We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-Up #127

Tuneup
Avatar photo
We Are Social

 

 

Nando’s Australia for “Free Schapelle”

The famous chicken chain recently jumped on a local huge news, the release of Schapelle Corby.  Nando’s Australia posted a message on Facebook and Twitter calling on Corby to try the Peri Peri chicken. Someone loves it, someone hates it: what’s your opinion on this? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
Nando's

 

“Love Same Sex”, says Durex for Mardi Gras

Durex launches a new social media campaign for Mardi Gras sponsorship: “Love Same Sex” aims to highlight and celebrate the years of love and commitment of long-term same-sex relationships in Australia. Durex is encouraging Australians in same-sex relationships to shout about the number of years that they have been in a loving relationship by taking to the Durex Australia Facebook page to pledge their years of commitment and to share it via their own digital channels. Participants will also have the chance to win a place on the inaugural Durex float at the parade on 1st March. Christine Forster, sister of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and openly gay, has already taken part in the campaign with her partner Virginia Edwards, celebrating 7 years together.

Durex

 

Social posts by friends affect purchase behaviour

Social media really does affect purchasing decisions, according to January 2014 polling by eMarketer. This is true of millennials in particular, with 68% of 18-34 year olds surveyed stating that they were influenced to buy products at least somewhat by their friends’ posts. The same was true of 53% of 35-44 year olds, decreasing with age to 22% of those over 65. The younger group was also most likely to share photos and thoughts of new products and services; just 19% of males aged 18-34 said they never did so, and 18% of females – much lower than the gender averages across all age groups: 39% and 34% respectively. Facebook outdoing Google for referrals? Facebook is hugely outdoing Google for referrals to the Buzzfeed network, and had been doing so for all of 2013. The graph below depicts the data explaining sources of traffic to the network’s 200 odd websites. That’s a pretty big sample size and, even if it isn’t indicative of an internet-wide trend, it’s certainly an interesting area to watch.

Screen Shot 2014-02-10 at 10.32.14  

Facebook celebrates turning ten

Last week saw the tenth anniversary of Facebook’s founding, a milestone that the network celebrated with, among other things, an open letter from Mark Zuckerberg, personalised ‘Lookback’ videos at users’ time on the network and a film, shown below.

The birthday saw the production of a lot of literature about Facebook’s past and future, including a number of pieces by We Are Social. In Marketing, Tom Ollerton discussed what Facebook might look like in ten years, referencing the rise of emotion, increased competition and the network’s ability to purchase competitors. Meanwhile, Andy Spry spoke to the Drum about Facebook’s evolution into a mobile network, while Laura Muldoon looked back on what’s happened in the last ten years.  

 

Twitter releases redesign

Twitter showed off a whole new design last week, with changes including a new colour scheme and font. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like now:

New_Twitter  

 

Twitter’s Q4 results lead to drop in share price

Twitter’s share price dropped by 18% after the release of its Q4 results, which saw monthly active users rise by just 3.8%. We Are Social’s own Leila Thabet discussed the news with Marketing, attributing future success to Twitter’s development as a second screen platform:

But despite owning the ‘second screen’ space, Twitter hasn’t yet been able to monetise its products to anywhere near the extent of Google and Facebook. At issue is Twitter’s lack of an algorithm to determine relevant content, which means it has to show all tweets a person publishes, to all of their followers. This creates a crowded and time-sensitive newsfeed, and promoted tweets can add to the confusion.

Twitter, however, displayed a positive outlook, citing the 30% year-on-year increase in MAUs and 121% jump in ad revenue over the same period.

Screen Shot 2014-02-10 at 11.26.18 Screen Shot 2014-02-10 at 11.26.24  

 

YouTube getting tougher on fake views

Google is planning to clamp down on ‘fake’ YouTube views, with brands currently able to buy 60,000 fake views (and the accompanying perceived popularity) for just $50. Philipp Pfeiffenberger, software engineer at YouTube, is quoted as saying:

YouTube isn’t just a place for videos, it’s a place for meaningful human interaction. Whether it’s views, likes, or comments, these interactions both represent and inform how creators connect with their audience. That’s why we take the accuracy of these interactions very seriously. When some bad actors try to game the system by artificially inflating view counts, they’re not just misleading fans about the popularity of a video, they’re undermining one of YouTube’s most important and unique qualities.

 

Microsoft invests in Foursquare

Microsoft has invested $15m in location-based mobile app Foursquare, after rumours last year of a potential purchase. The move comes at a time of change in Microsoft’s senior personnel, and is seen as the two companies growing closer, with potential consequences on the evolution of Foursquare into a more immersive platform. Reactive brands during the Superbowl Last year’s Superbowl saw the birth of the ‘Oreo Moment’, a term now used to describe any brand successfully reacting to a current event. It’s no surprise, then, that other brands had social media war rooms ready to respond to whatever might happen during the game. Jaguar used their ‘Villains’ Lair’ to defend their promoted hashtag #goodtobebad against attempted hijacking by the likes of Lexus, Esurance and Audi, while Hyundai forwent attempting to replicate Oreo’s reactivity, instead focussing on interactions with other brands and users. Dreft, Kevin Jonas and a sponsored baby birth Singer Kevin Jonas is having the upcoming birth of his child sponsored by detergent maker Dreft, allowing the brand exclusive access to content to share on Twitter. It’s something that celebrities have been doing with gossip magazines for quite some time – no doubt we’ll see more collaborations like this in future.

 

evian loves you like…

We Are Social has launched evian’s #ILoveYouLike campaign for Valentine’s Day, responding to users who use the hashtag like below. Running across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, there is also a competition element, with users encouraged to complete the sentence “I love you like…” for a chance to win.

 

TGI Fridays say #thankswingman

TGI Fridays is looking to build up its Twitter following this Valentine’s Day by paying homage to all the wingmen out there. The first 500 users to follow @tgifridays and tweet #thankswingman will receive a $15 gift card towards a plate of chicken wings, which may or may not be an excellent date idea.

 

Domino’s Twitter Meltdown

Domino’s Pizza last week ran a Twitter competition, asking users to tweet using the hashtag #DominosMeltdown. For everyone who did, the heat got turned up on a delivery man made out of ice; whoever’s tweet made the pizza finally fall won a year’s supply of their own. That’s a year’s supply of pizza, not delivery men made out of ice.

Melt-Dominos-post

 

AirBnB helps out with #SochiProblems

As you may have seen, the accommodation at the Winter Olympics leaves a lot to be desired. The hashtag #SochiProblems has taken off, which AirBnB has managed to turn to its advantage, tweeting at users with better places to stay.

If you liked this post, why not subscribe to We Are Social by or ?