Anger spreads farther than joy, manufacturing companies get social, CEOs are more interested in digital, why Twitter's MoPub acquisition is a big deal, how Facebook keeps you coming back, keeping your personal data safe, a like is free speech, the 10 Commandments of content marketing, the rise of resilient corporations and more, it's This Week in Social Media.
A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry.
Each week at Ford, 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 the 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. And if you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links by subscribing to the This Week in Social Media Magazine, which is now available on the Web.
Industry
- If this makes you angry, odds are you'll share it: study shows that anger spreads further than joy on social networks. (Engadget)
- The Future of Marketing Influence Study takes a look at thought leaders, social media vs. big data, digital vs. traditional leadership, what's next and more. (Appinions)
- C-level executives are stepping up their involvement in digital activities - largely because digital initiatives overlap traditional business units. (McKinsey)
- Where do most games and apps get downloaded in Asia? Turns out it's the Philippines. (Tech in Asia)
- Manufacturing is investing more in enterprise social networks than other industries. (IDC)
- Total and digital ad spend is up in the U.S. in the first half of 2013, by about 2%. But this estimate excludes video and mobile ads, two digital formats that are seeing among the biggest bumps in investment, suggesting that total digital spending rose by significantly more than the figure cited for display only. (eMarketer)
- Pew survey: 21 percent of U.S. cellphone owners get online mostly through their phones. (Engadget & Pew)
- Hispanics are way ahead in the use of check-in services such as Foursquare. (MarketingCharts & Pew)
- Nielsen's "Trust in Advertising" report discovers which forms of advertising consumers trust most. Placing first: "recommendations from people I know." (MarketingCharts & Nielsen)
The Platforms
- Twitter's acquisition of MoPub is a brand publisher's holy grail - giving them the power to distribute content to exactly the right audience at a fraction of the cost that they’re paying now. (Contently)
- Three areas fueling Twitter's growth: mobile, video and… (WSJ Digits blog)
- Twitter isn't just another social company. It's primed for the future of whatever changes happen in media. (Harvard Business Review)
- Twitter's newest hidden feature is website analytics. (SHIFT)
- Snapchat is hot - to the tune of 350 million photos a day. (LA Times)
- Facebook News Feed survey asks users: how many ads are too many? (Marketing Land)
- Breaking up is hard to do: four persuasion tricks Facebook uses to keep you from quitting. (Fast Company)
- In terms of calculating ROI, Facebook is seen as more important than Twitter and LinkedIn, and less than Google. (AdAge / RBC Capital Markets)
- Tencent, parent company of WeChat, has made a $448 million investment in search engine company Sogu, signifying its desire to diversify services. (All Things Digital)
Measurement / Metrics / Big Data
- Security: 10 ways to keep your personal data safe from snoopers. (Guardian)
- Poll: The NSA and IRS are more trusted with privacy and personal data than Facebook. (AllFacebook)
- Of course, Mark Zuckerberg says that the NSA and spying is what hurt users' trust. (Reuters)
- On the positive side, if we're at the end of the age of privacy, that must mean we're entering the age of personalization. (Twist Image)
Legal / HR
- A judge has determined that liking something on Facebook is protected as free speech. (CNN)
Content
- Keynote from Jonathan Lister of LinkedIn on why LinkedIn is going all-in with content marketing. (TopRankBlog)
- And here are ways that content marketers miss the mark. (Feldman Creative)
- The 10 Commandments of content marketing - including "it's not all about you," "be social at the core," "think like editors and publishers," "ditch the campaign mentality," and more. (FastCo Create)
- Want to see how that content is spreading? Here's how to search hashtags across social networks. (MarketPunch)
Bookmark / Read / Watch Later
- It's true: believe it or not, blogging and Twitter are making us smarter. Writing in public, whether it's in the form of blogs or microblogs, is forcing us to be clearer, smarter and more convincing. (NPR)
- The future of media and Medium's role in it, according to founder Ev Williams, is to help filter out the crap. Learn how. (GigaOm)
- Meet the Resilient Corporations. What’s a Resilient Corporation? It’s one that minimizes risk, moves quicker, and can grow faster than others. This includes crowdsourcing, building a social business, and being responsive to market changes. This is the future of successful businesses. (Web Strategy Blog)
- Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg of All Things D have announced that they and Dow Jones will not be renewing their contract at the end of 2013. The two have plans to continue their publishing and conference hosting, but have not yet named a destination or any investment partners. (All Things Digital)
Commentary
Last week was an extraordinary week for Twitter. Announcing their IPO (via a tweet, no less) kicked off a flurry of news coverage, commentary and punditry that stood in stark contrast to the 140 characters of the initial announcement.Amid the skepticism about yet another social media company filing for a listing and the inevitable comparisons to how the Facebook IPO went, the fact is that Twitter is a resilient company that has managed to change with the times and find its simple little service more adaptable than any other platform.
It's a personal communication service; it's a breaking news medium; it's a photo and video sharing mechanism; it's a music platform; it's a way for hollywood stars to share personal information with fans; it's a way to measure television viewing habits; it's a crisis communications tool; etc.
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| Image credit: Scott Beale (Flickr) |
And that's been the challenge with Twitter all along: for people unimaginative enough to understand its potential, it's often been derided with such inanities as, "Why would I want to tell people what I'm eating for lunch?" If you can't think of a use of Twitter beyond that, then I agree - you're probably too boring to be interacting with people on Twitter.
We currently have no idea what the revenue stream looks like for Twitter, or what business model they'll peg their future to. But I personally wouldn't count them out, as they've shown a high degree of chameleon-like qualities for changing as the times and market conditions have required. I'm confident they'll continue to thrive.
And maybe they'll even throw me a few shares to compensate me for inventing the term "tweetup."
Image credit: Steve Garfield (Twitter)
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