We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-Up #118
News
News
Opera House sells virtual tiles to increase preservation funds
Sydney Opera House is inviting you to take part in the preservation of the iconic building through their latest initiative, #ownourhouse. This interactive experience prompts you to sponsor the Opera House by buying a virtual tile on the House’s tallest sail. After choosing a tile, you can upload a photo and a message, explore the tile bookings around you and see a 360-degree bird’s eye view of the harbour from your Opera House real estate.
We Are Social launches Mum’s Playground mobile app
Meet “Mum’s Playground”, the brand new mobile app developed by We Are Social for mums and bubs in the Curash community. Using this portable guide to baby-friendly locations, mothers can search, rate and review nearby locations based on everything from pram access to changing facilities.
The app acts as a mini social network, whereby users can set up profile pages, invite their friends and interact with a greater community online. Download the free app from the App Store or Google Play.
Sass & Bide invite you to design a card & share for charity
Aussie fashion label, sass & bide, invite you to their “Create the Great Workshop” where you can design your own Christmas card using pieces from their eBoutique. For each creation sent to a friend’s email address, sass & bide will donate $1 to Barnardos Australia.
Twitter’s user base skewing younger
Twitter, a network with a traditionally ‘older’ user base, has come out as skewing younger than both Facebook and LinkedIn, according to a new piece of research by comScore. Globally, 32.3% of Twitter’s desktop users are aged 15-24, compared with 28.9% on Facebook and 21.4% on LinkedIn.
The difference on mobile is even bigger; US data shows that 24.8% of Twitter’s mobile users are in the youngest 18-24 age group, compared with 19.4% on Facebook and 14.7% on LinkedIn.
Facebook decreases organic reach
After months of speculation, Facebook has finally admitted to decreasing organic reach for page posts. The network explained the move as follows:
We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.
However, it’s also likely to have been fuelled by a desire for brands to spend more on paid media. Our blog post on the subject highlights the changes and discusses how best for brands to proceed – from investing in promotion to ensuring the presence of strong, creative content.
Facebook updates News Feed to highlight articles
Facebook has announced updates to the way articles are treated in the News Feed, all of which aim to increase the importance of news articles on the network. Firstly, there has been an edit to Facebook’s algorithm to allow for what they call “high quality” articles to appear higher than, say, the latest meme. Then, once a link to an article has been clicked, similar related news will appear at the bottom, as shown below. Finally, articles on which your friends comment will now occasionally be selected for ‘bumping’ back up the News Feed.
The value of a Facebook log-in
Facebook has published a blog post this week, looking at the value of a ‘Facebook log-in’, rather than any other way of accessing an app. The piece looks at four different apps, with results including: Facebook log-in users are 27% more likely to be repeat ticket buyers with Applauze, have a 30% higher average lifetime value for Threadflip and listen 8% longer to Swell Radio. These are nice examples, but it’s worth noting that this correlation doesn’t necessarily mean that this effect has been brought about by the Facebook log-in system.
Twitter reveals ‘tailored audiences’
Twitter has announced the launch of ‘tailored audiences’, an ad product that will allow retargeting of mobile users. It will allow advertisers to serve promoted tweets on Twitter’s mobile apps to those who have visited a website elsewhere on the internet. The network explained in a blog post how it works:
Twitter was also keen to point out the importance of privacy: users can simply uncheck ‘promoted content’ in their privacy setting to prevent their data being used for retargeting purposes.
Tumblr introduces sponsored trending blogs
Tumblr is testing ‘sponsored trending blogs’ for mobile, allowing advertisers to pay for a blog to appear alongside other trending blogs on the network’s mobile apps, differentiated only by a dollar sign. The product is being soft launched at the moment and will go fully live in January.
Foursquare for iPhone
Foursquare has launched its new iPhone app, with a few interesting new features. First of all, it’s had a fairly vast design overhaul, aimed at making a ‘sleeker’ experience. To support this, the app will also ‘shuffle’ content each time you open it, allowing you to get a greater idea of what’s going on where you are. Finally, push notifications will tell you what is happening when you arrive in a new place, without the app even being open. You can see a couple of examples of this below.
Pinterest’s increased traffic on Black Friday/Cyber Monday
On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, two days known for hugely increased volumes of shopping in the US, Pinterest greatly increased the revenue sent to retailers. Doubling on Black Friday and up 3.6 times on Cyber Monday, the increase is being used as evidence for Pinterest’s monetary value in the retail market.
Star Wars launches on Instagram
With its next instalment in the pipeline, if still two years away, Star Wars has begun a promotion drive on Instagram, starting with the below Darth Vader selfie.
Sprint’s ad launched on individual’s Twitter feed
Sprint has launched its latest video ad, starring James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell, on a single individual’s Twitter profile. The surreal series of adverts sees the two actors read out everyday text messages and conversations, so the latest iteration is a logical move in the comedic saga.
Insurance company uses tragedies to promote its product
After the news of Nelson Mandela’s death last week, Twitter was largely populated by individuals wishing to express sadness, or condolences to his family. However, one American insurance brand decided to try to use is as an opportunity to promote their product:
It turns out this isn’t the only time they’ve done this, either. When Hollywood actor Paul Walker died, they tweeted the following:
It’s no surprise to see brands hijacking certain Twitter trends; however, this is a particularly unpleasant example, which naturally saw a fair deal of backlash from the general public.