We Are Social Asia Tuesday Tuneup #163

News
melissa.law

China’s social network sites remove fake accounts
An estimated 60,000 fake accounts have been removed by Sina Weibo, WeChat and QQ — China’s top social media sites. This comes after the country’s State Internet Information Office (SIIO) implemented new regulations to “promote the healthy development of the internet industry”. These regulations include banning the use of certain nicknames, impersonation accounts of public figures, as well as parody accounts or handles that may be deemed inappropriate.

$2.2 million of Bitcoin red packets sent through WeChat
Using OKLink, WeChat‘s integration with OKCoin‘s mobile wallet, $2.2 million worth of Bitcoin red packets were sent in China during the week-long Chinese New Year holiday. While this amount is a much needed boost to the cryptocurrency, it pales in comparison to the amount of conventional currency that was sent through WeChat. On the eve of Chinese New Year alone, the company reported that 1 billion red packets were sent, although the total amount transacted was not disclosed.

Facebook launches iOS Ads Manager app
Facebook now has over 2 million active advertisers, so the social advertising leader haslaunched a mobile app to help users manage their ads direct from their smartphones. The app will allow users to create ads, track spending, edit scheduling, view results and receive ad performance notifications. It has initially launched in the US, but will roll out globally over the next few months. An Android version should also be available later this year.

Twitter improves conversion tracking tools
Last week, Twitter announced two key enhancements to its conversion tracking tool – transaction values and key conversion tags. Transaction values allows advertisers to track the sales driven by a promoted tweet campaign, making it easier to report on ROI. Additionally, key conversion tags allow advertisers to pick a target conversion type for their campaign, Twitter can then optimise the campaign and focus reporting towards the chosen tag.

ROI campaigns mashup

New boss at Google+ shakes things up
Google’s social network has just got a new leader in Brad Horowitz, who plans to change things up to bring life back to the platform. Rumoured plans include making Hangouts and Photos each act as stand-alone tools.

Pinterest pitches multi-image promoted pins
Pinterest continues to push forward in efforts to monetise the platform. Last week, it pitched a multi-pin carousel to potential advertisers, which would enable promoted pins to show more than one photo. Facebook and Twitter both offer similar ad features, such as the four-image tweets. A Pinterest spokesperson said it’s “just one example of many things we’re testing”.

Barclays introduces payments via Twitter handles
Barclays recently announced that it will allow people using its Pingit mobile app to make payments to peers and small businesses using solely their Twitter handles. This update will be the first of its kind for a British bank and launches on the 10th March for iOS and Android.

Screen Shot 2015-03-02 at 15.11.20

Tesco launches beauty blogger campaign
Tesco has big plans for a year-long focus on its beauty category. To kick this off, the grocery giant has teamed up with influential beauty bloggers to offer one-to-one Google+ Hangout consultations. Consumers will be able to book free, short, confidential Hangouts with their favourite bloggers to talk make-up, haircare and all things beauty.

So, what colour was THAT dress?
Last week, the world went wild for a picture of dress. Was it blue and black or white and gold? On Friday, the Huffington Post featured our research which showed that white and gold was leading #TheDress debate, despite confirmation that it is in fact blue and black. Luckily, science has stepped in, explaining that the colours you see are predetermined by the brightness of your screen and the genetic makeup of your eyes.

As expected from viral conversations nowadays, a whole host of brands joined in on the action, some more successfully than others: