We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-Up #164
Home-grown social media startup Spring.me to launch on Australian Securities Exchange
With the hope of encouraging social media users to expand their circle of friends and begin interacting with other like minded folks, Australian social media startup Spring.me is entering the final stage of it’s capital raising campaign by launching on the ASX. The collection of sites and apps, aimed at “online-all-the-time” social media users, aims to encourage users to expand their circle of friends through the sharing of questions and answers. Spring.me already boasts 5 million regular users since its launch in September last year, so it’ll be interesting to see how the social media startup fares in the coming year.
Facebook now available through Tor
Security conscious Facebook users can now sleep easier at night with the announcement that the site is now available to access through Tor, software that allows for supposedly safe and anonymous web browsing. Previously, users accessing the social networking site through Tor encountered a range of issues, including being locked out of their accounts, because of the way it routes connections across the world.
A mixed financial week for Facebook
Imagine you’re a Facebook investor, and you hear that you’re about to be taken on a roller coaster. Great news, right? WRONG. This roller coaster means share price fluctuation throughout the week. First of all, the network announced impressive Q3 figures and share price hit an $81.16 high. MAUs have risen to 1.35 billion from 1.317 billion in Q2, while mobile MAUs have jumped from 1.07bn to 1.124bn in the same period.
Total revenue increased by over 50% for the sixth consecutive quarter, rising by 59% to $3.2bn.
Meanwhile, also for the sixth consecutive quarter, ad revenue increased by over 60%; this time, Facebook posted figures of $2.96bn, a 64% increase from Q2. Mobile accounted for 62% of ad revenue.
Investors saw the figures and everybody was happy. Hooray! Sadly, Facebook then announced that costs have risen dramatically in 2014, and revenue is expected to slow in Q4. Share prices dropped as a result, slumping by almost 10% before settling around the $73 mark. All in all, we’ll give the week a score of 6/10.
The first video ads hit Instagram
Who’s in the house? Instagram video ads are in the house! Well, on the network. Anyway, Instagram has launched its premium, 15-second autoplay spots with a selection of partners, including Banana Republic, Disney, CW Flash and Call of Duty.
Twitter’s revenue increases, even as user growth slows
If you liked the story about Facebook’s share prices, you’ll LOVE this. Twitter’s had a mixed week, too: its revenue continues to show strong growth, despite disappointing user figures. Q3 total revenue increased 114% year-on-year to $361m, of which ad revenue accounted for $320m (85% from mobile). In the same time, though, the platform added just 13 million monthly active users, compared with 16 million in Q2.
Investors weren’t impressed and the share price dropped by 10%, making Twitter’s week slightly worse than Facebook’s. 5/10.
Tumblr to roll out autoplay videos
It’s been a big old week for fans of autoplay video adverts. Hot on Instagram’s heels, Tumblr has announced that it will launch a similar service, starting tomorrow. It’s limited to a set of partners at the moment (isn’t it always?) but will be open to everyone by mid-November. So far, the lucky punters include Lexus, Universal Pictures, JC Penney and Hulu.
LinkedIn posts strong Q3 figures
We hope you’re enjoying these Q3 reports. LinkedIn is up next, and it’s been a good three months. Total revenue is at $568m, of which ad revenue accounts for $109m – a 45% year-on-year increase. Sponsored updates have been the biggest success story – they make up 31% of ad revenue, and have been described by CEO Jeff Weiner as the “fastest growing business in LinkedIn’s history”. We’re giving LinkedIn an 8/10, making it the proud recipient of the prestigious ‘We Are Social Q3 figures of the week award’.
Disqus to begin advertising
Disqus, which operates the comment sections on 3m websites, has started targeting adverts within its service. It’s mining data about what people post and where to target the ads, which will look like normal comments apart from the word ‘sponsored’.
Taco Bell is @totallynothere
Social media’s no stranger to the odd meltdown. Taco Bell went someway down that path last week, deleting all previous social content to create a ‘blackout’ and promote its new app.
Mobile ordering is here. Download Now: http://t.co/TcorterNxB #OnlyInTheApp pic.twitter.com/qE2yy9swrI
— Taco Bell (@totallynothere) October 28, 2014
A risky strategy, but it seems to have paid off in the short term. After 24 hours, 75% of Taco Bell restaurants had processed at least one mobile order. We’ll see if that continues in the longer term, and keep an eye out for any return to social media.
Epix launches on Vine
TV network Epix is celebrating its fifth birthday (happy birthday). Don’t hold out for any cake, though, the party plan is to launch on a new channel: Vine. The network has partnered with 10 influencers to create Vines around different films. Each makes sense on its own and they join together to create a larger story, which will be shared on YouTube, TV and, most excitingly, THIS MASHUP.
Samaritans Radar searches Twitter for suicide triggers
Samaritans has created an app to help Twitter users find out if anyone they know is posting potentially worrying tweets. The service, named Radar, automatically picks up certain phrases, including ‘depressed’ and ‘tired of being alone’. The charity plans to keep updating its algorithm as time goes on, with the hope of avoiding false positives. At the moment, it’s not the best at noticing when someone might be joking.
Brands get spooky on social for Halloween
Today, dressing up as a zombie and giving sweets to children would be seen as something of a faux pas. On Friday, though, everyone wanted a piece of the Halloween fun, and, as always, brands were no exception. Here are a few examples of social content – though we can’t promise that all of it quite hit the spot.
It’s alive! #Halloween #ChuckHack #converse by @creeepycrawler https://t.co/9ySRp0gyOy
— Converse (@Converse) October 31, 2014
The last-minutest of all last-minute costumes: https://t.co/mNgOz5ymFz #Spookermarket
— Tesco (@Tesco) October 31, 2014
Even the clouds are in costume. Happy Halloween. pic.twitter.com/MEJrNGlJw0
— Delta (@Delta) October 31, 2014
Happy Halloween! Make sure your home is fully stocked with candy for trick-or-treaters! #HappyHalloween #Halloween
— CENTURY 21 (@CENTURY21) October 31, 2014
Chevrolet shows how to deal with Twitter mocking
While trying to present a Chevrolet-sponsored baseball trophy, the company’s representative had something of an awkward moment. With lines like “It offers class-winning and -leading, um, you know, technology and stuff”, it was only a matter of time before he became the talk of Twitter. (He’s known as #ChevyGuy, if you must know.) That could have been pretty awkward for the automotive brand, but Chevy showed that it knows how social works. It embraced the awkward.
Truck yeah the 2015 #ChevyColorado has awesome #TechnologyAndStuff! You know you want a truck: http://t.co/0NcEoDRSUZ pic.twitter.com/RMiRic8ATF
— Chevy Trucks (@ChevyTrucks) October 30, 2014