We Are Social's Tuesday Tweakup #8
After yesterday’s Bank Holiday here in the UK, there’s nothing like some social media news to perk up your Tuesday…
Interactive marketing spend to reach $76 billion by 2016
A new report from Forrester forecasts that U.S. interactive marketing spending will reach $76.6 billion by 2016, more than marketers currently spend on TV, and comprising 35% of all advertising – a big leap from the current 19% spend.
It’s worth heeding the comments of Forrester Senior VP Josh Bernoff:
Social media spending – on technology to manage it, agency fees, and integrated campaigns (and this doesn’t even include ads on social networks) will already reach $1.6 billion this year. We are projecting it to grow above $2.1 billion next year, and to reach $5.0 billion in 2016. Social programs – not just social ads – are now a significant part of the digital economy. When spending passes a billion dollars, you can’t call it experimental.
SEO important for Facebook Pages
We often highlight the need for newsfeed optimisation for Facebook Pages, but SEO is also important for Facebook Pages, with a study indicating search engines driving 34% of external traffic to Pages. According to the study, page admins should be conscious of SEO when naming Pages, filling in fields on the Info tab, posting content, and placing links to their Pages on websites.
It should be noted though, that this figure diminished the more fans a Page has, indicating the importance of truly interactive campaigns, ahead of dull SEO fodder.
Facebook reaches one trillion page views in one month – or does it?
Conflicting data from comScore and Google’s Double-click ad network makes it unclear whether Facebook really did reach one trillion page views in June. In short, according to the Google data it did, whereas comScore believe it (only) had 467 billion page views. It’s a lot either way.
Facebook react to Google+ Circles with new sharing options
Facebook users update their profiles almost as much as the Facebook developers do – the latest series of changes to Facebook are a host of new privacy options that respond both to the functionality of Google+ Circles, and to calls to give users more control over the privacy of their content.
Luckily those nifty Facebook types are also pretty handy with iMovie, so here are the new updates explained via the medium of video walkthrough:
How to manage your profile:
How to manage sharing different kinds of posts:
How to manage sharing by location:
Facebook scrap Places, add location to posts
A year after they launched it, Facebook last week scrapped Places as a separate entity, and instead allowed posts to be geo-tagged.
It’s a clever move which will make check-ins, not just something for the present, but also for the past and future. As TechCrunch rightly point out, it makes Location much more of a constant in Facebook, with every action linked back to what used to be Places.
Facebook kills Daily Deals, keeps Check-In Deals
Facebook has killed its Groupon-lite Daily Deals programme, but kept Check-In Deals, as part of the residual Places functionality.
Here’s a chart depicting how it will work:
Google aim to improve Google+
Google’s Tim Horowitz spoke last week of the search engine’s aims to improve Google+ in light of Facebook’s new privacy controls, which he labelled ‘familiar’:
There will be new, unexpected features that will be really significant in changing the center of gravity of the product, and will change how people think of the service entirely
Watch this space.
Social sharing buttons work – even for Google+
It’s easy to over-egg the pudding here, but it’s clear that even on smaller social networks like Google+, social sharing buttons work: websites with Google’s +1 button, received 3.5 times more visits from Google+ than sites without.
Twitter launches user galleries
In an unexpected, but really well-executed move, Twitter have introduced User Galleries, which amalgamate together all the most recent images tweeted by a user, into an easily scannable gallery. Nice.
Beyonce pregnancy brings new tweets per second record
After announcing her pregnancy at the MTV awards, Beyonce’s bump caused a new tweets per second record – 8,868.
PlayStation Home getting a redesign to focus on social games
Ever since PlayStation Home launched, Sony has been toying with different ways to incorporate games into its virtual world, with various levels of success.
Now the company has announced that the entire service will be completely redesigned, representing the change “from a social network to a social game platform,” according to Home director Jack Buser.
Ticketmaster connects with Facebook so you can sit with your friends
Ticketmaster is launching an add-on to their interactive seating map that allows users to connect to Facebook while browsing for seats, and see where friends have purchased tickets (the friends who have tagged their seats, that is).
The feature is now used in more than 300 venues (for 9,000 events and counting), says Debbie Hsu, Ticketmaster’s director of product management.
Miramax launch VOD Facebook services
Miramax last week launched a video-on-demand service on Facebook, with 20 titles for rent in the U.S. and 10 each in UK and Turkey; France and Germany are due in the near future. It allows users to stream films, after paying for the service using Facebook Credits.
Marie Claire bets big on advertisers
There’s been much written about how social media will cause the death of magazines, but Marie Claire has an innovative way of trying to combat this:
Timed to coincide with the key fashion season, the Hearst Magazines title is introducing a contest on its Facebook page where readers can vote to win beauty and fashion products that have been chosen by the magazine’s editors. The “Gotta Have It!” contest will feature a different Marie Claire advertiser, like Michael Kors, YSL, and DKNY, each day for 30 days. To participate, readers have to “like” the product as well as the magazine, and the more people vote and like the products, the more publicity they’ll generate for Marie Claire’s advertisers.
Unilever launch corporate page to engage with consumers
Unilever has set up a VIP programme, to engage directly with consumers through Facebook: ‘The Unilever VIP programme, set up for 11 Unilever brands including Walls, PG Tips, Persil and Surf, invites consumers to offer personal opinions on new brand initiatives. Consumers will receive previews of advertising, branding, packaging and promotions’.
It’s a good way for a group to judge overall sentiment about its offerings, rather than driving specific engagement. Thumbs up.
NY Giants step ahead in social
NFL side the New York Giants are determined to get ahead of the curve in social media: they’ve recently announced that fan tweets will appear both on the big screens inside the stadium, and on the TV screens at important points of certain matches. Touchdown.
ESPN launches digital outdoor campaign
ESPN claims their new outdoor campaign will be the first UK campaign to integrate live, real-time content and debate, by featuring comments from ESPN football presenters Ray Stubbs and Kevin Keegan while they are on-air.
In the outdoor ads, Stubbs and Keegan will ask questions or raise subjects for debate across the weekend. Some of these topics will be discussed on air and passers-by will be encouraged to respond on Twitter, using the hashtag #espnuk.
The ESPN community managers will need to be on the ball, as any slips in moderation could result in a few own goals.
Debenhams use Facebook Credits to reward engagement
In what appears to be a first, Debenhams is rewarding customers who ‘like’ their Facebook Page and sign up to their newsletter with free Facebook Credits. With Credits opening up for useage beyond simply social gaming, it will be interesting to see if this catches on. One to watch.
UK Government volte-face on tighter social network controls
Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to ban rioters from social media sites were dismissed by the Home Secretary at a meeting with social media bosses.
The news comes despite research which has found that 50% of those surveyed are in favour of shutting social networks when faced with extraordinary circumstances such as riots.