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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Friday Wrap #178: Traffic from Facebook tumbles, Twitter hearts gain favor, Snapchat videos surge

Friday Wrap #178: Traffic from Facebook tumbles, Twitter hearts gain favor, Snapchat videos surge

Friday Wrap #178The Friday Wrap is my weekly collection of news stories, posts, studies, and reports designed to help organizational communicators stay current on the trends and technology that affect their jobs. These may be items that flew under the radar while other stories grabbed big headlines. As always, I collect material from which I select Wrap stories (as well as stories to report on the For Immediate Release podcast, along with stuff I just want to remember to read) on my link blog, which you’re welcome to follow.

News

Something’s wrong at Facebook—While Facebook continues to grow its user base and active daily visits, something is amiss. Combined desktop and mobile referral traffic to the top 30 Facebook publishers tumbled a whopping 32% from January to October. The numbers get even worse for publishers that rely most on Facebook for traffic: The top 10 saw a decline of 42.7%. Traffic to The Huffington Post fell 60.1%; Fox News’s traffic dropped 48.2%; Buzzfeed’s traffic declined 40.8%. There is no official word from Facebook or publishers about the reason for the decline, though the most popular theory points to Instant News and other means by which publishers share their content natively through Facebook, eliminating the need to link to the publisher’s site. Others speculate Facebook is The takeaway: Facebook hasn’t been shy about its efforts to keep users on the site (that is, not clicking links that take them away from the site), and that’s leading publishers to spend more to promote their content. Read more

Pinterest introduces visual search—If you see an object in a picture that has been pinned to a Pinterest pinboard, you can tap a new search icon in the upper right-hand corner of the pin to launch a search that will produce a list of items that look similar. From there, you will be able to filter results by tapping on tags that match the item you’re interested in. The feature is available on both the Pinterest website and mobile apps. The takeaway: The innovation of a visual search highlights the still-growing importance of images, particularly on the mobile web. Read more

The presidential page—U.S. President Barack Obama has been active on Twitter for years, and he has (despite what you may have heard) maintained a verified Facebook page. He launched a new Facebook page on Tuesday, the Official POTUS Facebook Page. The existing page was for Obama, while the new one is focused on the presidency and is accessible at facebook.com/potus. A White House spokesman said, “This Facebook page will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with videos and posts coming exclusively from him.” The takeaway: Elected officials understand the importance of social media as a means of connecting directly with constituents. Business leaders will eventually see the advantage and establish official pages of their own. Read more

Anti-Uber Twitter campaign goes horribly wrong—The taxi industry is taking a number of approaches to stay relevant in the Uber era. In New York, for example, a new app is available for hailing and paying a cab. In Australia, a less effective tool was employed. The taxi lobby launched a Twitter campaign inviting Australians to share their stories of great taxi service using the hashtag #YourTaxis. Unsurprisingly, the tweets told tales of awful service. The takeaway: One of the Australian taxi businesses—the Victorian Taxi Association—saw the blowback coming. It’s a wonder that none of the others did. If your industry is under assault, thing very carefully when launching a hashtag campaign and consider what might go wrong. Read more

Did you stream on Scope Day?—Last Saturday was Scope Day, with Periscope broadcasters and viewers offering live streams from around the world. A dozen bands also participated,
performing covers of Taylor Swift songs. The event’s founder claims Scope Day drew more than 51,000 viewers, 15,000 comments, nearly 1 million live hearts, and almost 150,000 replay hearts. Those who broadcast during the event added between 400 and 5,000 new followers. The takeaway: Despite some skepticism, Periscope (and the concept of live mobile social streaming video) is gaining momentum. Read more

Google introduces “About Me” tool—A new tool from Google, About Me, lets users see what data has about you that others can see online; it also allows users to add or delete information. Changes made to the About Me profile will be reflected across all Google services. The takeaway: About Me is clearly an attempt to reduce concern about the data Google maintains about users by giving them both a transparent view of that data and the ability to control most of it. (You can’t, for example, change your birthday.) Read more

SocialShare lets you share PowerPoint slides as images or videos—SocialShare, a new free plug-in released by Microsoft for PowerPoint, allows users to share slides to Facebook and Twitter as images or video, and the entire presentation as a photo album or video. The takeaway: The Verge article I read includes a note from a Microsoft senior program manager who suggests posting a slide to Twitter at a conference and then viewing comments to address during your Q&A session. No doubt PowerPoint’s users will come up with more uses for SocialShare. Besides, you can’t beat free. Read more

Congress could ban non-disparagement clauses—You may remember the tale of a hotel guest charged $157 after he posted a bad review of the hotel online. Several bills have been introduced in Congress that would ban the growing practice of inserting non-disparagement clauses in consumer contracts. These clauses force consumers to agree not to write negative onoine reviews in exchange for using a product or service. A new piece of legislation, though, is gaining traction. The Senate Commerce Committee heard testimony on the Consumer Review Freedom Act, which would prohibit such clauses. Nobody testifying at the hearings defended the practice. The takeaway: The law is slowly catching up with technology, establishing protections for consumers online. What does this mean for organizations? Rather than resisting consumer reviews, they will have to learn from them and make improvements that will earn positive reviews. Read more

Facial recognition drives Messenger photo sharing—Facebook Messenger started as a pretty basic messaging app, but as the user base grew (now at around 700 million monthly users), people used it to share photos, as well—9.5 billion of them each month. To enhance the experience, Facebook has introduced Photo Magic. The feature monitors your camera photo gallery and notifies you when it sees one of your friends, asking if you’d like to send it to them. The feature rolled out first to Android users in Australia. iOS users will see the feature shortly, and it will roll out to other countries over the next few months. Read more

Trends

Remember all the blowback over Twitter changing the star to a heart?—Yeah, well, the backlash hasn’t prevented people from adopting it. In fact, Twitter claims people are 6% more likely to “like” a tweet using the heart than they were to “favorite” a tweet with the old star. Among new Twitter users, that number grows to 9%. The takeaway: Don’t overreact to the first surge of feedback on something new. The haters are usually the first to add their $.02 (which is frequently about how much that feedback is worth.) Give the change some time, then gauge the reaction. Read more

Virtual Reality ads come to Facebook—Facebook has debuted Virtual Reality-style ads, offering a glimpse of what the social network may have had in mind when it bought VR startup Oculus. Facebook made VR software available in September to publishers and brands. The first VR 360-degree video ads were rolled out by companies like Mondelez, AT&T, Nestle, and Samsung. In addition to watching the videos on a screen, they are watchable on iOS and Samsung Gear VR devices. The takeaway: I’ll be honest. For now, while VR is new and exciting, I’d be far more inclined to watch a VR video ad than one of the standard videos that infest the Facebook News Feed. You? Read more

Think local, act local—You know that old “think global, act local” bit of wisdom? New research from Havas PR North America suggests you might want to rethink it. With the daunting flood of global information crowding into their smartphones and tablets, Americans are “cultivating a greater sense of connection and control by focusing on their local area.” The survey found that 12% of Americans consider themselves “globally minded, locally active” while 54% said they’re more interested than they used to be in local goings-on. Sixty-two percent said their goal is to live more fully in their local area. One driver of the increased interest in what’s happening in our own backyards is the time spent in virtual online environments. “This is driving a growing desire for hands-on sensory experiences rooted in the physical world,” the report said. The takeaway: Targeting messages to local consumers about opportunities to build local relationships with your organization will be more daunting than blasting the same message to everybody, but the spray-and-pray method is increasingly unsustainable. Read more

Snapchat video views rising to Facebook levels—Snapchat users have watched 6 billion videos a day, closing the gap with Facebook, which said last week that it had doubled daily video views to 8 billion. The takeaway: Other than the obvious—video is hot—you shouldn’t confine distribution to a single channel. Where appropriate, Snapchat could be a valuable source of video views. Read more

Crisis? What crisis?—Despite its admission of deliberate law-breaking that poured diesel emissions into the atmosphere, and all the bad publicity that followed, Volkswagen vehicles apparently are still popular with Americans. Sales were up 0.24% year over year in the first full month of reporting since the scandal was first reported. Some hefty discounts may have contributed to sales, but consumers aren’t exactly punishing Volkswagen for its evil-doing, either. How does that play into your perception of the impact of a self-imposed crisis on a business? The takeaway: First, absent the crisis sales might have risen significantly more. Second, VW is still facing massive fines, penalties, payouts, and lawsuits that could reach into the tens of billions of dollars. But still…what the hell? Read more

Instagram is democratizing fashion—Instagram has made the previously insular fashion world accessible to everyone by letting them tag their favorite labels in posts and engage in conversation via comments. Instagram tools like Hyperlapse and Boomerang encourage more creativity in posts from fashion houses, which now participate in dialogues with consumers. The interaction has sparked changes in how some fashion houses edit their shows. For example, they are injecting more color into the clothes on the runway since the detail is washed away in black outfits. While the industry hasn’t changed as much as a result of Instagramers’ influence as some would like to believe, the photo-sharing app has magnified the different personality types of fashion designers. The takeaway: As social tools empower consumers and fans to engage directly with brands, brands that pay attention and take the dialogue seriously will gain invaluable insights into what those consumers want. Delivering results based on those insights is what co-creation is all about. The fashion industry increasingly understands this. Other industries need to start wake up. Instagram isn’t a bad place to start. Read more

Mobile

Pitch stories to journalists with a Tindr-like app—UPitch claims to be the Tindr of media relations. According to the app’s site, “We’ve taken Tinder’s simple, elegant, anonymous approach to browsing through date options and adapted it to perfectly suit the needs of the PR community.journalists on the hunt for an intriguing story lead come to UPitch and anonymously swipe through the pitches, filtering by location and media category of choice. Journalists swipe left on the pitches that leave them cold and right on the pitches that spark their interest.
When a journalist swipes right on your pitch, it triggers a match. From there, you and the journalist can message each other directly within the UPitch app, and get to work on the particulars of the story and how to tell it best.” A premium version is coming. The big question: Will journalists use it? The takeaway: The PR industry continues to explore ways to earn media coverage, and it couldn’t hurt to give UPitch a try. Some reporters may use it as a discovery tool. But unless the news industry sees a huge benefit from UPitch, I suspect it won’t have a huge impact on media relations efforts. Read more

One-sixth of the world population uses mobile messaging apps—By the end of the year, more than 1.4 billion people will be using mobile phone messaging apps like Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat. That represents growth of more than 31% over the previous year, according to an eMarketer forecast. Another way to view that number: 75% of smartphone owners will be using an over-the-top (OTT) messaging app. By 2018, eMarketer projects 2 billion people will be connecting with each other (and with brands) using messaging apps. One reason for the growth: consumer desire for more intimate forms of social sharing. The takeaway: For some people, mobile messaging apps supplement their engagement through social networks like Facebook. For other, they’re the preferred mode of engagement. Either way, you should be getting familiar with best practices and consider ways you can reach customers and prospects via mobile messaging services. Read more

Finally! Instant messaging is possible through Tumblr—Users have been agitating for years for Tumblr to add messaging capability as other social services (including Instagram and Pinterest) have introduced their own messaging functionality. The Yahoo-owned company announced it was finally adding the feature, though the rollout has been slow. Once the service is available to everyone (which could take a few weeks), you’ll be able to get messages from any Tumblr user or restrict messaging only from the Tumblr blogs you follow. See the story above. Messaging is the hottest trend in tech. Read more

Periscope update adds maps and more—A recent heavy-duty update to Periscope, Twitter’s live social mobile video streaming app, includes Teleport (for iOS only), which uses 3D Touch to teleport users to a random part of the world and begin streaming a Periscope session from there. Periscope’s world map has also been updated to include more than its previous cap of 250 livestreams as well as replays from the previous 24 hours, increasing the ease with which users can find streams from the locations where news broke. Meanwhile, the Android app has been updated to give Periscope broadcasters the ability to zoom in and out, something that has been part of the iOS app for a while. The takeaway: Twitter continues to pump resources into Periscope which is enjoying momentum-driven growth. Livestreaming is becoming a bigger deal all the time, with more and more organizations finding uses for it. Read more

AT&T tests ability to reach consumers on TV and mobile devices—It’s called cross-screen addressable advertising. It lets brands broadcast an ad on TV to a household matching a specific set of criteria, then deliver a mobile ad (and other related, interactive content) to those same consumers on smartphones and tablets. AT&T serves addressable ads to 12 million-plus households, all of which could be reached through the system. The takeaway: The potential for consumers to revolt against an onslaught of targeted advertising is high. Marketers would be well-advised to make the experience seamless rather than a simple bombardment. Read more

Research

PR is best suited to manage social media—According to the advertising and marketing executives participating in a survey by staffing company The Creative Group, PR is the best department to oversee organizational social media efforts. Because social media can have a significant impact on a company’s reputation, PR is in the best position to manage it. Compared to the 51% who believe PR is in the best position to manage social media (that number was 39% in the 2013 survey), 28% believe marketing is the right department, and 9% think Customer Service should handle the task. The takeaway: Last week, I reported a survey of CMOs who overwhelmingly believed marketing and advertising were the right departments to oversee social media. So, pick the survey that suits your point of view. But this one has it right. Because reputation is so closely tied to social media, PR has the right stuff to address the risks and benefits of social media. Read more

Here’s what Americans think of Virtual Reality—I have made no secret about my belief that Virtual Reality (VR) represents a very important new channel for communication; its ability to immerse people in a story is unparalled. Currently, though, when most Americans think of VR, they don’t think of the imminent release of the Oculus Rift, or of the Samsung Gear VR headset, or even Google Cardboard. They think of the Sony Playstation VR. What I have witnessed is borne out by a Touchstone Research study: Once you experience VR, you’re excited. Nearly 80% want more and more than 81% will tell their friends about it. Demographics are also fairly flat, with 79% of Generation Z (the post-Millennial generation) expected to experience it and 64% of Baby Boomers also expected to take advantage of it. While 80% of survey respondents said they’re aware of VR, only 10% said they know a lot about it. The takeaway: It’s coming. It’s coming soon. It’s going to be huge. And it’s going to be a PR/organizational communications tool. Get ready. Read more

Flickr photo of “crore sphere” courtesy of Philippe Put.

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