The week in social media news curated by your friends at Fandom Marketing. Facebook acquires virtual reality technology. Instagram use surging past Twitter mobile. Stolen Twitter accounts are now more valuable than credit cards? And, Twitter rolls out new photo features.
Facebook and Oculus join for science fiction future
March 25, 2014
Facebook is paying up to $2.3 billion to buy Oculus VR and create an otherworldly realm where online social interactions feel as genuine as the real thing. The social network announced its plans to purchase the virtual reality technology company and Kickstarter sensation on Tuesday. Once the deal closes, Facebook will shell out $400 million in cash, 23.1 million in company shares, and possibly $300 million more in earn-out incentives for Oculus, the 18-month-old maker of the Oculus Rift.
Full story on Cnet
Photos just got more social
March 26, 2014
Twitter rolled out two new mobile features that make photos on Twitter more social. One is photo tagging, which lets you tag the people in your photo; the other is the ability to include up to four photos in a Tweet.
Full story on Twitter Blog
Instagram Usage in the US Surges 35% in 2013, Rivals Twitter for Smartphone Audience
March 27, 2014
According to new figures from eMarketer, Instagram usage in the US has ramped up rapidly and is already maturing, reaching regular usage levels nearly matching Twitter’s, particularly on smartphones and among millennials and Gen Xers. Nearly 35 million people in the US accessed Instagram at least once per month in 2013, according to eMarketer’s latest forecast—representing double-digit but not spectacular growth over 2012. By the end of this year, almost 25% of US smartphone users will snap a photo, slap on a filter and share their creations with friends on Instagram on a monthly basis (or, at least, sign in and check out what their friends are posting).
Full story on eMarketer
Successful Brands Don’t Care About Sales on Twitter
March 27, 2014
Social-savvy brands have been using Twitter to engage with fans and followers for years, but since we know most of them aren’t advertising, what are they using the service for? According to a recent Social Media Marketing University survey of more than 1,000 marketing professionals in the U.S., brands are mostly using Twitter to spread brand awareness. Surprisingly, driving sales is not nearly as important to marketers.
Full story on Mashable
Facebook Paper: The Inside Story Is Not What You’d Expect
March 27, 2014
Paper doesn’t quite fit the typical Facebook mold. For starters, the standalone app took the company nearly 30 months to build — a lifetime by Facebook’s “move fast and break things” standard. When Paper was finally unveiled, many users were pleasantly surprised by the app’s design, which is image-heavy and — with the exception of a few buttons in the upper righthand corner — looks next to nothing like the Facebook app with which we’ve grown familiar.
Full story on Mashable
Twitter Partners With Billboard to Create Real-Time Music Chart
March 27, 2014
Twitter is partnering with Billboard to create a chart to track real-time conversations about music, similar to what Twitter does with Nielsen to rank TV shows. The Billboard Twitter Real-Time Chart will eventually appear on Billboard.com. As part of the initiative, Billboard and Twitter have signed a Twitter Amplify partnership, which will help distribute the chart beyond Billboard.com and include custom in-Tweet charts and in-Tweet video round ups of the week in music on Twitter
Full story on Mashable
Instagram Is Already Bigger Than Twitter On Smartphones
March 27, 2014
This week, Mark Zuckerberg dropped the tidbit that Instagram has more than 200 million users, double the user base it had when Facebook acquired the photo-sharing service two years ago. With 241 monthly active users worldwide, Twitter still enjoys a modest lead. But in the U.S., on smartphones — the medium through which both services were built to be experienced — Instagram seems to be pulling ahead.
Full story on Forbes
What’s More Valuable: A Stolen Twitter Account or a Stolen Credit Card?
March 28, 2014
Stolen Twitter accounts are now more valuable than credit cards on the cybercrime black market, according to a new report. Why? As with any market, it’s all about supply and demand. The study, from Juniper NetworksJNPR +1.09% and The RAND Corporation, found that high-profile data breaches — think Target’s data hack in December — create influxes of available credit card data online. The more data available, the less valuable it becomes, especially when banks react to hacks by cancelling and replacing stolen cards.
Full story on WSJ Digits
What We’re Watching
Mother’s Day is the third largest retail holiday in the U.S. This year marks the 100th anniversary since it was signed into becoming a national holiday. Planning a Mother’s Day campaign? Check out the Bing Ads insights for Mother’s Day seasonal trends and consumer behavior.
~Melonie Gallegos
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