We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #352

Mashup
laura.muldoon
Snap released much-anticipated first quarter earnings
Snap has announced $149.6 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2017. This is under what Wall Street had expected ($159 million), as well as what was made in Q4 of 2016 ($165.7). Despite this, it is boasting 166 million daily users, up from 158 million at the end of 2016. During a recent Q&A, CEO, Evan Spiegel, called out Facebook and Instagram for ‘growth hacking’ and asserted that this wasn’t a technique that Snapchat saw as sustainable long-term. Speaking about Facebook and Instagram imitating some of Snapchat’s features, Spiegel acted nonchalant, claiming that this was the norm in the tech world, stating: “Just because Yahoo has a search box doesn’t mean they’re Google.”.

Plot twist!! Snapchat lets you replay snaps forever
The platform that was a match made in heaven for adulterers and sexters due to its ephemerality has made a key change in that users can now opt to let their snaps be played forever.



It’s also introduced some nice new creative tools including the ability to write in emoji, a magic eraser which removes parts of the image… like magic you might say, and a new boomerang-a-like looping gif ability. Looks like copycatting works both ways…miaow.

Facebook to banish sexy, content-less ads to bottom of newsfeed
The quest to rid the internet of fake news continues as Facebook vow to get rid of websites that are littered with “disruptive, shocking or malicious ads,” and that offer little actual content. Facebook is using AI to detect if links on Facebook lead to websites that offer a “low quality web page experience” due to the nature of the ads being offered. The ads that are mostly being targeted take the form of content-recommendation ad units that often use sexualised and sometimes shocking images, as well as celebrities, and misleading headlines to capture attention. I’d include a picture but they’re very rude, so if you don’t want to see it, definitely don’t click this link*.

Facebook makes it easier to see if lead ads causing offline conversions
Facebook has introduced an Offline Conversion solution for its lead ads. Brands will be able to access data using Business Manager and find out direct connections between ads and results and then adjust their campaigns based on real downstream metrics. They can create campaigns based on offline success by targeting high-value customers from the prior month using custom audiences and lookalike audiences and excluding in-store purchasers to find new local prospects. Finally they can also gain insights and build campaigns based on the actual transactions by retargeting buyers of a certain category with the next product or service they’d like them to buy.

SECOND plot twist! You can now post to Instagram without the app
Now users of Instagram can use the Instagram.com website to post images to the platform. This new way of posting means that growth in developing markets with internet that can’t write good and want to do other good stuff too, could increase to take Instagram users over that one billion mark.

Google’s new AI tool can make an emoji from your selfie


Forget for one second that machine learning will first take all our jobs and then probably kill us. Kick back, grab a cuppa and smile about the fact that for the moment Google is just using it to help us make emoji from our selfies (PROBABLY TO DISTRACT US FROM THE KILLING BOTS). It’s possible by using Allo – Google’s ML-driven chat app and I think they’ve missed a beat by not called this ‘me-mojis’.

A plea to Wendy’s for nuggs becomes the most retweeted tweet evah

It all began with a young man called Carter Wilkerson who had a dream. A dream we can all finally get behind now everything else in the world has crumbled down in front of our eyes. Carter asked Wendy’s how many RTs he would need for a year of free chicken nuggies. The answer: 18 million. Around a month later, Carter’s original tweet sailed passed Ellen’s selfie with 3.42 million retweets, which Wendy’s rewarded with the nuggs and $100,000 donation in his name to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.



So turns out, the power of social can’t stop a smalled-handed meglomaniac getting elected but it can get #nuggsforcarter – which almost balances things out…? ?

*You clicked it didn’t you.