eBy and large, almost all social media analyzing tools available today caters to the brands seeking a better understanding of their online marketing efforts. But in this age of big data, would such service interest regular individual user as well? ThinkUp, a creation of Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, seems to be positive about building a regular-consumer-facing social media analyzing service. It offers a variety of features that “archive, analyze, and give you control over your online social life”. Whether there be enough power users on social media who would pay subscription to support this business model remains open to debate, but this is certainly one way to escape the oversaturated market of business-oriented social media analyzing platforms.
Category: Percolate
Facebook Launches “Out-App Purchase” Ads
Instead of incarcerating in-app purchases inside the apps, Facebook has decided to break them out of that namesake prison by allowing its desktop games to sell virtual goods straight from ads in the News Feed or sidebar, with the intention to bring this feature to its mobile app in the near future. The move towards mobile, however, could turn out to be challenging, as both iOS and Android forbid in-app purchases to happen outside of their respective app stores, so as to protect their usual 30 percent cut on mobile purchases. Essentially, these would be Facebook’s existing re-engagement ads re-framed for driving immediate purchases, and how they could move over the hurdles to bring this to mobile would be an interesting development to follow.
Verizon Strikes Back At Netflix Over Streaming Congestion
In the on-going feud between OTT content providers and Internet service providers over who is responsible for low streaming speed, the ISPs — oft-reviled cable and telephone companies — make convenient villains. But after receiving a public shaming from Netflix, Verizon has decided to point the finger right back at the dominating streaming service. It accuses Netflix for “purposely select congested routes”, which Netflix has denied, so as to manipulate the ISPs to cover the cost of upgrading their infrastructure, while essentially blaming the humongous Internet traffic caused by Netflix on its vast popularity.
But taking a step back, it’s easy to see the bottom-line here: congestion at the interconnection point is in fact controlled by ISPs like Verizon. And if the customers are paying the their ISPs monthly to stream Netflix at a decent speed, then no other excuses would be valid for ISPs to jettison that responsibility. Maybe the ISPs are conveniently villainous for good reasons after all.
New App Utilizes AT&T’s Sponsored Data Program
Syntonic Wireless unveiled a new app that promises to take advantage of the “Sponsored Data” program of AT&T, which detracts the data you used on branded content from your monthly data plan, and lets app developers and brands pick up the tab instead. A demo of this “content store” app shows many features — from installing apps, to browsing online stores, and eventually streaming branded videos — with none of these eating into your data limit. This new development suggests a refreshing way of encouraging screen-shoppers and mobile-viewers by reducing the hefty cost of data on the consumers’ end. How well the mobile users would embrace that, however, remains to be seen.
Twitter Effective For Driving App Downloads
Twitter may not have a wider reach than Facebook, more U.S mobile users than Instagram, or more social TV activity than Tumblr. But the blue bird reportedly excels in driving app downloads through its ad platform, especially lifestyle apps. Its ability to engage with users in real-time is evidently a contributing factor in this advantage over other social media platforms. In addition, Twitter is also really good at mobile retargeting, which enables marketers to retarget users who have already downloaded an app and may not have opened it in a while. With the vast capital pouring into social media marketing today, these two specialties will sure lend Twitter some advantage in this fierce competition.
Native Ads On Upworthy Outperform Editorials
As a nascent category, native advertising is still a territory most publishers and brands are struggling to map out. So it comes as a surprise when Upworthy, which just announced its entry back in April, reports that they have figured out the secret of effective native ads. The viral site claims that its branded content, from sponsors like Unilever, Skype and CoverGirl, have outperformed its regular posts. Besides the caveat that native ads typically receive more promotion from publishers, sources contribute this usual success to Upworthy’s specifically sharable, viral-worthy content and the comparatively high amount of effort poured into the creation of its native ads. However, given the site’s narrow topical focus that restricts it to only advertise with brands that meet its social good standards, this success story is very unlikely to be applied to every brand.
Mercedes Recruits Instagram Influencers To Target Millennials
Starting last month, Mercedes-Benz has been seeding their ad content to various recruited “Instagram influencers” to market the car on their respective feeds. This effort is part of the #GLApacked campaign for its GLA sports utility vehicle scheduled to launch later this fall. In addition, a GLA cross-country excursion is also being documented on Instagram as native ad content. Since visual storytelling is a really powerful tool for the younger consumer, Instagram seems to be a great fit for this campaign. As brands continue to explore the new and exciting territory of social media marketing, the luxury car company’s move to tap into these influencers’ following is no doubt instrumental. How many impressions would actually turn into purchase though, would a lot harder to measure, and that’s what we marketers need to figure out.
The Importance Of Protecting Brand’s Digital Presence
A restaurant in D.C.-area has fallen victim to foul play of its business info listed on Google Map. The specialty meat restaurant Serbian Crown was forced to close due to its unreasonable business slump during the weekends, and they believe their business hour incorrectly listed on Google Map is to be blame. This particular case once again highlights the problem of brand’s control over its public digital data and marketing efforts when it comes to the Internet. And this unfortunate case underscores the devastating consequence of that. Given most online platform’s equalitarian open-submission policy, it is very much up to brands to make the efforts of protecting the voice and authenticity of their online presence.
Vimeo-owned Cameo App Looks To Music
Cameo, the video-creation app recently acquired by Vimeo, just got its biggest update yet, with a deep Vimeo integration and a shifted focus onto music discovery. This update brought a complete overhaul of its interface, including a whole new soundtrack browser, genre sorting and an interactive preview feature. As the short-form video apps continues to be dominated by Twitter-backed Vine and Facebook-owned Instagram, this update of Cameo comes as a smart pivoting effort to differentiate itself from the rest. In order to compete with the market leaders, smaller companies could certainly use such branding strategy to help establish their products in this increasingly fractured market.
Samsung’s Virtual Reality Headset Revealed
Even though you will have to wait for the IFA 2014 later this year for an official unveiling, a leaked image (via SamMobile) of “Gear VR”, Samsung’s virtual reality headset has already surfaced on the Internet. As a result of the collaboration between Samsung and Oculus VR, Gear VR is still just a peripheral device, unlike Google Glass, that needs to be used in conjunction with your Samsung smartphone. But it certainly helps to expand the realm of wearable tech and contributes to Samsung’s market advantage with its early entry into the world of consumer VR.
