We Are Social Asia Tuesday TuneUp #85

News
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Asiana plane crash reported first on social media
The drama of the Boeing 777 plane crash at San Francisco International Airport last Saturday unfolded on social media before it was amplified on cable news. The accident took place on Saturday at 11.36am and David Eun, a Samsung Electronics Co. executive, provided the first signs of survival when he posted a photo on his Path account and Twitter at 12.13pm, within minutes of the crash-landing and fire. This received more than 32,000 retweets and an increase in Twitter followers from 2,000 to more than 24,000 followers in less than two days.

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The incident on Saturday shows just how much more reliant traditional news media have become on social media bulletins and photos for eye-witness coverage of significant breaking news events. With no reporters immediately on the scene, the traditional news outlets were forced to rely on Twitter postings, photos and even Youtube videos of passengers and those waiting inside the airport terminals.

Line messaging app now launched in India
Line has joined the likes of Hike, Whatsapp and WeChat to enter the Indian market, with the launch of two TVCs to mark their entry. The launch is part of Line’s global expansion, and India is set to be a key market as the country has a growing mobile and internet penetration and lower bandwidth costs. The TVCs promote both the free voice chat feature as well as the stickers or rich emoticon communications as embedded below. 

Line is up against serious competition not only with established player Whatsapp, but also with WeChat and Hike that have been pushing out their apps with localised features and and even endorsing the latest Bollywood stars.

China Mobile’s IM platform Fetion to compete with WeChat
As reported by TheNextWeb, China Mobile is intending to phase out its mobile instant messaging platform Fei Liao and merge it with its other IM platform Fetion starting from July 10. Fei Liao’s voice capability will be carried forward to Fetion, which has a higher user base of around 80 million (as compared to 3 million for Fei Liao). As the world’s largest carrier with over 700 million subscribers, this move is a step forward to mitigate the issue of growing usage of messaging apps such as WeChat and Line among others.

WeChat recruits Messi for global ad promotion
The recent Tencent Partners Conference event in Beijing revealed that WeChat has surpassed over 70 million overseas user base. This can be credited to its aggressive marketing efforts to promote the chat app, with its latest TVC to feature football star Lionel Messi. Aside from that, Tencent is also looking to collaborate with local firms and celebrities, such as in Malaysia where they will open up a new branch soon.

Every £1 spent on social is worth £3.34
For every £1.00 spent on social, brands can expect to see a potential return of £3.34, according to landmark research by the UK’s Internet Advertising Bureau. In the examination of Heinz, Kettle and Twinings’ social media marketing, they found that the former, a We Are Social client, received a 22% sentiment uplift from those exposed to their social presence. Overall, it found that people exposed to a brand on social were more inclined to purchase that brand more often, with 83% trialling a brand’s product.

The science behind a successful meme
A Harvard scientist named Michele Coscia has produced research into what it is that makes memes ‘successful’. Quartz have an excellent article that details much of his method and findings, which look to make various statements about the behaviour of memes. The key points include the idea that memes with a consistent share rate are more likely to be successful, as are those whose rise in popularity correlates with the death of another. Coscia also highlights ‘meme clusters’: sets of memes that, for whatever reason, do particularly well together – including the below.

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Finally, the research points to the fact that, while it is fairly easy to predict what one person will share based on their previous sharing habits, it’s much harder to ascertain what memes will be successful, or why.

Facebook Graph Search set to become public
Having been in Beta for the last six months, Facebook’s Graph Search is set to start being rolled out to users on a wider basis from today. The social search tool, which allows queries such as “friends of mine who like rollerblading and ice cream” or “people who work at We Are Social and live in London”, is being rolled out to users of the service in US English. It’s not yet clear how quickly the service will be extended to users of the network in other languages.

Facebook rescinds 20% text rule for cover photos
Last week, Facebook updated its cover photo guidelines, removing the restriction that prevented pages filling more than 20% of a cover photo with text. This follows on from deregulation in March that allowed cover photos to include contact and pricing information, as well as calls to action, though it’s worth noting that pages running that advertising that pulls in their cover photo will still be subject to the 20% rule.

Twitter allow ad targeting by browser history and email address
Twitter are for the first time allowing advertisers to target people who’ve visited a website or provided data as part of a purchase. This is intended to ensure that adverts are targeted at those who have previously expressed interest in a company. Unlike on Facebook, fans will be able to opt out of all adverts that use third-party data, simply by ticking a box in their account settings.

Twitter ban automated following, relax 3rd party curation restrictions
Twitter have updated their developer guidelines, with two major changes to the network. Firstly, they have banned automated and bulk following, preventing the likes of automated ‘follow back’ systems. Secondly, they have relaxed the restrictions on curating content from 3rd party sites; this is certainly good news for the likes of Storify.

Updates to Vine iOS app
Vine have released several new updates, all currently available for their iPhone/iPad app. These can roughly be divided into three categories: taking videos, discovering content and sharing your own Vines. In camp 1 are the changes to the camera, such as grid, focus and ghost tools, aimed at making it easier to film your own content. For discovering content, users are now able to explore 15 different channels, from comedy to nature, each with their own ‘Popular’ section, as well as an ‘On The Rise’ feature that shows people who are catching the attention of the Vine community. Finally, when it comes to sharing content, Vine now offer the ‘Revine’, the equivalent of a Retweet, and ‘Protected Posts’ that allow you to keep more personal content for the people you approve. Protected Posts are also available on Android, with the remaining features following this week.

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LinkedIn looking to content to help increase ad revenue
Currently, LinkedIn make 57% of their revenue through tools for recruiters, with only 23% ($74.8 million) coming from advertising revenue. They are now trialling “sponsored updates”, their equivalent of native adverts appearing in a user’s news feed. Mike Gamson, LinkedIn’s senior VP-global solutions, said:

Now because people are reading articles and sharing updates, the [news] feed’s become very liquid. Into that liquidity, an advertiser has an opportunity to suggest a story that might be interesting.

As a result, it’s important for LinkedIn to have a high quality news feed, or at least one that people care about, for this to work. They’ve been attempting this, enrolling the help of influencers like Richard Branson and Bill Gates, to produce advice for those entering the world of business to follow. However, there is no conclusive evidence to show that users are actually reading these stories more; in fact, the average time users spent on the network in May 2013 was 20.6 minutes, compared with 20.9 a year before. It will be worth keeping an eye on LinkedIn’s ad revenue, to see how this move pans out for them.

Six percent of online US adults use Reddit
A survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has found that6% of all online US adults are on Reddit, with young men the most prevalent group, as shown in this graph:

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Geographically, those who live nearer to cities are more likely to use Reddit: 7% of urban online adults use the network, compared to 6% of those in the suburbs and only 2% in rural areas. Wealth, however, is not a significant factor, with between 6 and 7% usage in every strand for ‘household income’.

Bebo bought back by old owners for $1 million
The social network Bebo has been bought back by its inventors, Michael and Xochi Birch, for $1 million. The pair owned 70% of the business when it was sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008, making a huge $595 million between them. Now the pair are looking to breathe some life back into the platform, which has been as good as dead since 2010, as per the below tweet.

Google Reader dwarfed G+ for traffic until its closure Buzzfeed have produced some interesting research about the amount of respective traffic driven by Google Reader and G+, finding that the former dwarfed the latter right up to its closure. Indeed, traffic from Google Reader to any of the ‘Buzzfeed network’, a set of sites with over 300 million collective users, had in fact increased by 6% over the few months since its closure was announced. anigif_enhanced-buzz-25600-1372789761-1 Wimbledon on Twitter Andy Murray’s triumph at Wimbledon captured hearts across the UK yesterday, so it’s no surprise that people were discussing it in their droves on Twitter. The 12 hours around the match saw a total of 3.4 million tweets on the topic, climaxing at 17.25 with the end of the match, at which point there were 120,000 Wimbledon tweets per minute, while 8 of the top 10 UK trends were related to the contest. Andy Murray’s own tweet about the final has already seen over 90,000 RTs and 70,000 favourites.

 

Naturally, many brands are keen to get involved and of the official Wimbledon sponsors, it was evian who performed best. The water brand received 70% of all tweets mentioning one of the official sponsors, far outdoing the runners-up: Slazenger and Robinson’s, each with 9%. We’d like to this this was at least in part due to theWimbledon Wiggle campaign created by We Are Social, which asked fans to submit their own ‘wiggle’ for the chance to win tickets to the final. Based on the way in which players move when preparing to receive a serve, some examples can be seen in the video below.

adidas, Murray’s official sportswear sponsor, tweeted the following in celebration:

Société Générale promote Twitter customer service in TV ad
The French bank Société Générale is using its latest TV ad to promote its quick and comprehensive customer service on Twitter. It is certainly novel to see a brand using a TV ad in this way and displays the increasing importance of social media in interactions between customers and brands. The ad (in French) can be seen below:

O2 asks consumers to #bemoredog
UK mobile network O2 are using the hashtag #bemoredog to promote their 4G service, asking consumers to leave behind the grumpy ways of the cat. Also including TV and print elements, the campaign focusses strongly on social, with the aforementioned hashtag supported by their Facebook page, containing the latest #bemoredog pictures. There is also an interactive game involving throwing a frisbee as a cat, as well as the ability to create ‘dog bombs’ – a fun video around the ‘dog’ theme – and send them to your friends.

Thorpe Park appoint We Are Social as social media agency
Theme park Thorpe Park has appointed We Are Social as its social media agency of record, giving us the task of auditing their social channels, as well as the wider social landscape, in order to produce an overarching social strategy, as well as content strategy, image and tone of voice guidelines and a crisis management plan. There is also a long term view to the production of creative campaigns and Thorpe Park marketing director Jason Wills said:

Social media is a key part of our broader integrated communications strategy and We Are Social has a reputation throughout the industry for delivering first class, creative work. We had no doubt they would be the best agency for the job.

Celebrities must be clear about commercial interests on Twitter
After a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary outed Coronation Street actresses who had been tweeting plugs for products in exchange for free gifts, celebrities have been urged to increase transparency about their commercial interests by using the hashtag #ad. The law requires the same to be done when celebrities are paid, but the law is slightly less clear when it comes to free gifts, as We Are Social’s own Robin Grant told The Independent:

Celebrities are immensely powerful – people are more interested in celebrities than they are in brands. Involving celebrities in an ethical way can make a positive difference in a campaign… It is illegal not to disclose if a person has been paid to promote a product but this consumer protection regulation has not yet been tested in the courts. What if a person has been given a service as a gift? The best way to disclose an interest is to include the hashtag ‘ad’ in the tweet.