We Are Social Asia Tuesday Tuneup #142
News
News
BBC news available on the messaging app Line
Users can now read the BBC news using messaging app Line. According to Line, the official BBC account (@BBCnews) has over 151,000 followers from 11 countries – Australia, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, India, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the United States. The service is currently only available in English; however, local language capabilities are expected to launch after a similar experiment with WeChat and WhatsApp proved successful in India. In response to the launch of the BBC account on the Line, Akira Morikawa, the CEO of LINE Corporation described it as “just the beginning of further expansion to the infrastructure of the global services.” With messaging apps getting involved in news distribution, we’ll soon see what kind of impact it has on traditional news media.
Kakao Corp to launch own local news services
South Korea’s top mobile messenger service provider, Kakao Corp, announced a plan to launch its own local news services. Kakao has allegedly been exploring its partnership with local news providers for the new content distribution channel, to be launched later this year. A test version will be available for all users by the end of September. Details on what type of content will be involved has not been revealed yet, but will include news stories from major media outlets, as well as other stories from social networking services. The company says the app will show selected news articles based on the users’ interests, allowing them to share the content with their social networks. Kakao’s new service is expected to challenge Naver, South Korea’s dominant portal service with nearly 80% market share. It will be interesting to see how Naver reacts to the competition with Kakao in the battle over the local news market.
We are spending more time using mobile apps then ever
Our time spent using mobile apps has risen by 21 percent compared to last year, with music, fitness and social media apps amongst the highest climbers.
Despite coming third to music and fitness categories regarding the time spent in apps, when it comes to app launches (i.e. opening up the app itself) social networking is leading the field with an average of 25.1 app launches per month. Our time in apps has already overtaken desktop web and this number is only going to continue to grow, according to Localytics, who carried out the research.
Small and medium businesses are the biggest spenders on social media
Research firm BIA/Kelsey has revealed that 74.5 percent of SMBs use social media to advertise or promote their businesses, rising from 71.7 percent last year. At the same time, SMBs are spending less on print and outdoor advertising. Steve Marshall, director of research at BIA/Kelsey, explains that “print and outdoor together have switched positions with social in terms of reach and share of spend”, describing social as convenient, user-friendly and inexpensive with low participation barriers. The most profitable best channels cited by SMBs are online banner ads containing video, streaming audio advertising and offers distributed on smartphones or tablets.
Asia-Pacific holds nearly 30% of global social network spending
Even though North America continues to retain its breadwinner status in terms of media dollars spent on social sites this year, nearly a third of worldwide paid social media spending will come from the Asia-Pacific region, according to eMarketer’s latest forecast. It’s expected for this region’s share to rise by almost 2 percentage points over the next two years, while it’s anticipated for North America’s share to fall.
Facebook prioritises breaking news
Facebook has announced changes to its News Feed algorithm that aim to put a greater focus on topical news and timely posts. The update looks at two new factors; one being trending topics, with Facebook giving more priority to breaking news, the other is how people are liking and commenting on posts determine if it’s relevant to a specific user. Facebook hopes the update will help to deliver everyone the right content at the right time, so users only read “what’s important to them”. For users, this might mean fewer BuzzFeed quizzes and ice-bucket challenges, and more breaking news.
Facebook’s private sharing app “Moments”
Facebook is trialling a new app codenamed “Moments”, a private sharing app designed to make selective sharing to different sets of people much faster than the main Facebook app, which focuses primarily on content rather than audience. Though Facebook is yet to officially comment, the app has already been likened to the mobile app ”Cluster”, which lets people create safe “spaces” for sharing content with small groups.
Facebook relaunches ad network Atlas
Facebook has revamped the ad network it acquired, Atlas, with an updated system that enables it to better serve and measure ads across devices and beyond Facebook. Advertisers can target ads to any device leading up to a purchase, and use Facebook data to measure the success of a campaign. The update could be big news for brands looking to organise their digital ad spend, and seeks to extend Facebook’s display advertising dominance beyond its own service. The full details are due to be revealed during Advertising Week, beginning Sept. 29.
Twitter expands audience targeting tools
Twitter first introduced tailored audiences last year to give advertisers the ability to target audiences and tailor ads. Expanding on its audience targeting efforts, the platform has updated its self-service advertising dashboard to give advertisers more tools to manage targeted campaigns. They can do so by creating new audience lists and managing existing audiences, all through this new audience manager tool.
YouTube Analytics now with real-time tracking
YouTube has added new real-time reporting to its analytics dashboard that provides view counts down to the minute for your videos. The new dashboard looks at your last five published videos, how many users have accessed them, how the user figures have developed in the past 48 hours. The interface has two graphs: hour-by-hour data for the last 48 hours and minute-by-minute figures for the past hour. This is a particularly exciting update; providing a new way to look at content and keep track of what time is preferable to publish new videos.
Joan Rivers posts about iPhone 6-feet-under
After several warnings to PR companies, sponsored scheduled posts appeared on Joan Rivers’ Facebook and Instagram accounts two weeks following her death. One of these included an ad on the late comedian’s Instagram account promoting the Apple iPhone 6, before it was quickly taken down. However, with 1.3 millions fans, this didn’t stop people immediately having fun with the story on social media.
