Popular Social Networks are experiencing a bit of a “Mainstreaming” effect these days: baby pictures, couples, and the public airing of private pictures that get likes from that relative you didn’t even know had a Facebook – not to mention more serious information privacy concerns. So “private social networks” have gained traction recently, and ensure that you’ll always have a space to share photos, collaborate on projects, or organize carpools without revealing this information to the rest of the world. Examples include Everyme (organized like Google+, its simple UI coupled with data privacy guarantees security), Notabli (a private photo-sharing network that allows users to share photos and videos of their children with other family members), and Nextdoor (a hyper-local social networks that promises an easy way to keep in touch with neighbors). Whether these online communities gain as much traction as Facebook or Twitter remains to be seen, but it is important to note that privacy concerns are drawing people away from big social communities online, and that these new networks are a result of that.
Tag: Online Communities
Twitter Continues Ad Expansion
Twitter today inked a deal with WpP to expand its data-driven marketing. The deal will focus on tapping and interpreting Twitter’s massive data collection, and the deal will span several WPP unites including GroupM, Kantar, and Wunderman. This will likely mean more effective ad campaigns for marketers across the platform, and it will help expand Twitters footprint to regions like Japan, Turkey, Mexico and Brazil. This comes on the heels of Twitter’s Starcom MediaVest deal in April, which granted millions of dollars to preferred ad slots for clients like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble.
Pipe App Brings File Transfer To Facebook
File transfer on Facebook is finally a reality, thanks to an app called Pipe that launched this week. Pipe, based in Berlin, allows people to drag and drop music, documents, video, and pictures into a virtual green tube that connects Facebook friends in real time. Friends can receive the documents even if they don’t have the Pipe app or aren’t online. As well, Pipe supports files that are up to 1GB, which is a significant increase over the 100MB email limit.
Twitter Debuts Amplify
Twitter today took to the stage to announce that a new advertising and marketing service called Amplify will be launching. Amplify allows media brands to promote television clips on Twitter; examples include a key play in a basketball game, a short weather forecast, or a short spot for a car. Twitter debuted this product for ESPN and the NBA, which partnered with Turner Broadcasting to make the product effective. Additional media partners now include A&E, BBC America, Conde Nast, Discovery, Fox, Major League Baseball, and WWE. Twitter also announced plans to start working on a TV ad targeting dashboard, which will help advertisers target Promoted Tweets to people who have seen their ads on TV.
Twitter Unveils Lead Generation Cards
Twitter today announced the Lead Generation Card, which is a new, expandable tweet format that allows users to show their interest in a particular discount or offer that’s being promoted by their favorite brand. When users expand the tweet, they’ll see a description of the offer and a button to send their name, Twitter handle, and email to the brand. All this is sent as soon as the card button is clicked. Twitter has been testing the cards with Full Sail and Priceline, and the iea is to give businesses more opportunities to discover new customers, while simultaneously reducing the amount of time spent between spotting an offer on Twitter and actually paying for the product online. It remains to be seen whether this is exclusively for promoted Tweets, but if it’s used broadly it could mean a very different Twitter for marketers, brands, and companies.
Path is Adding 1 Million Users Per Week
You’d be surprised (or maybe not) about how far reaching the data you put on the internet is. With more and more social media users becoming concerned about the far-reaching impact of what they post online, privacy-concerned services have been springing up to counter the progressively greater exposure provided by social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. One such service is Path, which has been around for some time, but has just recently reached a milestone statistic: after taking 3 years to collect 6 million users, the service is now adding 1 million new users per week. This major jump came thanks to an update that added private messaging, which proved popular in many areas of South and Central America. Now the service is making significant headway in major American markets. Only time will tell if the service’s hard limit of 150 “friends” per account will usher in a new, more personal age of social media, or if it will spell the doom of the service altogether by preventing scaling.
Twitter Brand Engagement Strategies
Data collected by social media startup Nestivity on Thursday demonstrated, on several levels, what it means to engage with an audience on Twitter. The top 25 brands, in terms of engagement, were selected based on the results of a study that examined how brands cultivate relationships with influencers, customers, and advocates on Twitter. It analyzed over 739,000 tweets over a months time, and looked at the top 100 most-followed brands on Twitter. According to Nestivity, many brands fall into the trap of using Twitter for push marketing, or broadcasting messages. But their view is that if a brand is using Twitter as a one-way marketing tool, they’re losing out on quality interactions with customers. Fitting with this trend, the most prolific of the 100 Brands tweeted every 6-20 minutes, however none of those most active accounts made the most engaged list. This indicates that quality tweets still matter more than their quantity – and quality oftentimes means something as simple as photographs and video. 76% of content that was shared had a photo attached, and 18% had a video as part of the message. The top 10 brands who followed these trends were, in order: Notebook of Love, Disneywords, ESPN, Playstation, Disney, Chelsea Football Club, BBC Breaking News, NASA, CNN Breaking News, and Instagram.
Interactive Images Come To Facebook
Marketers and branders got a new tool to reach thousands of followers on Facebook: ThingLink’s interactive images. The platform hit the social media sphere this morning, and allows fans interact with content embedded inside of a single image – be it photos, video, or text – without leaving the Facebook Timeline. ThingLink allows users to enhance images with links to other pieces of content. So when you hover over a main image, icons pop up to demonstrate the additional content. Users just click on these icons to play YouTube videos, audio clips, open other websites, or really do anything that would have previously had to have been done on other websites. For brands, this offers a way to make a deeper impression in front of fans in one place. Though Stipple also put interactive images on Facebook in January, that Facebook is working with other, more innovative developers indicates that this is a trend that is taking off. Indeed, brands have “commonly seen” more than five times as much engagement on Twitter posts using ThingLink images. So to have the technology on Facebook presents a powerful new tool to social media marketers.
Twitter And BBC Partner To Promote Branded Videos
BBC America tweeted Thursday night that it partnered with Twitter to launch the first “in-Tweet branded video” that occurs at the same time as a scripted television series. Twitter hasn’t shared additional details beyond the tweet, and BBC America has been mum as well. But previous partnerships between Twitter and other TV networks point to how this partnership might function. For instance, Twitter’s work with Turner Broadcasting to distribute video clips of instant replays from March Madness basketball games revolved around advertising in these videos, and Twitter’s promotion of these branded highlights. Turner expanded its reach, and Twitter generated much more revenue. As well, Twitter, ESPN, and Ford partnered during the College Football season, to similar ends. This BBC deal, though, represents a move into scripted television, and it seems likely that instead of replays, branded videos will feature Previews and perhaps recaps of shows recently aired.
Twitter Music Now Live
Twitter Music is now live online, which confirms the rumors that have been swirling for the past few days. Any attempt to sign into the website thus far redirects to an authorization request for an app called “Trending Music Web,” but it doesn’t grant users access to the site itself. The authorization also describes a “web version” which implies that there is also a mobile version in existence somewhere. The rumors started on Thursday, when Twitter announced the takeover of We Are Hunted, a music discovery service that creates trending charts for music being played online, and allows users to listen to discover new artists while playing their favorite tracks. We Are Hunted founder Stephen Phillips has since tweeted several playable tracks from Rdio and Soundcloud, which implies that both services may be a part of Twitter’s imminent app. Reports indicate that the formal app launch could formally arrive at Coachella.
