We Are Social Midweek Mashup #79

News
laura.picard

KakaoHome receives 500K downloads in 9 days
Korea’s leading chat app KakaoTalk has seen its Android app KakaoHome take off at an immediately rapid rate. According to TheNextWeb, the app which resembles Facebook Home surpassed 500,000 downloads since launch last week, in a matter of days – 9 to be exact. As TheNextWeb notes, this means that KakaoHome reached this half-million downloads one day sooner than Facebook Home, which took ten days to reach 500,000. What’s more impressive is the fact that this app is only available in its home market. KakaoTalk users are the highest in South Korea, as the app is downloaded on an estimated 90 percent of smartphones in the market. This rapid rate may also be explained by the fact that 90% of these Kakao-enabled smartphones are Android-powered devices.

Twitter’s popularity in Japan rivals Facebook
When it comes to social media in Japan, platforms have seen relatively sluggish rates of adoption across the board. According to eMarketer, the percentage of the Japanese population on social networks comes in at 38%, lagging behind “South Korea, the US, most of the Western European countries and even Russia and Brazil.” The report also notes, however, that Twitter has been the exception to this general state of social media in the Japanese market as 36% of internet users over the age of 10 were on Twitter. Based on a study conducted by goo Research, this percentage illustrates that Twitter’s user base is encroaching upon Facebook’s current rank at the top amongst social platforms. The results indicated that about 38.9% of the respondents in the study were Facebook users, just over three percentage points above Twitter’s 35.8%. By contrast, home-grown Mixi claimed third place with a significantly wider margin at 27.1%. eMarketer also predicts, however, that Facebook grow by a considerable 43% this year, a rate that is surpassed by the respective growth rates of India, Russia and Brazil.

WeChat now has 50M overseas users
It’s been just over a month since WeChat hit a milestone of 40 million overseas users (out of a total user base of nearly 400 million). TechInAsia reports that WeChat has added 10 million overseas users since then, to reach an impressive 50 million registered users outside of China. While this figure suggests an impressive growth rate among international users, TechInAsia notes that this percentage is still a far cry from those of other messaging apps. Whatsapp’s 200 million active users are mostly outside of China, while 105 million of Line’s 150 million users are outside of Japan, Line’s market of origin. Tencent notes that WeChat is popular across many of the major app stores (such as iTunes, and the app stores for Android and Windows Phone). This popularity is particularly strong in some South and Southeast Asian markets as well, such as Singapore, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Tencent to open Malaysia office, target WeChat growth
According to TheNextWeb, Tencent is planning on opening a new office in Malaysia, in order to leverage the particularly strong popularity of its messaging service, WeChat. Posheu Yung, the VP of International Business at the Chinese company, reasoned that the new branch was a smart move and planned because the WeChat user base was so strong already in Malaysia.WeChat users in Malaysia reached one million in Fall 2012. Upon launching a localised version of the app six weeks ago, Yung claims that WeChat has further strengthened its foothold, to claim an impressive 70% penetration amongst all smartphone users in the market.

Teens tired of Facebook but stay to keep in loop
The Pew Research Center has released some interesting research into teens on social media. The major story that the press has taken from the research is that teens are supposedly tiring of Facebook, with many citing boredom due to “drama” and an ever-increasing adult presence. However, it should be noted that teens feel they need to stay on Facebook in order to not miss out and the report shows usage growing by one percentage point to 94% of all teenagers surveyed. The below graph gives an overall picture of the areas teenagers occupy on social media.

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Has Facebook usage in the UK decreased?
YouGov has claimed that Facebook usage in the UK has decreased by 9% from this time last year. According to the ‘YouGov SixthSense report”, an examination into interaction with brands online, the proportion of those who have stopped using social media sites due to annoyance at marketing has risen by 18% since April 2012, while 20% have stopped doing so due to the possibility of third parties using their information. Of those still on Facebook, 45% have liked a brand page and 22% have followed a brand on Twitter. The reasons for following or liking a company range from wishing to get something in return (34%) to being a current customer (33%) and looking for special offers (47%). Facebook has looked to rebuff the figures, claiming that its monthly active usage figures are increasing in the UK, up from 30 million in March 2011 to 33 million in December 2012 and that this had continued to increase throughout the last month.

How do mums in UK use social media?
Social media is a hugely important parenting resource for internet-using UK mums, with 40% of users claiming to have bought products based on comments they’d read and 31% stating they’d decided against a product for the same reason.

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Of these, forums like Mumsnet were the most important, visited by 15% of those surveyed at least once a week, followed by the Facebook pages of parenting blogs (12%) and the blogs themselves (6%). Toys were the most popular product they wished to learn about at 36%, whilst 33% mentioned baby food and drink and 28% baby medicine or health products. Mums also showed significantly different behaviour to men and other women, as shown in the graph below.

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Facebook ‘likes’ on TV pages translate to likelihood to view
Viacom has discovered that those who ‘like’ Facebook pages of their shows are 75% more likely to watch them than those who do not. Based on 5,000 viewers aged 13-49 in 5 key markets, they also found that social media was the 3rd most important point of discovery for new shows after word of mouth and promos, as well as that, of those who discovered a show via social media, 70% would watch its debut, compared with 48% of those who discovered it elsewhere. The way in which viewers interact with social content was divided into three categories: functional, communal and playful, with the two former groups most important to fans. For example, 45% used social to keep up with show news and 44% wanted information on air dates and times (both functional), compared with 34% who wish the brand themselves and share their tasted (communal) and 30% who participate in games related to the shows (playful).

How Twitter influences automotive consumers
Following on from research in the UK, Twitter has partnered with Compete to examine how the network affects prospective US automotive buyers, finding that exposure to an automotive brand’s tweet made users more likely to take actions off-platform, from searching for car brands to interacting with third party sites. Users who saw a Tweet from an auto manufacturer were also over 4x as likely to perform “lower funnel actions”, such as requesting a quote or looking for dealerships to test-drive.

Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter & driving traffic
When it comes to driving traffic, Facebook has the highest conversion rate of social networks examined in Monetate’s latest Ecommerce quarterly, but Pinterest wins when it comes to average order value. Facebook’s conversion rate, of 1.08%, well outstrips Pinterest (0.36%) and Twitter (0.22%), but Pinterest’s order value of $80.54 is over ten dollars higher than Twitter ($70.17) with Facebook ($71.26) only slightly closer.

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Brands’ social marketing activities
A survey into US advertisers spending over $100,000 annually on social media has shown that branded pages are more common than paid adverts. On the whole, ad spending in social is expected to grow 31.6% in 2013, reaching $4.2 billion by the end of the year.

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Facebook ads can be targeted by recency of activity
Facebook advertisers using third-party tools with access to Facebook’s ads API can now target ads by recency of activity, using the “action spec” parameter. Previously, they were capable of specifying an ad audience of people who had performed a certain action (either on Open Graph or Facebook directly) within a 14-day period. Now, the time frame can be changed to allow for increased accuracy. It is also possible to target via a “negative action-spec”, meaning that brands can push adverts to consumers who have not performed an activity within a specific time frame.

Twitter introduces two-factor login authentication
Following on from a spate of recent high-profile hackings, Twitter has introduced a form of two-factor login authentication based on a verified mobile number. To register, you simply need to visit the ‘account settings’ page, select ‘require a verification code when I sign in’ and follow the prompts to add a phone. Then, every time you look to login to Twitter, a six-digit code will be sent to the chosen phone number, which you’ll need to input in order to gain access.

Twitter’s TV ad targeting
As a result of the strong connection between watching TV and tweeting, Twitter has introduced targeting based on TV advertising. Using video fingerprinting technology, the system automatically assesses where a TV commercial has been aired, as well as which users have tweeted about the show during which the ad was shown. The selected number of partners who are running national US TV commercials will then be able to target Twitter advertising in order to support their on-screen campaign.

Twitter releases Lead Generation Card
The latest addition to Twitter’s ‘Cards’, whereby richer content can be included in an expanded tweet, is a ‘Lead Generation Card’ for advertisers. Within these, brands can post a description of an offer along with a call to action, as shown in the below example. The user’s name, @username and email address are then filled in automatically and sent to the brand, upon them clicking the CTA button.

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Some brands have started using the system already, which is currently only available to Twitter’s managed ad clients. Priceline has posted travel deals and an opportunity to receive email updates, while other users have included New Relic, for-profit university Full Sail and a number of startups seeking beta-testers. Undoubtedly, there are a number of positives to the new system, especially for advertisers. The collection of leads is hugely important to a number of businesses, especially if these are directly offered by people interested in a particular product. Including this functionality within an expanded tweet greatly reduces barrier to entry, which should result in increased lead collection.

Yahoo launches new Flickr
On the same day as her company’s purchase of Tumblr, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced a wealth of updates to photo-sharing network Flickr. An attempt to become more photo-centric has seen updates to the home page, as well as a new activity feed and photo stream, all of which put photos at the forefront.

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There will also be a free terabyte of space for every Flickr user, meaning essentially no limit on the number of photos you can upload (within reason). Discussing the focus for the changes, Mayer stated:

It didn’t fare so well, it languished. We can make Flickr awesome again… Flickr had become about words and blue links. This product is heart-stoppingly beautiful.

We’ll wait and see if users agree with her.

MessageMe passes 5 million users
Mobile messenger app MessageMe has passed 5 million users, just 75 days after launch. Having grown beyond 1 million in its first week, the app’s multimedia-rich approach seems to be paying off, with a $10 million round of seed funding following their initial $1.9 million round in December 2012. The figures, whilst impressive, leave MessageMe far behind competitors including WhatsApp, with 200 million monthly active users and WeChat, with 195 million. Nevertheless, it does have a planned growth strategy, with two new buttons for Stickers and Money expected to be introduced when it switches focus to monetisation.

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The Champions’ League Final on Twitter
Saturday night saw the Champions’ League Final, the culmination of the European football season. Naturally, this was discussed on Twitter a great deal, with 4.8 million tweets worldwide in the period from an hour before kick off until 30 minutes after the final whistle. Arjen Robben of Bayern Munich was the most talked about player and his 89th minute winner brought about 107,229 tweets per minute, eclipsed only by the 117,601 in the minutes after the game ended. Three other moments, the two other goals and one disallowed goal, were responsible for between 70,000 and 80,000 tweets per minute.

Brands also used the final to create some interesting Twitter content. UEFA, organisers of the Champions’ League, hosted a ‘Twitter Mirror’, whereby fans could view exclusive behind-the-scenes content of celebrities at a special charity match for the occasion.

 

 

This has been used at other sporting events, including French Open tennis and IPL cricket, and will also be in place at Wimbledon this year. As well as this, adidas football posted an excellent responsive tweet after the match, contrasting Bayern Munich player Bastian Schweinsteiger’s emotions when winning the tournament this year and losing it a year ago.

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The image resonated with the highs and lows experienced by football fans and was retweeted over 3,000 times.

Sky Brazil enables TV recording via Twitter
Sky, Brazil’s largest TV company, has created a system by which customers can record TV programmes through a special hashtag. First, users must sync their Twitter @handle to their Sky subscriber number. Then, when they see @skybrasil tweet about a show they want to record, all they have to do is retweet those posts with the hashtag #skyrec. The Twitter handle is then connected to the home DVR and the show is automatically recorded. The campaign will be promoted via TV, through paid digital media spend and by using Brazilian celebrities.

World Nutella Day
Sara Rosso, an American blogger based in Italy, set up ‘World Nutella Day’ in 2007, an unofficial event aimed at celebrating the chocolate and hazelnut spread. However, the day seemed to be jeopardised when she received a cease & desist letter from Ferrero, the company who own Nutella. Many were surprised by the brand’s failure to embrace fans’ love. We Are Social’s own Jim Coleman told Marketing Week that Nutella should have decided to “champion and hero” the day and “love people who love the brand”. Instead, he said, their approach seemed “dictatorial”, due to a “risk averse” strategy worried about profiteering from an unofficial recipe book and site advertising. However, it seems as though the day will likely survive after all; after a great deal of public furore, Ferrero backed down and withdrew their cease & desist order.

Branded content and violence towards women on Facebook
On Facebook, ads are targeted by user, not content. This was a problem last week, when ads appeared next to a page making light of violence towards women. Brands such as Nissan, American Express, British Airways, Sky, Easyjet, Ocado and Dove all had ads appear alongside the page and were forced into a reaction by an organised campaign made up of 50,000 tweets with the hashtag #FBrape. Nissan UK were quick to remove the advertising and apologise via Twitter, while Dove faced further backlash by leaving adverts running. Facebook claimed that it is not their business to monitor such content, despite a history of removing certain material. Talking to Marketing Magazine, Robin Grant of We Are Social said:

Despite the facts the ads are targeted at people not content, if this continues, Facebook will need to reconsider their position.

Taco Bell send rings to influencers
Taco Bell attempted a piece of odd influencer outreach last week, when they sent out a number of rings to minor celebrities, along with personalised letters thanking them for their love of the chain. Each ring and letter was accompanied by a $20 voucher and, in some cases, an invitation to the company’s test kitchen at their LA headquarters. Strangely enough, the scheme has paid off, with many of their targets tweeting about the stunt. ‘Model and aspiring actress’ Acacia Brinley, for example, posted the following: