Last Thursday we celebrated our 5th Birthday at The Carriageworks. We held a Social Gathering, inviting friends, clients & partners along to an evening of discussion and networking.
Simon Kemp, Regional Manager Partner in Asia for We Are Social, began the evening with a presentation on ‘Succeeding in a Social World’ and then joined a panel of experts chaired by Suzie Shaw (our local MD). On the panel was Vanessa Jones from Twitter, Serena Leith from Spotify and Tom Walter from Tumblr. More to come on this in a separate blog post.
Starting on Tuesday, October 13, Australian telcos such as Telstra and Optus are required to start storing metadata logs pertaining to people’s email, internet, mobile and landline use for up to two years.
Who you called, who called you, both parties’ location and the duration of the calls will be stored for two years, and potentially accessed without a warrant, meaning there is no judicial oversight by a magistrate. It also applies to email.
Marketers will diversify their online advertising spend
A new study published by RBC Capital Markets in partnership with Ad Age has revealed a few little nuggets in regards to where brands might be putting their advertising bucks in 2016 and beyond. It found that 72% said that they would like to allocate some money to Instagram in 2016, as well as expressing interest in other emerging platforms such as Pinterest (41%), Snapchat (36%) and Amazon (34%). The research also revealed that 61% of marketers plan on increasing their ad spend with Facebook, indicating that the company’s meteoric growth is far from over.
And so it begins: Instagram organic growth and engagement is in decline
A new report from Locowise shows that as Instagram continues to grow; just announcing 400 million active users, marketers are now struggling to maintain organic reach and growth. New figures indicate that Instagram is following in parent company Facebook’s footsteps in becoming a “pay to play” platform, where only brands that are prepared to spend will be able to reach the consumers they crave.
Facebook trials new range of ‘Like’ options in the form of emoji
Exciting news as Facebook has announced it is testing new Like options. Users will now be able to respond to content with love, laughter, happiness, shock, sadness and anger as well as the original like.
At the moment it is only being tested in Ireland and Spain before it is decided if it will be further rolled out. I’m glad I’ll be able to fire off some anger at the next friend who posts about cleaning their gutters with ‘hubby’.
Facebook takes on Twitter in the fight for TV viewers’ attention
Three new tactics have been announced by Facebook which aim to make it the number one choice for second screen viewers (people who watch TV and engage on social media at the same time) over Twitter.
1. Hashtag voting and polling
Instead of having to use a separate app which pulls people away from their newsfeeds, this will now be possible within a top-level post or a comment. Facebook is also working to make it easier for media partners to poll audiences during live broadcasts.
2. Photo and video submissions
Users will be able to submit pictures and videos directly to the pages of their favourite shows, whether these are questions for a Q+A or submissions for a talent contest. Producers will be able to create galleries which can be embedded as well.
3. Custom icons
Facebook plans to create custom emojis which automatically appear when people talk about the most celebrated TV events such as the Emmys and Oscars.
Facebook creeps past TV in reaching the most sought after demographics
Nielsen has released a new study which shows that ads just on Facebook are now more successful at reaching Millennials and Hispanics in the U.S. than running ads on the 10 most watched TV networks combined. Despite this though, data shows that using a combination of both mediums is the best way to influence both groups.
Facebook has developed a “10 second” native lead generation ad
After first being tested by brands such as Land Rover, Facebook has announced a new product – ‘Lead Ads’. It involves a two-click process, where consumers tap an ad button and then agree to submit personal information which is already stored within Facebook. Sales people can then easily populate lists of potential customers for follow-up.
Kim Kyaw, digital marketing and social media manager at Land Rover, said that “Facebook’s native lead ads outperformed link ads driving [people] to the website to fill out a lead form in terms of total leads and conversion rate, while driving a [quadrupled] reduction in cost per lead compared to previous social lead generation tactics”.
Twitter introduces ‘Moments’
A Twitter feature has been rolled out in the U.S. called ‘Moments’, which allows users to cut through the noise and see the biggest and newest stories as they unfold. By tapping a new lightning bolt icon on the platform, users can see new stories emerging throughout the day, continually updated by Twitter.
Moments arrives at a time when Twitter is desperately trying to claw in users and increase its stock price. This curating of ‘best of’ means that users should be more engaged from the off, without having to slowly and painstakingly wade through the millions of tweets that are spewed out every hour.
Announced the day after Jack Dorsey was announced as permanent CEO, what does Moments mean for brands? Some brands are already lined up to test a new ad unit called Promoted Moments, which will let brands tell a complete story through the immersive, magazine-style Moments format. Promoted Moments will also have the capability to showcase videos – another indicator of Twitter’s hunger to steal TV budgets, something which Facebook has already started to do in earnest.
Twitter opens up Amplify, merging ads with organic video content
After two years of development, Amplify, Twitter’s program for video ads is being expanded. Previously, publishers would need to embed videos into their tweets, then an advertiser would add on a short pre-roll ad and then they would need to pay for that whole tweet to be promoted. What Amplify does is provide a sort of dating service for publishers and advertisers, matching ads to video according to which category they fall into, guaranteeing a match that leaves everyone feeling happy.
Twitter enables video to be uploaded via web It is now possible to upload video not only via mobile but also the web on Twitter. Users can share up to 30 seconds of their favourite cats dressed up as apples, eating apples, and even add a caption. May I suggest “Look at this Catple!”?
LinkedIn makes some home improvements to its groups offering
From the 14th October LinkedIn will be making all of its groups private with only members being able to see and contribute to discussions – users had complained that the group experience had become quite low quality due to the spammy nature of some of the conversations. A standalone iOS app is also being created. To keep conversations timely, comments will go live immediately after someone posts, with moderators able to remove off-topic or inappropriate content.
Cisco utilises Vine to tell tech stories in six seconds or less
It’s a brave person who decides to try and explain The Cloud in the form of a Vine, but that’s exactly what Cisco is attempting with its new content series, covering not just The Cloud but also complex stories around data and security among other things. Kirsten Chiala, digital content manager at Cisco’s The Network, the company’s technology news site said: “We are really trying to provide thought leadership at the top of the funnel”. She added “Our main focus is influencers in the tech space. Opening a new platform like Vine can help us expand the audience”. In order to compile the stories, Cisco reached out to some of its top social influencers and internal subject-matter experts.
Gillette has a cut throat approach to taking down Dollar Shave Club
An aggressive move by the P&G brand has garnered some backlash from the general public with Dollar Shave Club still being perceived as very much the underdog.
I want to say something mean about Dollar shave club and something nice about Gillette so they’ll pay to promote my dumb tweets — K. Thor Jensen (@kthorjensen) October 8, 2015
im never buying a @Gillette product again after seeing them pay to promote tweets trolling their competitors like @DollarShaveClub.
Burger King had a bit of a shit week last week. Those brave/stupid enough to take the plunge and try out its new Halloween-themed Whopper, complete with a spooky black bun, were met with a rather unfortunate side effect, as customers’ ‘poop’ started turning a shocking shade of green. Of course, people took to Twitter to talk about their #greenpoop experiences (thankfully no shots of the end product were shared). Toilet roll brand Charmin jumped into the (very relevant) conversation too. To borrow Digiday’s pun… Crappy Halloween everyone.
