Channel roundup social media : March 2013

Essential intelligence on the latest developments from the world’s leading digital networks and channels, brought to you by Red Ant.

Social in the West

Facebook : What’s ‘like’ got to do with it?
Following the positive response Facebook’s revamped newsfeed last week, Azeem Azhar, head of PeerIndex, has tried to bring the channel back down to earth by questioning the value of a Facebook ‘like’. As 5%- 6% of marketing budgets move towards social influence over the next five years, Azhar claims that some marketers are placing too much emphasis on collecting ‘likes’ in trying to achieve this. But it’s about going deeper than this – taking an overall view of in-depth metrics rather than top-level evidence of engagement. However, as Facebook pushes advertising further in its new News Feed (for which it receives about 85% of its revenues from advertising), the ‘like’ metric will be pivotal for them as a sales story.

Pinterest : Launch of analytics tool – latest attempt to monetise ?
Pinterest has released a web analytics tool to help brands get better data about outbound and inbound pinned traffic, how many people have seen a pin, a selection of most pinned, most clicked and most recent pins. The tool is designed to complement rather than replace other 3rd party analytics providers such as Curalate. This comes as Pinterest is gradually increasing its efforts to generate revenue from advertising, given that brands including Gap and Dell are increasingly using Pinterest for product promotion.

Linkedin : Smart thinking from the world’s leading networking platform for professionals
LinkedIn has created SlideShare ads (or ‘SlideShare Content Ads’), intended to fit with the mindset of a LinkedIn user. It’s pinning its hopes on the fact that this B2B audience will be more willing to read a message in a SlideShare format over a typical ad format because it uses a B2B medium to deliver the message. It’s a clever use of SlideShare, which LinkedIn purchased last May.

Platforms : Consumers favour apps over mobile websites
According to a report from leading technology company Compuware, 85% of consumers prefer to use mobile apps over mobile websites. Their reasons include convenience, speed, ease of browsing and shopping. While businesses do have valid reasons for choosing mobile web over apps, it’s clear that they need to take app development seriously if they are to meet their customers’ needs. However, evidence suggests that users’ expectations of mobile app are now higher, anticipating faster load times and better experiences overall. A recent survey by US-based mobile experience company Xtreme Labs found that the most common complaints on iOS were lack of features (26%), frequent crashing (23%), and poor design (22%), with average app ratings around 2.9 stars out of 5. (Google Play is just 2.2).
So, while these user preference stats may encourage more marketers to take the plunge and opt for a mobile app rather than a mobile optimised site, it’s clear that they will have to keep on raising their game to match users’ high expectations.

Social in China
News from the world’s largest and fastest-growing digital landscape

Meituxiuxiu
Photo editing tool starts sharing
Meituxiuxiu, one of the most popular photo editing tools in China, has released Meipai, a social sharing app that allows users to share their self-portraits. Similar to Instagram and Pinterest, it has added voice and text comment functions and is currently only available for iOS – the Android version is still under development.

Baidu
China’s alternative to Google launches open platform for developers
Leading web services provider Baidu has officially launched Baidu App Engine(BAE) – an open internet application platform for developers, which provides services such as a distributed computing environment, iCloud data storage and iCloud messaging. Developers can use the BAE platform to develop, compile, publish and test applications for PHP, Java and Python, without the need to maintain servers.

Momo
Location-based chat app sees user numbers soar
Latermoon, the co-founder of Momo (popular app for chatting with strangers based on user location), used Sina Weibo to announce that Momo user numbers have now reached 30 million. Given that the total number of users in December was 20 million, this is a significant increase and evidence that location-based applications still have growth potential in China.

360buy

eCommerce site is a challenge to TMall
According to a report released by huihui.com (an eCommerce sub-website of Netease), B2C commerce site 360buy’s traffic in February 2013 exceeded that of TMall, followed by Amazon and Dangdang. This could signal a turnaround in its fortunes, following intense fundraising efforts in 2012.
Red Ant is a digital experience and technology specialist with offices in the UK, Brazil, China and Switzerland. It creates effective ways to help clients connect with their customers in a rapidly changing digital world.

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