We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #190
Worldwide social users reach 1.61 billion
According to eMarketer, there are now 1.61 billion monthly users of social networks worldwide – up 14.2% from 2012. This is set to increase to 2.33 billion by 2017, though growth will gradually slow to 7.6%. The highest penetration still exists in the West, with 63.5% in the Netherlands, but the highest growth is in India, with 37.4%.
Germany overtakes UK for social network users
The UK has lost its place as the largest social networking population in Western Europe to Germany, with 32.1 million to the other’s 33.1 million. The current top five is set to stay that way until 2017, too: after Germany and the UK come France, Italy and Spain. The UK retains the largest volume of Facebook users with 29.9 million, followed by France and Germany with 22.1 million.
Facebook trials autoplay videos
Facebook has been trialling new ways to display video in the newsfeed, with ‘autoplay’ features limited to native Facebook videos – other clips, from the likes of YouTube and Vimeo, will still appear as a thumbnail with a play button. Those selected for autoplay will do so when a user scrolls over them – if clicked, they will then expand and unmute.
Facebook simplifies scheduling, allows drag and drop photos for pages
Facebook has introduced two features to make life easier for page admins. First of all, post scheduling has been simplified, with a calendar appearing when the user needs to select a date, along with easier time selection. Additionally, admins can now add photos using the ‘drag and drop’ system already available to other Facebook users.
Instagram launches for Windows Phone, experiments with messaging
Instagram has launched a beta version of its app for Windows Phone – which can take photos, contrary to certain reports. You’ll need to use your native camera app, rather than the Instagram app itself, but it can be done. The app is still lacking video, however. This comes amidst news that the network is planning to expand its offering by introducing private messaging and even experimenting with group messages.
Five countries account for half Twitter’s MAUs
Half of Twitter’s monthly active users come from just five countries – the USA, Japan, Indonesia, UK and Brazil. 24.3% come from the USA, followed by 9.3% in Japan and 6.5% in Indonesia. The UK and Brazil follow with 5.6% and 4.3% respectively.
Twitter introduces TV conversation targeting
Twitter has introduced a new form of ad targeting, which allows brands to show ads to people tweeting about a particular programme. The system is available through Twitter’s self-serve ad tool, meaning it’s not limited to just big brands. The move seems to make sense, and the network produced two pieces of research last week to support it. One study showed that the cost per incremental acquisition is 36% lower for TV and Twitter advertising than in TV alone.
Moreover, TV ads and Twitter paid media produce 8-16% more sales than TV advertising alone, according to analysis of 30 US Consumer Package Good brands.
Vine adds 19 new languages
Vine is looking to expand into new markets with 19 additional languages. There’s Filipino and Polish for Android, while both Android and iOS receive (deep breath): Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai and Turkish. And exhale.
LinkedIn has two new features
LinkedIn has introduced two new features: Showcase Pages and Talent Updates. The former essentially allows brands to segment and display content for specific audiences in addition to their main brand pages. The latter is a recruitment tool; when brands share talent updates to their followers, these will appear in users’ feeds – those who engage can then be contacted by the company with a view to being hired.
Pinterest create ‘Place pins’
Pinterest has released a new feature: Place pins. These allow users to add a location to every item pinned, which allows for the production of maps that function as guides to cities or other locations. People have already started doing some interesting stuff with the feature, such as Time Out’s guide to Christmas in London or the below map of Hong Kong.
All go in the world of Snapchat
Snapchat is reportedly seeing more images uploaded each day than Facebook. The disposable photo-sharing app now sees 400 million ‘snaps’ a day, according to CEO Evan Spiegel, up from 350 million in September and 200 million in June – that in comparison to Facebook’s 350 million photos uploaded globally each day. Spiegel also revealed some demographic information on the network: 70% of its users are women. All this information could come in useful to those looking to invest, with chinese web giant Tencent rumoured to be interested; in fact, it has emerged in the last week that it has already got in there, as an unnamed minority participant in Snapchat’s last $60 million round of funding.
Foursquare opens ad space for brands without a location
Foursquare is welcoming advertising from brands without a location, with Mastercard set to become the first. The move sees the network look to expand its ad revenue and could well be successful, given the whole new realm of brands opened up to advertising on the platform.
Google updates Hangouts and iOS7 G+ app
Google has made some alterations to Hangouts, rendering them more suitable for the workplace. The feature now supports a global address list, as well as settings that allow privacy to be limited by country. Finally, there is 24/7 support available, just as with Google’s Talk product. Meanwhile, the new Google+ app for iOS7 has an interesting new feautre: the ability to upload Camera Roll photos and videos to the cloud, allowing the app to function as a cloud storage device.
KLM’s socially-inspired in-flight gift service
Dutch airline KLM has created a gift service named Wannagives, which allows people to select and purchase in flight gifts online. Nick Botter, KLM social technology manager, has stated that the system was inspired by a huge number of requests via social media for something of its ilk.
Birds Eye allow consumers to trace their food’s origin
Food manufacturer Birds Eye has created a Facebook app that allows users to trace the origin of their frozen peas. Traceable packs will include a unique code that allows users to see where their peas came from, along with video content about the process from farm to freezer.
Jaguar and We Are Social launch F-TYPE Coupé with #FromTheShadows
The new Jaguar F-TYPE Coupé was unveiled last week in Los Angeles, with We Are Social providing a social media campaign to celebrate. In the build up to the event, a hidden code could be entered into the website to display exclusive content around the car; since its release, a Tumblr has been created to exploit the hashtag #FromTheShadows.
Lexus reveals two cars on Vine
Lexus has revealed two of its latest cars on Vine: the Lexus RC sports coupé and Lexus LF-NX turbo compact crossover SUV concept. After asking followers to tweet with the hashtag #LexusInTokyo, they chose two tweets to respond to with the images, becoming the first automotive brand to launch a model via Vine.
Pepsi Sweden get burnt by voodoo
Uh oh, Pepsi. When Sweden played Portugal last week for a place in the World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo was highlighted as the latter’s danger man. As such, Pepsi Sweden created some posts showing a Ronaldo voodoo doll, which then had its head crushed by a can, amongst other things. There was an online backlash, particularly in (you guessed it) Portugal, with a Facebook page called Nunca mais vou beber Pepsi (never drink Pepsi again) receiving almost 200,000 likes. That’s all for this week, so I’ll leave you with one of the images that caused so much anger.
