 9th-10th February, an average of 3,324 per hour. These figures, in part a result of a busy weekend that included New York Fashion Week, the Grammy Awards and a hurricane hitting the North Eastern US, display a swift initial uptake of the App. Whilst the figures might not quite match the 1.3 million photos uploaded to Instagram during Hurricane Sandy, they amount to a tenth of that number – certainly impressive for what is still a very new App. It will be interesting to see if Vine can continue to grow at the same rate; if so, it may well end up being a very valuable asset for Twitter.

The use of Vine at New York Fashion Week
A large amount of the Vine activity in the past week came through during New York Fashion Week, with large institutions such as the Wall Street Journal making use of the video-sharing application. The newspaper curated content from a variety of social platforms, including Instagram and Twitter, into a page that included the videos. A similar piece of activity came from designer, Matthew Williamson, who used the app for sharing content live from the catwalk, enlisting the help of photographer Sean Cunningham to ensure a professional finish. The content, starting with the introduction below, can be found through the hashtag #MatthewMagnified or at the @MWWorld account.

Grammy Awards encourage fast work from brands
Hot on the heels of the Superbowl, when Oreo were lauded for their quick work in producing a tweet about the blackout, the Grammy Awards have seen similar action from brands. This time, Oreo produced a cute picture of one of their biscuits in formal attire, but were outdone in the reaction stakes by the likes of Mastercard and Spotify:

 

GE run #IWantToInvent campaign for Inventors’ Day
Inventors’ Day is designed to celebrate those who come up with the out-of-this-world ideas that have shaped the course of human history. To celebrate, GE gave Twitter users the opportunity to be an inventor for a day; tweets that came in with the hashtag #IWantToInvent, the best were chosen and sketched by a professional illustrator. They hashtag was used 2,600 times and GE themselves received 1,400 interactions, including tweets from other brands like Trident, Tropicana and Ritz. An example of the images can be seen below, whilst GE have collected all the sketches into a Facebook album.

Lipton targeting younger audience with Instagram competition
Tea brand Lipton has created a four-week Instagram competition, which encourages the submission of photos that celebrate a different one of Lipton’s core values each week, such as #LiptonBrightness. There will be weekly prizes up for grabs, as well as a grand prize of an all-expenses-paid safari for two in Kenya. The campaign is running across 11 countries, aimed at engaging 22-30 year olds, as opposed to Lipton’s current older demographic.

We Are Social UK produce Plus Size campaign for F&F
In conjunction with British Plus Size Fashion Weekend, We Are Social has created a campaign for F&F clothing with the tag line ‘Feel Fabulous with F&F’. The activity was introduced by inviting three bloggers to become reporters for BPSFW and providing them with an F&F outfit to wear during the event. These bloggers will then write posts about the experience, as well as selecting top fashion picks to be seen by F&F Facebook fans. This is to be supported by Twitter activity, in which the clothing brand will encourage users to tweet using the hasthag #FeelFabulous in order to receive a £25 voucher.

BMW bring child’s drawing to life
Lots of kids draw. Lots of kids love cars. Not many kids get their drawings turned into a state-of-the-art design by a car manufacturer. However, BMW has changed that for one lucky child, whose drawing was turned into a full prototype for a seriously futuristic looking car, complete with the four-year-old’s chosen specifications. They then posted the image to their Facebook page, with the following message:

Eli, we think you might be onto something. Our marketing department worked a little photoshop magic to bring your dream to life. We’ll be sure to pass this on to our product designers. Thanks for sharing your idea and for being a BMW fan.

Makers Mark bows to Twitter pressure to not dilute bourbon
Bourbon manufacturer Makers Mark last week announced plans to reduce the alcohol content of their bourbon, in order to allow for a shortage caused by increased demand. However, they received such backlash on Twitter that they have been forced to backtrack, tweeting that they will retain the beverage’s original strength. This should act as a lesson in the power of Twitter for swaying the actions of brands, as shown by the graph below, depicting Twitter mentions of Makers Mark from the day before they announced the change:

Social media and US politics
Last week, President Obama’s ‘State of the Union’ address created a lot of excitement across social media, particularly in the realm of real-time Twitter advertising. First of all, a number of organisations purchased promoted tweets with the hashtag #SOTU in the time leading up to the event, with non-profits including Chevron, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bankrupting America, Heritage Foundation, the National Association of Manufacturers and Society for Human Resource Management looking to steer online conversation towards their interests. During the speech, the @BarackObama and @whitehouse accounts both live tweeted much of what the President said, including additional content where relevant or effective. The action on Twitter continued further after the event, with mockery of Republican Senator’s response to the speech, in which he hurriedly sipped at his water. However, his response managed to make a joke out of the issue and deflect criticism: