We Are Social Asia Tuesday TuneUp #107
News
News
1.7 billion tweets made in Thai language in 2013, 45% up from the past year
Twitter in Thailand has not been talked about as much as it should be due to the highlight on Facebook and Instagram. But data from ThaiTrend suggests that Twitter is still worth watching. According to ThaiTrend, there were more than 1.7 billion tweets made in the Thai language in 2013 from 1.7 million users. ThaiTrend also claims that Twitter usage and user base in 2013 has shown 45 % and 35% growth respectively as compared to the past year. The day that marked highest number of tweets in Thai was on December 1st with a total 7.5 million tweets talking about huge political protests in Bangkok, which shows that Thailand is no exception from Twitter’s major role of being a platform to exchange real time updates and opinion on social issues. It will be interesting to see how Twitter will continue to impact on how Thai people communicate online.
800K posts made within the first minute of 2014 on Sina Weibo
China’s largest micro-blogging site, Sina Weibo welcomed 2014 with record breaking number of posts. According to an official Sina account, the first minute of 2014 gained a total of 808,298 posts which beats last year’s record of 729,521 as well as Chinese New Year record of 731,102. The surge of posts seem to be attributed by the New Year’s programme broadcasted by CCTV in partnership with Sina Weibo. We will wait to see if the record will again outstrip the record of upcoming Chinese New Year’s posts end of this month.
Fashion brands have same-y new year
Happy New Year! Of course, it means a lot coming from us, but when four different fashion brands post the same update at roughly the same time, it ends up having little marketing value. Four indistinguishable posts were uploaded to Instagram on New Year’s Day by Forever 21, Victoria’s Secret, Gucci and Free People.
Happy New Year on Twitter
Fashion brands weren’t the only ones looking to send the same message. Twitter has produced a blog post on how people wished each other a Happy New Year all over the world, with this colourful visualisation showing the time lapse.
“Pay-for-Prayer” scheme gets criticism on Twitter in Indonesia
Will you be offended if someone is asking for money in exchange for praying? You might be and could be because the religion teaches that praying should be voluntary and unmeasurable by monetary value. Interestingly, the first viral story of 2014 in Indonesia is related to the concept of “pay-for-prayer”. The incident started from social media post made by Ahmad Gozali (@AhmadGozali), advisor of social corporation Sedekah Harian. The post seek for minimum IDR 100,000 ($8.3) in exchange for pray during his visit to Mekkah. Indonesian movie producer and director Joko Anwar (@JokoAnwar) with 540,000 followers made a tweet criticizing his scheme and the story went viral. After the surge of criticism on social media toward Gozali’s scheme, Sedekah Harian’s website published apologies with clarification that the money will be used for social projects. It also claimed that Gozali has now stopped the program. Although followers seem quite acceptive to their apologies, it’s clear that they do not accept the concept of monetizing praying.
Vine launches for web browsers
Twitter’s video sharing platform, Vine, has launched its web version. This includes everything you’d expect: a home screen, plus the functionality to like, comment and share, as well as a new feature: TV mode. This allows users to view all videos in one, continuous stream.
Social ad spending per user rises around the world
Social network ad spending is set to continue growing until at least 2015, according to eMarketer research. In 2012, advertisers were spending an average of $5.14 per user, up to $6.18 in 2013 and forecast to continue to $6.97 this year, then $7.98 in 2015. Growth is slowing, however: compared to a 38.8% change in 2012, 2015 will see an increase of just 25.4%.
Over three quarters of US online adults use social networks
Research by Pew Internet has found that 73% of online US adults now use social networking in some form. Facebook is the predominant platform, with 71% of all online adults having a presence in 2013, up from 67% in 2012. Interestingly, Pinterest (21%) was more popular than Instagram (17%) and Twitter (18%), while 42% of adults are active on multiple networks.
There were some findings on individual demographics, too: for example, women are four times more likely than men to use Pinterest, while 45% of those aged over 65 are on Facebook. In terms of crossover, Facebook sees the most user crossover: 80% of the users of all other sites spend time on Facebook as well, while Pinterest and LinkedIn have the least crossover of all.
4G moblie subscribers spending more time online
According to research by UK mobile provider EE, 4G moblie subscribers are using their mobiles for online activities more and more. Of those surveyed, 50% reported an increase amount of time spent web browsing, 36% in streaming video content and 34% in the use of social media.
We Are Social and evian launch #liveyoungjanuary
We Are Social has produced a campaign for evian that looks to keep the ‘Live Young’ spirit alive and well throughout the month of January. Launching on Facebook and Twitter, there will be a new message each day under the hashtag #liveyoungjanuary, encouraging adults to take part in different activities, such as playing sleeping lions at work.
Ben & Jerry’s react to marijuana legalisation
Ben & Jerry’s last week produced a terrific piece of reactive content after recreational marijuana became legal in the US state of Colorado. At the time of writing, it’s received almost 10,000 RTs and over 5,000 favourites.
BREAKING NEWS: We’re hearing reports of stores selling out of Ben & Jerry’s in Colorado. What’s up with that? pic.twitter.com/zBs8nyxZWn
— Ben & Jerry’s (@benandjerrys) January 2, 2014
Target use Pinterest for ‘awesome shop’
Clothes retailer Target has created an online ‘awesome shop’, with content curated via Pinterest. The most pinned items from the company’s boards will appear at the top of the shop’s site, allowing users to easily browse the items their peers love.