We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-Up #107

News
amaury.treguer

Australians are tech wearers 
According to a study made by Rackspace, surveying 750 Aussies aged between 18 and 64, Australian people love wearing technology.  From health and fitness monitors, action cameras to smart watches and glasses, 35% of Australian use wearable tech compared to only 18% in UK and US. Aside from the obvious benefits, Australians believe that wearing technology helps them to feel more in control of their lives. This trend represents a great opportunity for brands to connect with their audience whilst they’re on the go.

Nick-Woodman-3

Australia’s most important debate: Biscuit or Chocolate
One of the most important debates happening at the moment in Australia is whether Chocolicious Bites by Tim Tam should be categorised as a biscuit or a chocolate. The campaign that runs across all Arnott’s platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram ask consumers to cast their vote. Fans of the biscuits will also have the chance to participate in the future TVC. The fee for the day of the shooting will be 52 packets of Tim Tam. As I am French, I personally don’t have an opinion on this, I just know that Tim Tam legendary biscuits are probably one of Australia’s best inventions.

622811_588716841195813_1273024700_o-1

Queuing has never been that much fun…
Even though thousands people are ready to camp in front of their favourite Apple or Samsung stores to buy the latest toy, queuing in the cold for hours is definitely not fun. For the launch of the of the new Galaxy S4, Samsung created the Smart Phone Line, a digital queue where people could join and preserve a spot without leaving their couch. Future buyers had the opportunity to join the queue and move up in the line in exchange for posts on their social media platforms. A clever way to make queuing more enjoyable and building product momentum before its official launch. Also, a great example of social currency. Would you tweet for more news from us?

Facebook adds four times the purchase intent of TV alone
Confectionery giant Mondelez has discovered with its Creme Egg Facebook activity that the social network adds four times the purchase intent of marketing than through TV alone. As an FMCG brand that requires high reach within specific sectors, they used targeted advertising on posts to ensure that their campaign reached 15 million people in total, with 6 million of those from mobile. Via Facebook, they received 18% brand consideration and 21% unique reach beyond TV.

Marketers planning to increase social spending
A survey by Advertiser Perceptions has discovered that over half of the marketers they surveyed were planning to increase their digital budget, well above traditional channels. Social media came in at number one, with 47% planning to increase and just 7% to decrease, followed by video with 40% and 9% in those two categories.

Screen Shot 2013-09-30 at 16.13.03

Facebook changing News feed targeting
Facebook has announced that it will be making changes to how news feed advertising is targeted. Their announcement places its emphasis on the increased attention to consumer feedback, including when ads are hidden; this will manifest itself for marketers such that, when users hide posts about electronics, they receive less content about that subject.

Facebook allows edits to shared posts
Facebook is now allowing users to edit posts once they have shared them, much like the functionality already available for comments. Fears surrounding the possibility that users could ‘bait and switch’ each other (editing the content of a message to alter the sense of another’s reply) have been abated by the success of the comments system. Share editing is currently available on Android and web, with plans to expand to iOS imminently.

2013-09-26_15-22-23

Autofill with Facebook for m-commerce
Facebook is set to launch an m-commerce service that allows users to ‘autofill’ their information from their Facebook profile when making transactions on their mobile, starting with partners Paypal, Strype and Braintree. Deb Liu, payments product manager at Facebook, said of the system:

Mobile is where the conversion gap is, where our customers are going in the future. It’s really important to make this an amazing mobile product. That said, we don’t rule out ever doing this on desktop some day.

Introducing Twitter alerts
Twitter is attempting to expand on the fact that it is a key source of news during times of crisis, by introducing a functionality called ‘Twitter alerts’. The feature will allow users to sign up for alerts from a particular account (so far including NGOs, law enforcement agencies and the like) so that, whenever that page labels something as an ‘alert’, the user in question receives a notifying SMS. The network highlights the way in which these should be used in a separate blog post, listing some instances that it might be appropriate, such as in a natural disaster or evacuation alert, taking inspiration from the ways in which the network has been used during these events in the past. One of the examples given for a potential alert is the FEMA tweet below:

Twitter and the NFL to sell video ads together
Twitter has recently attained a string of partners in the search for high-quality video content for selling advertising, and their latest acquisition may be the biggest yet: the NFL. As fans are so keen for available video content, the fact that a number of promoted tweets will be run each day by the NFL, mentioning sponsors and containing video content with pre-roll ads, means the deal could prove lucrative for all involved. McDonalds has been announced alongside Verizon as one of the brands involved.

Google includes hashtags in search
Google has created a feature that will allow users to search hashtags within the main Google search engine and receive relevant Google+ content by doing so. Provided a post is public, it will appear in searches for any hashtag included, with a scrollable bar to look through results. Rival networks will have their hashtags appear too, though this will be at the bottom of a separate page, with G+ given priority.

YouTube comments are changing
YouTube comments are changing to appear more like their equivalents on Google+. Previously, comments have been ordered chronologically, which made it difficult to see the most engaging or relevant content, including the likes of comments by the video’s original creator. Now, an algorithm will rank comments in terms of their relevance, similar to how the system works on G+, and comments will tie into users Google+ profiles.

ScreenShot1Embargoed9-24-730x506

Pinterest updates article pins
Pinterest has updated its pins for articles, citing the fact that over 5 million articles are pinned on the site each day. Now, the pins will include more information, including the heading, author, description and link, plus there is a new ‘reading list board’, allowing users to save content to read at a later time or date.

2013092401

Netflix making Twitter safe with Spoiler Foiler app
Netflix has produced Spoiler Foiler, an app that allows fans to block certain key words from appearing in their feed, preventing them from ruining the last season of Breaking Bad. For those wondering, the remainder of this week’s mash up is completely spoiler-free.

TwitterApp-640x381

Heineken let football fans ‘share the sofa’
Walter White was dead all along. Not really! Anyway, Heineken has launched a ‘share the sofa’ Twitter campaign, in which European football fans can talk to ex-professionals throughout games using the hashtag #ShareTheSofa. The season-long campaign, which launched with one-time Dutch footballer Ruud Gullit, looks to play on the link between watching football and drinking beer.

 

Hooters celebrates 30th birthday with Instagram bash
Hooters is celebrating its 30th birthday by inviting 300,000 ex-waitresses to restaurants, and asking them to post Instagram photos with the hashtag #stepintoawesome. Given the, ahem, visual nature of the restaurant, the chosen network does seem to make sense.

Co-operative electrical asks fans to #FightThePrice
Co-operative electrical has created a Twitter campaign called #FightThePrice, which bases discounts depending on the number of users that tweet about certain products. Potential customers can view the available products on the ‘Fight The Price’ website, then tweet to attempt to increase the discounts, which will be revealed on the final Friday of the campaign.

Bertolli’s pro-gay comment
Bertolli in Germany posted a comment that translates as ‘love for all’, in response to the furore around the perceived anti-gay sentiment of comments from a competitor, receiving over 4,000 likes for their trouble.

Berto-post

Millets forced into Twitter apology
High street retailer Millets were forced to respond to a number of complaints after tweeting the below tweet, mocking Arsenal player Mesut Özil’s appearance, in an attempt to humorously hijack the Arsenal-created Twitter trend #AskOzil. There’s a line, brands. There’s a line.

 

 

EasyJet refuse boarding to journalist because of tweet
UK Budget airline EasyJet was under scrutiny last week after purportedly refusing to allow tech journalist Mark Leiser on board for tweeting critically about them. The below tweet depicts both his original comment and the follow up, which received almost 4,000 retweets. Staff claimed that legally they had the right to refuse him the right to board, although this clearly was not the case.