We Are Social’s Midweek Mashup #223

News
jimmy.wang
wechat-slack-header

Clash of the titans: Alibaba vs. WeChat

WeChat Enterprise was rolled out last week while Alibaba announced that it has partnered with US-based video chat startup Vidyo to amp up its offerings. Both giants are definitely not resting in the pursuit of China’s enterprises. While it is highly likely that e-mails will stick around in the near future, the increased adoption of productivity chat apps signal a shift in workplace communication. How can organisations adapt to this shift? Will productivity chat apps change the way we work? Only time will tell.


For now, we can only expect competition to heat up.


58554494


Shouldn’t every day be Earth Day?


Earth Day organisers have shared their plan to plant 7.8 billion tress in the next five years.  This year marks a milestone as leaders of 170 countries came together to sign the Paris Agreement – a binding consent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as to limit the effects of global warming. Brands have traditionally leveraged on Earth Day to promote their sustainability and green efforts, and also to bring attention to important issues. Here are some of our favourites this year:









Join the Talkshow

Live content is on full throttle with the likes of Periscope and Facebook Live gaining popularity. Talkshow is the latest new social platform to join the party.  The app allows individuals to create a “show” and start talking to friends. The thread operates like a chat room, is viewable by anyone on Talkshow who follows you, but only those who are invited to the show may participate in the conversation. Talkshow founder Michael Sippey shared that the live-texting app was inspired by online conversations between Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Could Talkshow be the modern mIRC?

Facebook’s winning streak continues with Q1 results

The world’s leading social media platform proved last week why it deserves its title.Facebook surpassed market expectations by reporting $5.38 billion in revenue in its Q1 earnings report (up 52% y-o-y), along with $1.5 billion in profit in Q1, up a massive 195% y-o-y. It’s not all about the dollars though – user growth was also strong, up 3.77%. This may not seem like a lot, but when you consider Facebook has 1.59 billion users, it’s not at all shabby. To put it in context, Facebook added 12 times the number of new users as Twitter (more to come on them later), despite being five times its size. However, there was a black mark on Facebook’s otherwise glowing report, with average revenue per user in the ‘Rest of World’ region, which includes developing countries (Facebook’s growth markets), declining steeply.

FB Q1 MUA

FB Q1 DUAs

FB Q1 Revenue per user

And it’s not just Facebook itself that’s riding high right now; the whole family is contributing to the company’s success. According to Mark Zuckerberg, people around the world spend on average more than 50 minutes a day using Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. And that doesn’t even take the ever-popular WhatsApp into account. With Facebook making new updates and investments on what feels like a weekly basis (just look at all the announcements at F8, for example, such as the introduction of Chatbots on Messenger) we have a feeling that there’s no stopping the social media giant right now.

Twitter’s Q1 results fail to win over investors

Twitter also announced its Q1 results last week, and despite the fact it seemed to have done pretty well on paper, investors weren’t all that impressed. Firstly, the good news for Twitter is that it seems to have turned around the user growth slump it experienced in Q3 and Q4 2015, adding 5 million monthly active users in Q1 2016. Revenue was also up 36% y-o-y, to $595 million for the quarter. The platform highlighted a few positive takeouts from its results – its algorithm to show priority content seems to be popular with users, with very few opting out of it, as well as positive results from video ads, which have twice the ad recall rate of traditional promoted tweets. However, critics pointed out that $595 million revenue is still less than the $607.8 million that analysts expected, and that despite all its efforts it has “failed to broaden the appeal of the core service”. Twitter isn’t admitting defeat just yet though, and continues to make changes to try and bring in new users. One such change is its recent shift in categorization in the Apple App Store – Twitter now sits in ‘News’ instead of ‘Social Networking’, a switch that apparently boosted the app from sixth place in Social Networking to first place within News.

YouTube launches six-second ads

In line with changing consumer-viewing habits, YouTube is out to grab the attention of mobile phone users, by introducing a six-second ad option this May. In between your regular video binges, these ‘Bumper’ ads are “ideal” for driving wide reach and frequency with early tests revealing a lift in recall, awareness and consideration. Start working on your patience though, as these ads can’t be skipped. What a bummer, I mean bumper. Brands are already testing out the format – here are some of the early movers.



   

Snapchat ‘Stories’ drive 10 billion daily views

Personally, I’m not sure how I feel about the world knowing that I’ve been watching re-runs of Faulty Towers whilst eating packaged Mac n Cheese but it seems that others have no such qualms, as more than a third of Snapchat’s daily users create Stories on the platform. This has further helped fuel Snapchat’s daily video views, now at 10 billion a day, up from 8 billion in February. Snapchat has decided to share the ‘Stories’ statistic with investors to help explain that the app serves people who create content, not just those who consume it. It’s also a nice contrast to Facebook and Twitter who don’t release statistics on what percentage of their users broadcast per day, instead focusing on metrics about visitors and time spent.

Target and Lancome produce Snapchat’s first ecommerce ads

Snapchat is open for ecommerce. Lancome and Target have started to run shoppable ads, each promoting a 10-second call-to-action, instructing viewers to “swipe up” for more. As creativity on Snapchat is still at the early stages – ads are limited to the standard Snapchat 10 seconds, but the “swipe” feature allows for more content to be displayed. Don’t be fooled though, swiping right will not result in a hot date, just a fabulous lipstick. Win-win.

Lancome Snapchat

Snapchat Teams up with NBC to Cover Olympics

Snapchat has scored a deal with NBC to show highlights from the 2016 Olympic Games. The video-sharing app will create live stories featuring content from NBC, whilst BuzzFeed’s Snapchat Discovery channel will showcase behind-the-scenes content. NBC is hoping that Snapchat’s younger audience will lead to an increased interest in the athletes’ stories and triumphs, and aim to follow the success of the Oscars and Super Bowl partnerships.

Pinterest Offers Brands New Metrics for Campaigns

Pinterest has started telling American advertisers how their Promoted Pin campaigns on the image bookmarking platform meet business objectives, helping marketers make informed decisions on their investments. Previously, Pinterest only provided metrics such as impressions, clicks and repins of images whereas now brand awareness, favourability and purchase intent can be measured.

The Toronto Silent Film Festival builds an Escape Room on Instagram

Escape rooms are all the rage at the moment. For some reason, it’s deemed fun and ‘good for team building’ to gather into a claustrophobic space with a series of tasks in order to be granted freedom. No thanks; I do that 9-5, five days a week. However, Toronto Silent Film Festival jumped on the bandwagon by creating the first-ever Instagram Escape Room. The campaign taps into the fact that over 70 percent of silent films have been ‘lost’, left to rot in a metaphorical (or maybe even real) room that’s been forgotten. If you’re keen to get your escape on by following the Instagram clues, check out the video below for further instructions.



Juventus celebrates their title win on social media

After winning their fifth consecutive Serie A title, Juventus took to social media to celebrate. Using the hashtag #Hi5tory, the club shared content of the players celebrating their title win with their 25 million strong audience. Largely on Twitter and Snapchat, we saw players spraying champagne, dancing on tables and more. The strategy was deemed a success, leaving Juventus with humorous and creative real-time posts. I for one would love to see the follow-up, #Pre5sent, where all the players are documented nursing their hangovers, hugging the toilet.

 





Instagram v Littergram: the corporate name battle

Instagram demands that Littergram should clean up its act. The trash-shaming app has been asked to ditch their name due the similarities to Instagram’s branding and user interface. However worthy the cause, Instagram is not messing around, giving the company six months to sort itself out. Danny Lucas, creator of Littergram has fought back, stating that his only mission is to clean up Great Britain. Fight the power, Danny – this all sounds like absolute garbage to me.