The week in social media news curated by your friends at Fandom Marketing. Twitter testing new ‘fave people’ feature and phasing out @replies and hashtags? Facebook and TED team up on a Paper exclusive. New study reveals a growing trend in video marketing spending. Plus, the science of social selling, and more.
Twitter Testing ‘Fave People’ Feature
March 17, 2014
For those who follow hundreds of accounts on Twitter, you know how easy it is to miss tweets from the ones you care about most. Now, the microblogging site is testing a “Fave People” timeline that groups preferred users in one section.
Full story on Mashable
Facebook and TED Team Up to Bring Exclusive Content to ‘Paper’
March 17, 2014
TED says its conferences provide “ideas worth spreading,” and Facebook apparently agrees. Facebook and TED on Monday announced a content collaboration for Paper, the company’s standalone news reader and publishing app released in late January. For the week, the Ideas section of Paper will feature TED material exclusively.
Full story on Mashable
Facebook Is Still Failing Marketers
Our declaration last October that Facebook was failing marketers and that brands should focus their social efforts elsewhere created a lot of discussion. To no one’s surprise, most of the people defending Facebook were vendors that rely directly upon Facebook marketing for their livelihood. Just four months later, the debate seems to be over. Is there any doubt now that Facebook has abandoned social marketing, and that its paid ad products aren’t delivering results for most marketers? Consider: Marketers can now reach just 6% of their fans organically.
Full story on Forrester
Video Marketing: Top Objectives and Most Effective Distribution Channels
March 19, 2014
2 in 3 marketing and sales decision-makers and practitioners from around the world (but primarily US-based) using video marketing are planning to increase their spending on the medium over the next year, according to [download page] a new report from Ascend2. Respondents count brand awareness (47%), lead generation (40%) and online engagement (40%) as their most most important video marketing objectives for the year ahead. Interestingly, of the online distribution channels used, videos in emails are highly touted.
Full story on MarketingCharts
Facebook: 375 Million Users Play Games Each Month
March 19, 2014
At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco Wednesday, Facebook revealed some more of the kind of eye-popping stats you get on a network with 1.3 billion monthly active users. For example, roughly a quarter of all its active users — 375 million people — play at least one Facebook-connected game in an average month.
Full story on Mashable
Is Twitter Getting Rid of @-Replies and Hashtags?
March 20, 2014
Twitter’s head of news, Vivian Schiller, momentarily sent Twitter into a self-reflective mini-frenzy when she revealed that the service might be eliminating some of its core features, namely @-replies and hashtags. The big question remains: Are new users turned off and confused by @-replies and hashtags? For now, the jury is still out on Twitter’s plans for its core components, but as Schiller advised, it’s worth watching this space.
Full story on Mashable
As Twitter turns 8, here’s how to find your first tweet
March 20, 2014
Twitter is celebrating its 8th birthday by taking millions of its users back to their first tweets. The microblogging service on Thursday launched a website, called first-tweets.com, that lets users search their own account or those of others to find their first tweet. Users are also encouraged to use the hashtag #FirstTweet.
Full story on USA Today
The Social Science of Social Selling
March 21, 2014
Social marketers often dance an awkward cha-cha among the competing beats of conversation and commerce. Since we’re comparing digital life to a dance party — and why not? — by now it’s clear that most marketers know: they need to attend the party (social presence), it’s polite to respond when spoken to (community management), and it’s neighborly to invite people into conversation on topics they might find interesting (social marketing).
Full story on Gartner Blog
What We’re Watching
Happy 8th birthday Twitter!! I think that adds up to about 80 in digital dog years. What’s the secret recipe behind Twitter’s success? Whether you love it or hate it, Twitter has become a necessity in our marketing playbooks and global people connector around mainstream news, TV watching, world events and culture. Learn about Twitter’s eight year journey in this video from Mashable. When you’re done, head over to First-Tweets.com to get warm fuzzies. (Assuming you’re in the #loveit camp!)
~Melonie Gallegos
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