Ofta handlar det om sociala medier, andra gånger om helt andra saker. Alltid på engelska. Trevlig läsning!
Social Media
- ”61% of current Facebook users say that at one time or another in the past they have voluntarily taken a break from using Facebook for a period of several weeks or more.”
- ”20% of the online adults who do not currently use Facebook say they once used the site but no longer do so. 8% of online adults who do not currently use Facebook are interested in becoming Facebook users in the future.”
Comment: It may be tempting to see this as a leading indicator of some sort of big shift away from Facebook but that may not be the case just yet. While there is certainly plenty of anecdotal as well as a few early stats that show growth of platforms like Tumblr Facebook is still growing at a healthy pace regardless of how many breaks people may take from time to time.
Google+ Strengthens Social Position With 9,400 Percent Growth
- ”Amongst the findings, the top 100 brands on Google+ now boast 20.9 million fans- up from just 222,000 in 2011. Of these, the top 10 account for four out of five followers.”
- ”Additionally, the auto industry accounts for 40 percent of the top 10 spots for followers on Google, with BMW leading the way with over 2.2 million followers. Another 20 percent of brands also have their Google+ pages show up in SERP results.”
Comment: It’s interesting to see what brands and categories are growing on Google+ while others remain somewhat stagnant. Whatever the case, it’s safe to confirm, at least for the moment, the notion that Google+ is a “ghost town” that’s unworthy of serious brand attention.
Publishing
New York Times edits best of Instagram for storm, Fashion Week
- ”Unlike many stories that are about collecting what’s already out there on social networks, the Times involved their audience in the story. Rather than publishing a one-time post collecting a few photos and calling it a day, they created a living, dynamic page that gave readers a reason to keep returning to see the latest photos culled from social networks.”
Comment: A really interesting way to create a destination that has long-term value through leveraging certain social media content from people across the web.
There’s No Such Thing as a Universal ‘Best Time’ to Post on Facebook
- ”Times with generally high levels of activity aren’t necessarily the best times to post. Consider these times a double-edged sword. You’re more likely to get engagement, but less likely to make it into your fans’ Newsfeeds. Posting at non-peak hours will have less competition– which may lead to higher engagement despite lower number of users online at that time because it’s easier to make it into a fan’s feed.”
Comment: This nicely deflates the studies that come out occasionally that take a certain data set and extrapolate it out to be a universal best practice. As always the best time to publish to Facebook or any other platform is going vary from one program to the next and should be determined based on an analysis of that program’s stats.
Media/Journalism
Why The Weather Company Branded a Storm
- ”An international committee of The World Meteorological Organization sets the names for Atlantic and central and eastern Pacific storms, using six lists in rotation. Private companies do not play a role in naming storms. Until now.”
PN Connect: Interesting to think about how The Weather Channel basically stepped up and managed to unofficially name the most recent winter storm, and have that name become more or less official.
NBC closes hyperlocal, data-driven publishing pioneer EveryBlock
- ”The decision took effect today. Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and chief digital officer of NBC News, told me today by email: “[EveryBlock] is a wonderful scrappy business but it wasn’t a strategic fit with our growth strategy and — like most hyperlocal businesses — was struggling with the business model.”
Comment: The sudden nature of the announcement took many people by shock and smacked of corporate thinking with no sense of how the community might react. Everyblock has been a darling of both readers and media watchers for a long while and hopefully it will find a buyer soon.
Retail
American Express will let Twitter users buy real products with a hashtag
- ”Starting today, the credit card company will be periodically rolling out deals, including a discounted Xbox 360, Kindle Fire HD, and $25 Amex gift card, then letting users buy them by tweeting hashtags like #BuyAmexGiftCard25. Amex will ask the user to confirm in another tweet, then ship it to the address on record and charge their card — assuming they’ve previously added Twitter integration and a shipping address through Amex Sync.”
Comment: Amex Sync makes this sort of thing possible – once you have a way to authenticate and tie your users’ presences on a social platform back to your core platform, you can start to port elements of functionality over to those social platforms. For Amex, the real power is being able to offer this as a piece of functionality third-parties can use – just like the Amex card itself, as they are for this initial rollout.
Consumers look for indicators of review authenticity
- ”Long considered a helpful tool for consumers to make informed decisions, online user reviews have become a subject of scrutiny. Reports abound of fake reviews and the dramatic countersteps taken to prevent them. The question is whether consumers can see past bogus reviews as isolated incidents or if such reviews are pervasive enough to threaten the confidence of shoppers.”
Comment: If there’s a lesson to take from this, it’s that those who post fake reviews on behalf of their client or company may be doing more harm than good. That’s always been the case but this brings it into stark relief.
Emerging Tech
- “In other words, while Stack Exchange tries to help users find the best answer to a given question, Discourse tries to support a broader discussion without falling victim to the trolling and spam that afflict many other forums and comment threads.”
Comment: Sounds like a new labor of love from Jeff Atwood – it’s worth watching as a tool specifically engineered towards productive conversation and easy-to-find answers.