We Are Social Asia Tuesday Tuneup #154
News
News
Twitter Indonesia to work with brands on content strategy
With over 20 million active users in Indonesia, Twitter’s opening of a sales office in Indonesia is not unexpected. At the recent Startup Asia Jakarta 2014, Rick Mulia shared that the key focus for the Indonesian office is to include more collaborations with local brands and celebrities as part of its content strategy.
China’s version of Instagram bags US$36 million investment
Ever since China’s block on Instagram, many social networks have surfaced as alternatives to Instagram, including Nice. The social network has been gaining traction as a replacement to Instagram and has recently closed a US$36 million investment from Tiger Global Fund and Vy Capital, according to 36kr. Featuring a bilingual interface aimed at a global audience, the app is simple to use and has sharing options to other apps such as Facebook and WeChat.
Samsung’s ChatOn to shut down
Samsung has announced the end of ChatOn with effect from 1 February 2015, with the exception of US. The chat app that is preinstalled on all Samsung smartphones recorded a total of 100 million registered users in September 2013, significantly lesser than other popular chat apps. Samsung explained that this move is also in the efforts of focusing more on “health, mobile commerce and other platforms.”
Instagram valued at US$35 billion
The popular photo-sharing app was recently valued by Citigroup at US$35 billion, topping Twitter which is valued at US$23.3 billion. Instagram’s user growth have also been outpacing Twitter, with more than 300 million active users.
TV’s importance declines for younger generation
Young people are spending less time watching TV, but not because of their parents’ warnings about square eyes. Respondents to an Ofcom survey said that they watched 148 minutes of TV per day in 2013, compared with 169 in 2010. Them youngsters can be found online – “less than half [of 16-30 year olds] now think that the TV is their most important source for relaxing or entertainment”.
Brands get more engagement on Instagram than Twitter
Avid mashup readers (or those who started last week) will no doubt recall that Instagram has overtaken Twitter in terms of users. Now, Socialbakers’ data suggests that it’s backing up its reach with engagement for brands, as shown in the three graphs below.
Updates to Instagram
Instagram has added five new filters and a slow-motion video option. The platform announced in a blog post that the filters are its “best yet” – nobody tell Lo-Fi.
Sell your socks (among other things) on Facebook
Facebook is enabling selected users to sell unwanted items through the network. Those included in the experiment see the ‘sell’ option next to the ‘write post’ button and are then required to fill in a form containing price, description, pictures and delivery options. Useful for those unwanted Christmas gifts? No, no Christmas cynicism. Not yet.
Twitter thinks about autoplay
Twitter is reportedly considering introducing autoplay for videos, according to “industry insiders” who have spoken to Adweek. The decision is being referred to as a “tug of war”, weighing up the potential impact on users and what their reaction might be.
Twitter and Foursquare to partner in 2014
Twitter and Foursquare are in talks about a 2015 partnership, according to Business Insider. The deal would help Twitter to surface relevant and interesting info through the POWER OF GRAYSKULL! Sorry, not Grayskull: location in tweets. The power of location in tweets.
Instagram gets rid of fake accounts
Celebrities and brands were hit hard as Instagram purged fake accounts last week. Justin Bieber was hardest hit, losing 3.5 million followers (will he never get a break?), while over half of Akon’s follower base was culled. As for brands, Nike lost 257,000 and Forever 21 dropped by 245,000.
We Are Social and Old Navy release #StealOrStay
We Are Social and Old Navy have launched a Christmas campaign named #StealOrStay, in which the brand is giving away 12 gifts on Twitter and Vine for users who retweet or revine relevant posts. The brand has partnered with twelve Vine influencers, each of whom will receive a gift and can choose to open it, share it or steal somebody else’s.
Lenovo and We Are Social create #Holiday360
Not sure if you’ve noticed, but selfies have been pretty big in 2014. Lenovo and We Are Social are playing on this with #Holiday360, a campaign that asks fans to create a 360 degree selfie that celebrates Christmas spirit in the local area.
Kleenex creates sensitive movie scenes with We Are Social
Kleenex and We Are Social have created a set of videos that play on classic movie scenes. They promote the brand’s ‘sensitive’ range with a set of sensitive scenes from some of the most famous rom-coms.
The top sponsored Tumblr posts of 2014
Adweek has created a roundup of the top 20 sponsored Tumblr posts of 2014. AT&T saw the most interactions, while other top brands included Axe, adidas and some that don’t begin with ‘a’.
