Five Friday Facts #68
News
News
Daily active users on Sina Weibo up by 82%, add 46 million in 2012
Sina Weibo’s growth over the past year has been an incredible spectacle. The Chinese microblogging service flew past 300 million in February last year, and the milestones kept coming in increments of 100 million: 400 million through July and 500 million by the end of December 2012. Onlookers may easily cast doubt upon these sort of numbers, however–after all, the number of registered users hardly describes user behavior. A recent report by China Internet Watch seems to dispel these doubts, as active users are reported to have increased at an impressive rate as well. Just as 500 million in December 2012 constituted a doubled user base from 2011, active daily users were up by 46.2 million or 82% compared to the same time last year.
2.8% of Twitter’s highly active users adopted Vine in its first month
It’s been six weeks since Twitter launched its micro-video sharing app Vine. Despite a few blunders with explicit content early on, the new video creation platform has started gaining some serious momentum in the social appmosphere. As TechCrunch reports, 2.8% of Twitter’s highly active users had adopted Vine in its first month.
Competitors like Viddy and Socialcam are also growing, but not quite as quickly. While Viddy lured 0.5 percent of Twitter’s active users, Socialcam came in with 0.2 percent of the same population–growth rates that contradict the rapid-fire expansion popularly associated with the growth of social platforms. This is because overall, video creation continues to be a relatively underdeveloped area in social media–a point that makes Vine’s adoption rate particularly striking.
The data was calculated from a sample of 2,500 randomly selected users who had tweeted at least 100 times within a month of Vine’s launch date, or January 24th 2013. On one hand, we know that the total population of active Twitter users exceeds 200 million; On the other, the number of users who tweet over 100 times per month isn’t as clear. Despite some indications of growth, only time will tell if a micro-video is worth 1000 words–not to mention 140 characters.
Line was the top social app for revenue in Jan 2013
TechInAsia recently reported that Japanese chat app Line claimed the top spot for revenue amongst social apps on iOS during January 2013. This claim is especially impressive as it is understood in relation to an increasingly popular category; social apps came in third globally in terms of revenue. Social apps also saw a significant increase in monthly downloads during the month, up by 30% compared to January 2012. Line has also become the top non-game for monthly revenue, on both iTunes and Google Play. This popularity may come as a surprise given the fact that the Japanese chat app constitutes the only Asian-made app in a list filled with American apps. As we have tracked through the recent months, Korean chat app KakaoTalk is quickly catching up as serious contender for the spot. AppAnnie notes that KakaoTalk ranks third highest for revenue on Android phones.
In US, 68% of small businesses to increase or maintain social ad spend
eMarketer reports that small business owners are increasing their devotion to, and investment in social media platforms. Based on a November 2012 study by Ad-ology Research, the findings suggest that a sizeable portion of businesses with fewer than 100 employees planned on increasing their budgets for marketing and advertising on social media.
The study indicated that the highest level of interest went to social advertising, with nearly 68% of respondents planning to increase or maintain their social media ad spend. Over 36% also responded that they would increase or maintain spending on promoted posts or sponsored tweets. While a majority of small business spending will still go toward conventional modes of marketing, social platforms are clearly casting a wider net of interest for their marketing potential amongst small business owners in the US.
In Singapore, average Facebook user likes 23 pages, mostly brands
Recent insights from Socialbakers indicate that Singaporean Facebook users like an average of 23 pages on the platform. The report indicated that brands were also the most popular amongst Facebook users, with 6.1 brand pages liked on average. This is followed by the categories of celebrities and entertainment, with 2.9 and 2.1 pages respectively.
The report also stated that images were the most popular form of content in Singapore, with brands posting images the most frequently on their pages, and fans sharing visual posts the most. Socialbakers also notes that McDonalds Singapore, KFC Singapore, FlyScoot, Singtel and Starbucks are the most popular brand pages. Meanwhile, Starhub claims the top spot as the most socially-devoted brand, with over 110,000 fans and an impressive response rate of 90.3%
