Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join them, right? Unless you’re Facebook, and you actually can beat them all! 250 million people are using its relatively new Whatsapp Status feature every day. To put this into perspective, Snapchat only has 166 million users of its entire app. Disappearing stories aren’t going anywhere anytime soon (well, for at least 24 hours anyway).
Facebook crushes Q2 despite slower revenue growth
Facebook has beaten its earnings predictions for Q2. Its earnings report showed that it had hit $9.32 billion after forecasting $9.2. Despite this, revenue is appearing to slow year on year, as that figure drops from 59% in Q2 2016 to 44.7% this year. This slowdown has been predicted by Facebook who has warned investors that it is running out of space in which to place ads in the news feed. This is probably no biggie though, as Facebook’s priorities are Messenger, Instagram and AI, which could all be promising sources of revenue if they play their cards right.
Buzzfeed Tasty release the Tasty One Top
Ever wanted to whip up a culinary masterpiece and head to Buzzfeed Tasty (the millennial cooking bible) to find some inspo? Well, they’ve just made it even easier for you to follow their recipes with the release of their smart cooktop, the “Tasty One Top.” The cooktop syncs to Tasty’s new app, which sends you notifications when to flip that steak (or vegan equivalent). This gloriousness is now available for preorder on their website.
Stripe and WeChat pave the way for e-commerce growth
A global partnership has been struck between Stripe, an online payment system similar to Paypal (used in Australia by companies like Seek, Menulog and Canva) and the Chinese social media giant, WeChat. This means this has greatly increased the availability of Australian goods for the local Chinese market, who are super keen beans when it comes to Australian-made products.
I’m personally pretty excited to see how WeChat will continue to expand in Australian markets, given the sophisticated social selling experience is light years ahead of any other platform. “Idk what social selling is?” Brush up on social selling by reading WAS Singapore’s Simon Kemp’s Essential Guide to Social Selling.
Twitter flunks Q2 with no users added
While spring is a way off for us down under, there are definitely no hatchlings in Twitter’s nest! After a promising Q1 where Twitter accumulated 9 million new users, it has come back this quarter with NO NEW USERS. In terms of revenue, it has beaten predictions – bringing in profits of 12 cents a share on revenue of $574 million. Given that ⅓ of the world is already on social, it was kind of bound to happen at some point…
Its daily active user figure also grew by 12% compared to Q2 2016, but Twitter doesn’t ever release how many daily users it has, so it’s hard to work out what that actually means…
Coming soon, the tool will involve some code that brands can add to their websites to tell them information about visitors such as job title, industry, company, location and more. Unlike Facebook’s pixel, which drives conversion tracking and is used for re-targeting, LinkedIn’s seems slightly less aggressive by just offering audience analytics.
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