We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-Up #126

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BuzzFeed launches in Australia

BuzzFeed’s Australian site launched this week, with Andy Wiedlen, global chief revenue officer, expecting a “snarky” local audience. Wiedlen is urging advertisers to try a more social style of advertising, saying “Our view is the internet is awesome, it allows people to find cool stuff to share, so why don’t advertisers do the same thing? That’s where we’re focused.”

Using a negative ad for Pampas as an example, Wiedlen said new parents will find “all those cute babies and be compelled to share them with their fellow breeders,” but not all of BuzzFeed’s advertisers get it: “Someone like Dell comes along with a 30-page white paper that they want to go viral.”

Facebook focuses on TV analytics

Facebook this week announced a new partnership with social TV analytics specialist SecondSync, intending to help marketers understand how people are using the social network to discuss topics such as TV.

One of the challenges Facebook faces is sharing the volumes of chatter it’s users generate without violating their privacy – a challenge they aim to solve with the new partnership. The solution enables analysis of total discussion levels, using aggregated and anonymised data to protect user privacy. The first output from the partnership will be a whitepaper titled “Watching with Friends,” showing how different types of people use Facebook to talk about TV across a range of programs in the US, UK and Australia.

Social media drives record revenue per visit for retailers

Adobe has released its Q4 2013 Social Media Intelligence Report analysing paid, earned and owned social media trends. The report shows Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr drove an exceptional amount of qualified traffic to retail sites in Q4, with revenue per visit (RPV) increasing across social channels. In 2013 Tumblr generated a 340% increase in RPV year on year, and Pinterest overtook Facebook in terms of RPV in the UK, and it’s anticipated do the same in the US in 2014.

Social engagement with brand posts on Facebook rose 180% and brand post impressions are up 150% year on year. Unsurprisingly, posts with images produced a 650% higher engagement rate than regular text posts, while posts with links, text or video returned less engagement.

Facebook revenues leap 63% in Q4, driven by solid mobile ad business
Nearing it’s ten year anniversary this week, Facebook has posted record revenues of $2.59bn for the three months to 31 December, up 63% on 2012, with a 76% increase in advertising for the same quarter. Facebook said mobile advertising revenue accounted for 53% of ad revenue for the quarter, up 23% year on year.

The social network hit 1.23 billion monthly active users and has more than 556 million mobile daily active users. However Facebook refrained from commenting on the declining use of the platform amongst US teenagers.

Facebook announces ‘Paper’, a curated visual news reader
Facebook has launched a new standalone iPhone app called Paper; the first app out of Facebook Creative Labs, an initiative to let small teams within Facebook build standalone mobile experiences as if they were start-ups. Paper takes the standard Facebook News Feed and refashions it as an immersive, horizontally scrolling set of screens, looking similar to Flipboard. The app has many features, including delivering articles and photos into specific categories that have been selected by the user. It also provides a new way to post to Facebook with an editor system, and interestingly, for the time being it’s ad-free.

Improved ways for direct response marketers to reach Facebook audiences
Over the next few weeks, Facebook will be launching features designed to provide direct response marketers with wider solutions to reach people across devices and encourage them to take action, on both desktop and mobile. With Custom Audiences, businesses will be able to more easily deliver targeted messages to people who have visited their website or mobile app, and certain News Feed ads will feature improved call to action buttons, such as: Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up, Book Now or Download. These new features will be available from Power Editor, Ads Manager, through PMDs and via the API.

 

Facebook to allow page admins to comment on public reviews
One of the main ways a Facebook user can leave feedback for a brand, restaurant, or any other business, is through the reviews. Facebook uses a 1-5 star scale and review system; such as on sites like Yelp. Facebook is now rolling out the ability for page admins to respond to these reviews as the page, rather than having to use their personal profile. This will benefit place-based pages and businesses on Facebook and help them to rapidly respond to negative reviews, as well as reward or thank users for positive reviews, encouraging more customers to rate the page.

Twitter bubbles trending events to the top of the timeline
Twitter has just released an update to Android that brings new photo editing tools to the service, in the hope to make it easier to share photos direct. In a second update, trending events or recommended tweets will be grouped to the top of the users’ timeline, adding a substantial element of real-time trend monitoring to the user experience. This is certainly interesting, as it marks a significant attempt by Twitter to interfere with the defining and chronological nature of its service. However, this feature only happens when there is no other new content for a user to view – a wise move by Twitter to keep them Number One on the leader board as the providers of live, real-time information.

Pinterest gets more Interest-ing
Pinterest has introduced a new way for its audience to discover engaging content; Interests. This tool exposes Pinners to customised recommendations based on their existing pins. By providing a more facilitating and enriching experience, more tailored to each individual, Pinterest hopes to retain its users and enhance the user journey.

The world just got a little smaller with the help of Linkedin
Some say “It’s who you know” that gets you further in the professional world, and LinkedIn seems to agree as they roll out their “How You’re Connected” tool across LinkedIn profiles. The new addition assists users in finding that key figure who will advance their career by not only showing “who” in their network knows the said individual on their profile, but also “how” they know each other.

Marc Jacobs opens pop-up shop where tweets are social currency
Marc Jacobs plans to open a pop-up shop during New York Fashion Week where tweets with take the place of dollars as currency. All transactions at the shop will be carried out based on customers’ use of the hashtag #MJDaisyChain across various social media channels. With features such as a lounge, food, drinks, Wi-Fi and a photo booth, the shop has certainly been designed to be social media-friendly. There will be social competitions across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, with giveaways throughout the day.

Brands Battle it out at the Super Bowl
The competitive spirit at this years’ Super Bowl wasn’t just from the players on the pitch, but from brands on social media. As brands desperately tried to hit their “Oreo Moment” though real-time marketing, only a few were worthy of praise. Starting with Oreo themselves:

Take DiGiorno Pizza, who maintained a steady level of banter until the third quarter when the game spun out of control and it seized the opportunity to touch down with some very funny tweets.

JC Penney ended up dominating the brand conversation after a few, seemingly drunken and illegible tweets. They consequently received comical replies from other brands such as Doritos and Kia.

As it turns out, it was all a clever and purposeful misspelling as part of their #TweetingWithMittens stunt, which stole the show as the best social media moment of the evening.