Channel roundup social media : November 2013
Essential intelligence on the latest developments from the world’s leading digital networks and channels, brought to you by Red Ant.
Social
Facebook
Teens jump ship for other, more niche social channels
A report by GlobalWebIndex has revealed that, while Facebook still dominates, teenagers are shifting their allegiance to smaller, niche, closed-wall social channels. This comes at a time when older age groups are driving user growth on Facebook – teens are looking for an alternative social space which is ‘just for them’. As a result, there has been a resurgence of interest in Flickr and increased penetration of Vine among the teenage demographic.
Here are some key statistics:
• Facebook’s teenage active users fell by 17%
• WeChat is growing rapidly in terms of active users aged 16 to 19 (an impressive 1,021%)
• Active teen users for Vine up by 639%
• Active teen users for Flickr up by 254%
• 85% growth in active users on Instagram
• 81% growth on WhatsApp
• 30% growth in active users on Tumblr
• 10% of teens globally are using Snapchat
Instagram
An increasing number of brands get the picture…
71% of the best known brands have taken to promoting themselves on Instagram, which means the channel now rivals G+ and Pinterest in terms of brand adoption levels. A handful of the largest accounts have 100,000+ followers, but all follower-groups are increasing, with more than half posting one photo or more a week. From a brand perspective, photos are proving more popular than videos, and media, luxury and automotive have emerged as the most effective brand categories.
Mobile, tablet and new tech
Android 4.4 KitKat arrives on the Nexus 5: what does the latest OS have to offer?
Google Nexus 5 is now available with KitKat, the latest version of Android. Here’s a rundown of its key features:
- Google now provides users with the ability to create unlimited home screen panels filled with app shortcuts, folders, and widgets
- Support for integrated pedometer – The Nexus 5 supports pedometer functions with the help of built in sensors, and KitKat enables the hardware through apps such as Move
- Google search voice control capability enables you to control your device from the home screen panels
- Immersive mode allows you to hide everything on the screen except for what you really want to see – this makes reading books, playing games or watching movies a much more focused experience
- Google Wallet is now available without the NFC carrier restrictions – users will be able to tap and pay with a Nexus 5 on any carrier
- Quickoffice integration – after acquiring Quickoffice last year, it has now become integrated into the OS enabling users to open and save files on Google Drive and other cloud storage services
China update
Singles day scores a hit
This year’s ‘singles day’, a ‘festival of online shopping’ which takes place on 11/11, saw China’s leading online marketplace Taobao take a staggering $6 billion (with almost $1 billion coming from its app). This impressive figure was more than five times higher than last year.
Taobao’s payment system Alipay processed $7 million in payment orders through mobile, which was 24.03% of all Alipay transactions, and the highest volume of transactions anywhere in the world.
Taobao’s sales on singles day alone equalled half of China’s total retail sales for September, and Alipay processed a total of 188 million orders, of which 45 million were made on the go. The highest sales volume was 790,000 orders per minute.
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