Each week, I compose a newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, social media, mobile, communications and marketing in order to keep our wider team up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in their jobs. These are those links.
If you have additional links, sources or ideas that might be helpful, I'd encourage you to add some via a comment below or tag me in Google+. And if you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links in the This Week in Social Media Magazine.
Yahoo gets with the program, Google makes some major overhauls, Nutella goes nuts on a fan, teens know how to use privacy settings (and Twitter!), why we can't embrace the truth about online video and more - it's This Week in Social Media.
Industry News
- Google is demanding that Microsoft remove the YouTube app from Windows phones, as it allows users to view the videos without ads and to download videos directly, both violations of the terms of service.
- What are the top five social media questions marketers want answered? Lee Odden has them.
- Not all social media is created equal - men and women use it at different rates and are present in different proportions on platforms.
- 62% of men use social networks, while 71% of women do.
- Women are more likely to use Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook
- Men are more likely to use Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube
- Marketwired determined that people under the age of 40 are increasingly using social media to inform investment decisions.
- Ford earned a "Genius" rating as a top digital auto brand in the L2 Digital IQ Index, thanks to "strong digital fundamentals, combined with a willingness to experiment" set the brand apart, in addition to "Ford’s connected car platform Sync, iPad catalogs for different models, strong customer support and dealer inventory search via its Web site, and a social media hub through its Ford Social site."
- Painful, but relevant is the Truth About Advertising in 2013.
- 95% of marketers in the UK are increasing their shift from traditional to digital media.
- A survey of more than 2,000 marketing students shows that 70% of them believe that within a decade, marketing communications will be dominated by "PR thinking," with worth of mouth and trust playing a significant role in how agencies respond to issues.
Content
- Branded content marketing is becoming a higher priority to marketers, with some 70% of brands and 77% of agencies having used content marketing over the past year and budgets following.
- Storytelling at its finest: here's how LEGO told the story of its origins.
The Platforms
- Yahoo has had a big week. A big Monday in fact, when the portal announced that it was acquiring social network/blogging hub Tumblr for $1.1 billion and overhauling Flickr for a more visually appealing experience and a free terabyte (TB) of storage for all users for free.
- The other big news was the Google I/O conference, during which Google unveiled 41 changes to Google+, including:
- A major design overhaul, with two columns and a slicker experience
- Automatic hashtags to organize conversation topics
- Unified chat messaging between Gmail, Google+, Android and iOS devices ,and Google Chrome
- Offering Hangouts as a standalone app outside of G+
- The most significant upgrade to Google Maps in eight years, featuring customized maps for every individual based on the places they visit
- A music streaming service called Google Play All Access that competes with Pandora and Spotify
- Even on the heels of updating Google+, Google is still struggling to explain why normal people should care about it.
- First Tencent's WeChat (with 300 million users) was criticized for censoring certain topics that the Chinese government objected to; now Line (150 million users) in Japan is attempting the same thing.
- Twitter has seen an influx of teens using the service; according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, while social network growth has been flat year over year (81% use by 12-17 year-olds this year vs. 80% last year), Twitter usage has jumped 50% in just one year.
- Twitter has debuted the Lead Generation Card, which allows businesses to capture contact information directly without the user having to leave Twitter.
- Facebook is testing an "unpublished posts" feature that will allow Page administrators to create posts tailored to specific audience members and distribute them only to those to whom those posts apply via targeted ads.
Legal/Regulatory
- The seven year-old fan-created website World Nutella Day will be going dark on May 25, in response to the cease-and-desist letter received from Ferrero, SpA., the maker of Nutella. It's not clear what drover Ferrero to issue such a request (there are legitimate reasons for doing so in some cases), but it's always a concern when well meaning fan-generated advocacy gets shut down by lawyers. [UPDATE: Ferrero has reached out to the fan and has lifted the order.
- It should be no surprise that smartphones are infiltrating the workplace. A quick look on Vine, the 6-second video sharing app, searching for terms like "hatework," "bored" or "work" can bring up some unsavory footage related to employers.
Metrics/Measurement/Big Data
- Most data isn't "big," and most companies are wasting money pretending that it is.
- Does big data mean the end of intuition? McKinsey partner David Edelman says, "No way."
Bookmarks/Read-Watch-Listen Later
- Social Media Examiner surveyed over 3,000 marketers and developed the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. The report delves into platforms, resources, questions and more and is available for free download until May 30.
- Pew Internet and American Life Project's latest report: Teens, Social Media, and Privacy uncovers a wealth of information about how much data teens share, including photos, school or town names, email address and cell phone number. It's a fairly savvy group when it comes to privacy settings: 60% of teens set their profiles to private, so that only their friends can see their updates.
Commentary
Humans can be pretty slow sometimes. We have the answers staring us in the face, yet we refuse to take action. David Maister made this point in his book Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy [disclosure: affiliate link]. The point is that you know what you should be doing, but somehow, you can't do it - because of distractions, a sense of comfort in the familiar, or short-term temptations.I was reminded about this when I saw a couple of articles this week. In one, eMarketer picked some numbers from a Brightroll survey that indicated advertising agency executives think online video ads are equally as or more effective than television ads at reaching audiences. They even went so far as to indicate they expect to see as much as 25% growth in this area (the largest growth rate of any advertising tactic).
Similarly, the 2013 Social Media Marketing Report (referenced above) noted that for the third consecutive year, YouTube is the channel where most marketers plan to increase their spending. In the previous two respective years, 76% and 77% planned to increase their YouTube efforts. "Great!" I hear you say, "It's a consistent concerted effort."
Not so fast. In fact, YouTube adoption has remained flat. In 2011, it was at 56%, with 57% using it in 2012 and back down to 56% this year.
Marketers continue to pay the price of advertising on the almighty platform known as television - a medium that has only estimates on a good day and questionable metrics overall. We acknowledge that online video may be more effective and yet at the same time, we refuse to completely embrace it. What will it take to get the monkey off our backs?
Image credit: cenz (Flickr)
