The week in social media news hand-curated by your friends at Fandom Marketing. This week the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a social media and financial blockbuster, Instagram announces a new suite of analytics tools for business, and Twitter’s latest experiment fails to impress users. Keep a look out at this year’s Emmy Awards for Facebook’s new ‘Mentions Box’ device used by celebrities to answer questions from fans. And, watch our featured video to find out why we’re glad to see the Facebook Like gate go.
FTC Urged To Crack Down On Tech Firms’ Privacy Violations
August 15, 2014
The Safe Harbor deal that gives US tech companies access to European user data is under attack, with US privacy advocates accusing 30 companies of routinely ignoring its provisions.Indeed, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) is adding its voice to calls from EU ministers for the deal to be suspended – meaning that tech giants from Google to Facebook would effectively be unable to operate legally in Europe.
Full story on Forbes
Twitter’s Latest Experiment Puts Favorites in the Timeline, Users Not Impressed
August 18, 2014
Twitter is known for experimenting with different features in its mobile apps and on its website. Its latest experiment — which treats favorites more like retweets on the main timeline — has some users seeing red. A number of users are seeing tweets that users they follow favorite — or even popular tweets from accounts others follow — posted directly to their main Twitter timeline.
Full story on Mashable
Why The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Is A Social (And Financial) Blockbuster
August 20, 2014
The ALS ice bucket challenge offers an example of a brand harnessing the energy of a narcissistic fad on social networks in service to the brand itself. The usual elements are there, an act that is incongruous, not easy to do and screams ‘look at me.’ Yet here, the incidental meaning is not at all dissociated from the personal meaning. I’m making myself uncomfortable for ALS. I’m recruiting the anti-ALS cause to enhance my personal capital. Alas for marketers looking for low-cost market impact, few commercial brands enhance personal capital. Few are as powerful as cause brands.
Full story on Forbes
Announcing a New Suite of Business Tools for Brands on Instagram
August 21, 2014
Instagram is excited to announce that over the coming weeks and months, they will begin rolling out a new suite of tools to help brands better understand the performance of their paid and organic content on Instagram. The business tools provide value to brands in three main areas: Account insights, Ad insights, and Ad staging.
Full story on Instagram For Business
Facebook Launching ‘Mentions Box’ Device During Emmys
August 21, 2014
Like a child shaking an Etch A Sketch with both hands, celebrities on Monday’s Emmys red carpet will be shaking a new toy created by Facebook. Facebook told Mashable that on Aug. 25 it will debut the Facebook Mentions Box, an interactive device that stars will wield to answer questions from fans. It’s similar to the InstaStop Video Q&A Station that Instagram launched at the Golden Globes in January.
Full story on Mashable
Forecast: Tumblr Will Grow 25% In 2014, But It’s Slowing Down
August 21, 2014
Yahoo paid about the same price for Tumblr, around $1 billion, as Facebook did when it acquired Instagram, and the two had similar numbers of users at the time of acquisition, in the realm of 30 million.But whereas Instagram growth only accelerated after the sale, passing 200 million earlier this year, Tumblr’s is flattening out, and it will never reach anywhere near that size, according to a new long-term forecast by the research firm eMarketer.
Full story on Forbes
Twitter’s New BotMaker Cut Spam On The Network By 40 Percent
August 21, 2014
If you think you’re getting less spam on Twitter, you’re right. Twitter has just unveiled BotMaker, a system that lets the social network create anti-spam bot code on the fly. BotMaker can automatically take down pesky spammers, block suspicious links, and flag shady behavior — sometimes, even before the accounts in question have had a chance to send out a single tweet.
Full story on Gizmodo
Menus Designed for an Instagram Age
August 21, 2014
Rather than place the evening specials on a chalkboard and laminate regular offerings on a piece of paper, Trick Dog has employed everything from Pantone color wheels to maps of must-see destinations in the city and albums full of old 45s to advertise its offerings. The bar’s seasonal menu updates have inspired a social-media gold mine of posts, tweets, and pins.
Full story on FastCompany
What We’re Watching
I’m guessing you’ve been inundated with Ice Bucket Challenge videos all week so I will spare you. But if you live under a rock and want to catch the “best of” I suggest skipping the celebs and searching “ice bucket fail” on YouTube for maximum entertainment. It will make a great marketing case study when the meme fizzles out. (Please make it be soon to save my Facebook feed…) One of the more important news announcements impacting marketing was the demise of the Like gate. It’s the splash screen used to capture business page Likes before allowing the visitor to access a Facebook contest or other offer. The read on opinion is my social marketing peers are glad to see it gone. We tend to be purest. About half way through this video Gary Vaynerchuck has a POV on Like gate I couldn’t agree with more. Well said.
~ Melonie
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