Understanding consumer behavior, technology innovations and platform capabilities is critical to becoming a more effective marketer. There are so many campaigns, announcements and viral stories each week that it seems hard to keep up, but don’t worry — we’ve got you covered. From the Internet giants Facebook, Google and Yahoo to Ikea’s creative spin on Instagram, here’s what we’re hooked on this week!
Facebook and Teens
Facebook has gone through its ups and downs over the years, but one of the biggest challenges for the social network seems to be maintaining its younger user base. “Teens are fleeing Facebook,” “Parents are on Facebook” and “Facebook’s audience is dwindling” are not uncommon phrases heard over the past few years. But, the big news this week was that the teens aren’t going anywhere – nearly 80 percent of U.S. teens still use Facebook and are more active on Facebook than any other social networking site.
Forrester Research released a report this week that found almost half of U.S. teens and tweens (ages 12-17) use Facebook more than they did a year ago, and 28 percent of respondents are on Facebook “all the time.”
Why we’re hooked:
Facebook is cool again! From tweens to grandparents, its user base offers the best of all worlds for brands. The platform is also growing in terms of content sharing and is constantly tweaking its news feed algorithm and ad platform. It’s impressive how long Facebook has held on and dominated the social media sphere, despite competition like Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest – it owns Instagram and is acquiring WhatsApp – and dwindling attention spans of today’s connected generation.
Google I/O
Google hosted its annual developers conference this week, which ran almost three hours long and included interruptions from protesters. The gist of what was announced: Android L, Android Auto, Android TV, Android Wear and Android One. Aka….Android everywhere.
Why we’re hooked:
Google is bringing Android beyond phones and tablets to watches, televisions, cars and more. With more than one billion active Android users, it’s a big community that marketers, brands and developers need to be able to serve. Plus, these announcements support the shift toward almost everything in our lives getting connected – how will smart cars, TVs, cities, homes and watches impact marketing and how brands reach consumers?
Retweet with Comment
Retweet /riˈtwēt/: repost or forward a message posted by another user on Twitter.
Today, there are basically three options to retweet on Twitter:
- Retweet so that the tweet/user show up on your own timeline
- Add your own commentary and including the original tweet, whether that be through the “Quote tweet” feature or RT
- Tweak the original tweet to add your comments and using MT (modified tweet)
One challenge is adding your own comments to a tweet but not having enough character space – a tweet can only be 140 characters total, as we know. Twitter is reportedly experimenting with a new feature called “Retweet with comment” that would better allow users to participate in a conversation while providing context. This would replace the “Quote tweet” option.
Why we’re hooked:
It’s a huge improvement to manually trying to edit an original tweet just to add a few characters of comments. This keeps conversations in context and enhances content sharing on Twitter.
@Ikea_ps_2014
Ikea created a website on Instagram! Kind of. To promote its IKEA PS, a 34-item designer collection, Ikea decided to put a creative spin on how Instagram is used. You can’t include any [clickable] links in Instagram descriptions, but Ikea took advantage of the tagging feature by creating an interconnected experience with separate Instagram accounts for different parts of the collection.
Why we’re hooked:
This is such a creative spin on how to use Instagram, and we love hearing innovative ways brands are taking available platforms to the next level. Instead of focusing on and accepting Instagram’s lack of linking capabilities, Ikea identified how it could use what was available in its favor.
Yahoo Motion Ads
Yahoo announced Motion Ads in March this year, enabling brands to advertise with a little more rich media. This week, the company is claiming these ads are leading to higher sales and increased positive brand association – Kraft featured a steaming grilled cheese sandwich and saw 24 percent more click-through engagement than a standard video ad. Yahoo says people who saw the ad were 77 percent more likely to search for Kraft-related keywords.
Why we’re hooked:
It’s no coincidence that online platforms are taking advantage of rich media. Twitter just rolled out support for GIFs last week, a form of media that has completely taken over the Internet. Video, stop motion and GIFs are all improvements to the static photo, increasing engagement, encouraging creativity and making the Web a more interactive place.
