Welcome one and all to #TheStream issue number 6! We’re looking back at another week of news in social, tech and marketing.
Christian Hernandez TMW2012 Keynote
Facebook’s Director of Platform Partnerships EMEA gave a great keynote at TMW2012 last week delivering some great stats about the network, ideas on how as a brand to utilise it, and also launched some more Timeline apps. If you have a spare 30 mins it is worth the watch as Hernandez outlines how virality works on Facebook.
Topline notes:
- 900 million monthly active users (global)
- 500 million daily active users (global)
- 480 million monthly active users on Facebook mobile (global)
- Think about Facebook as 900 million individual social graphs
- Average Facebook user has 130 friends on Facebook
- 80% of those friends will be in the same country
- The degrees of connection between any two users is 3
- Weak connections (distant friends) drive new content discovery/sharing
- Make it as easy as possible for people to share content to their Timeline’s to drive discovery – use an individual’s identity on Facebook to allow for easier sharing
- Link web and mobile together using an individuals identity on Facebook e.g. deep linking between Facebook Timeline and a native mobile app or HTML5 web app
- Think local
Channel 4 Air Prometheus Twitter Ad – Mixed Response
Last week Channel 4 announced a partnership with the team behind the upcoming movie Prometheus and Twitter. Two ads had been scheduled to appear in the first and second break in ‘Homeland’ on Sunday. The first was a new trailer for the movie and the second included people’s Twitter reactions using the hashtag #areyouseeingthis.
Let us know what you think with #areyouseeingthis and you might see your tweet live on C4 during the next ad break for #Homeland…
— Channel 4 (@C4Insider) April 29, 2012
The result is a great example of Paid and Owned media powering Earned but perhaps was not executed in a way that really captured people’s imaginations. This is perhaps due to mixed messaging in the run up to the ad with some people thinking it was live Twitter results that would be shown and many thinking that the Tweets would be placed into the trailer somehow. In actuality it appeared to be a Twitter search feed overlayed on the trailer with some of the Tweets highlighted.
Prometheus Twitter Mashup credit: Nick Burcher
It is a bit of fun and definitely shows the potential for this kind of joined up thinking. No doubt we will see some very impressive results from the campaign even if people were a little disappointed in the end result. The brand that finds a way to integrate Tweets into ads and trailers in a more creative way first will no doubt gain a lot of praise.
Bonus: Here is the trailer. It looks amazing!
Google Maps Cube Game
Here is a bit of fun for you, Google have created a labyrinth game for you to while away those key working hours:
Called Cube, the idea behind this is to promote Google’s products. It’s a fun application that has got us a little bit addicted here in the office!
Enjoy: http://www.playmapscube.com
Google Drive Goes Live
Google’s long time rumored cloud storage service has finally arrived. In a blog post poking fun at the rumors, Sundar Pichai (SVP Chrome & Apps) said:
“Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard the rumors about Google Drive. It turns out, one of the two actually does exist.
Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.”
This is fiercely competitive with the other cloud storage options out there. Check out this article from The Verge for a full breakdown of the different options now available.
We have been testing it out and have to say are very impressed with what is on offer especially the integration with some of the Chrome apps. It is also very fast.
Volkswagen Facebook Photo Flipbook
Following on from the Smart Car Twitter flipbook, Volkswagen has created its own using Facebook photos:
This is another great example of a simple but very effective implementation of a campaign using a platform’s most basic functions.
YouTube Turns 7
On Monday last week YouTube turned 7. Although the site themselves didn’t really celebrate, Mashable pulled together these great stats showcasing how important the video platform is:
- 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute; one hour of video is uploaded every second
- More than 4 billion videos are viewed every day
- More than 3 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
- More video is uploaded to YouTube in one month than the three major U.S. networks created in 60 years
- In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or almost 140 views for every person on earth.
And as a special bonus here is the first ever YouTube video:
Facebook Premium Ads Demo Tool
Last week Facebook launched a demo tool for agencies and marketeers to demo what their Premium ad campaigns could look like.
“The demo tool lets you experience the visual impact of Premium on Facebook first-hand, rather than just imagining how your ads and sponsored stories would appear to fans and friends of fans. Please keep in mind that currently, the demo tool provides a visual overview of Premium on Facebook, but does not comprehensively describe all Premium ad scenarios.”
Demo Tool Premium Ad Example
The tool is in its first iteration at the moment and Facebook are wanting to hear back from those who are interested in using this kind of tool. It is a great way of being able to create the ads and then present them to your team or a client as an idea of how they will look, rather than having to spend the time to create them yourself.
Social Network Epic Raps From Dan Bull
Dan Bull has made two fantastic rap singles and videos poking fun at people’s activity on Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook Epic Rap:
Twitter Epic Rap:
He has a serious message behind both videos taking aim at the controversial laws being passed around like CISPA, SOPA and ACTA. His aim is to get the videos in the charts as a form of protest. So if you like the videos as much as we do, share them around and maybe Dan can take his place in music history.
Lolcat
Do not put me on Facebook!
And that’s it for this week! Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Until next time!
I thought the Prometheus trailer was great, but the Twitter thing was rubbish. Apart from people in our industry getting all excited, ultimately it was a bunch of sycophantic tweets covering up a trailer. Apart from the people who saw their tweets on the telly and the agency that did it, who cares about a bunch of tweets from people you don’t know? The trailer on the other hand, that was bloody brilliant!
I agree. The Twitter featuring part of the ad was very disappointing, unless you used Zeebox and won tickets to go see the film. Of course us industry lot could have built it up in our heads to be more than was ever promised. I think there is a lot of potential for that kind of TV ad but I do think it needs to be more creative in it’s execution. Perhaps selecting a hashtag without telling the audience and then featuring the tweets embedded within another ad. Making it a surprise and extending the conversation further.