Friday Wrap-Up # 2 – Google Doodle, Apple iPhone, Microsoft & More

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There is no lack of both original and rehashed efforts in advertising and marketing. We are back again with all the latest, important marketing news and marketing efforts that made waves this past week.

1. Google Doodles are sure to leave behind a vast legacy, should they ever cease to make new ones in the future. The best part are the Doodle competitions that result in some extremely interesting submissions that pour in from all over the world. This was the fourth consecutive year of the competition and the theme was simple – to illustrate your ‘best day ever’. Shown here is the winning entry by 17-year old Wisconsin resident Sabrina Brady, and it’s easy to see why it touched a cord.

2. Apple new ad for the iPhone breaks away from its usual style to adopt downtempo tunes and grainy, even Instagram-like visuals – establishing itself even more firmly as the hipster’s go-to device. The 60-second spot claims Apple has more music lovers than any other type of smartphone, however the same is based on only iTunes sales data, which seems a bit arbitrary, given the many other popular sources of music available.

3. The new Microsoft ad for Windows 8, though, isn’t chancing any subtlety. The 30-second ad basically takes potshots at 3 things Apple – Siri, the iPad, and Apple’s marketing, and succeeds hilariously.

4. This one is a definite bonus! Kmart’s recent ads have all been able to elicit a laugh or two from everyone who watched them, and their latest ‘Big Gas Savings’ campaign combines toilet humour innuendos with side-splitting, punny sketches for an even better impact. See for yourself:

Did you like one or more these campaigns? We’d love to hear your opinion – let us know in your Comments!

The Tuesday Bite-Sized News Edition

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1) Hackers take over 90,000 WordPress blogs. If you are a WordPress user, Matt Mullenweg (a WordPress Founder) has some security tips for you, just in case.

2) Dove’s latest 3-minute YouTube ad goes viral after addressing the perception vs. reality beauty issue. The ad has a former SJPD forensic artist sketching women’s faces based only on the way they describe themselves, while having no way of seeing them. The results sure are food for thought.

3) Google Glass is finally ready to ship, but only to early adopters and developers. A proper worldwide launch seems closer than previously estimated.

4) How To Monetise Google Hangouts – didn’t think it was possible? Glamour magazine proves otherwise by incorporating product placements in Google Hangouts.

5) Facebook is expanding its ads targeting by allowing advertisers to target 500 specific segments such as ‘Car Buyers’, ‘Luxury Apparel Buyers’ based on user purchases.

6) The hyper-local mobile app Foursquare has launched a major update for its iOS app, and so, Foursquare 6.0 is now in the app store. The primary focus of the app appears to have shifted from discovering what your friends are doing to discovering what you can do.

Friday Wrap Up! #1

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Technology hardly ever has a slow week and the same applies to this one, too. So, we are back with our weekly wrap-up of interesting news to keep you updated – with bite-sized info-nuggets (yes, yes, we can’t believe we said that either.)

For starters, Pew Internet released an extremely illuminating study on the e-book trend, bringing to light the fact that at least 21% American have read an e-book and these digital book versions are definitely, inarguably, here to stay.

CareerBliss, the employer review site also released their findings on the happiest tech companies in America and, don’t we know it, Google came out on top, while Texas Instruments and Avaya rounded off the top three.

A BIA/Kelsey study also shed light on the incredible potential and growth of Social Advertising as it forecasts that U.S. Social Ad Revenues are set to skyrocket to $11Bn in 2017. You can read the study in full here.

Google also added a new tool to its existing plethora of quirky tools called the Inactive Account Manager. It doesn’t matter if you are taking an extended vacation or are planning your digital afterlife – the (unfortunately named) Inactive Account Manager will address your needs.

Speaking of Google, a few days ago, we covered the doom of Google Reader on our Apps Mav blog. On our list of Top 5 suggested alternatives was Pulse Reader and what seems like an extremely promising move, LinkedIn has acquired the company for approximately $90 million.

Last, but definitely not the least, Twitter’s ill-kept secret, the Twitter Music app will be releasing today. The app will focus mainly on music trending on Social Media, quite like Twitter, and have purchase options, as well.

We’ll be back next Friday with the next wrap-up. Until then, share your feedback, bouquets, brickbats in the Comments section and stay glued for other social media updates!

The Maverick Mav Friday Wrap-Up

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Technology doesn’t have a slow day any longer, thanks to the ceaseless wonders of social media, and this Friday we bring a wrap up of all the news you may have missed, but shouldn’t have. For starters, the hashtag to create enormous waves on Twitter this week would have made Pinocchio proud – #BestLieEver, a hashtag started by Jai Brooks from right here in Melbourne became popular enough to start a clique of its own. Check out what people had to contribute (and you can bet they had a LOT), here.

Pinterest works like a charm to get exposure for your products if your brand is about fashion, food or design, but not everyone knows how to work it yet (If you need assistance managing your social media presence or only Pinterest? Send us an inquiry today for a customized solution!) However, Mashable has put together a handy little slideshow depicting 10 extremely creative, and innovative uses for Pinterest.

It’s been a good week for art and poetry aficionados, too, with the New York Times’ Poetry Month kicking off with the launch of their haiku Tumblr. The George Eastman House, world’s oldest photography museum also joined the Google Art Project and is now available online for public viewing with a total of more than 40,000 works of art.

We also came to hear of Facebook creating new APIs to track comment threads after launching the ‘Reply’ to Comments feature last week, to help brands identify most popular comments, replies, and threads. Also keeping us occupied was Socialbakers’ fantastic analysis of the Game of Thrones’ fandom on social media, which is now apparently as big as Westeros itself (figuratively speaking, of course). Check out their fantastic infographic here. Additionally, LinkedIn has added a ‘mention’ feature to its platform, Facebook-style.

The biggest, yet the most underwhelming news, however, was the launch of Android: Facebook Home. While many were hoping for it to be the Facebook Phone or a Facebook OS, it is neither. Instead, it is a new home screen and app launcher interface for select Android smartphones. Watch Facebook’s ad for Facebook Home to understand how Facebook thinks it can help you.

Read more about Facebook Home here, and while we bid you adieu and give ourselves unto the weekend, we will be back soonish with more technology news. Have a good one, until then!

Playboy’s iPhone App, Facebook iPhone OS and Google+ News For Developers

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Today’s been an interesting day for technology and in our constant endeavour to bring you the freshest of technology and digital news, here are our two bits on what’s been going on:

1) Playboy Magazine has launched a comparatively demure mobile application for iPhones. The application will focus on showcasing exclusive content made for the app, which includes ‘non-nude’ pictorials and lifestyle content, etc. However, those looking for ‘regular’, uncensored Playboy issues can simply head to i.playboy.com for Playboy’s web-based iPad app.
Read more here.

2) Rumours of the ‘Facebook Phone’ are exciting to one and all and the most recent addition to the speculations was a direct result of what Android Police claims is a leaked version of the Facebook Phone’s operating system. The device is supposed to be a mid-range smartphone with a 4-3-inch display, 1GB RAM, dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and a 5MP camera.
Read more here.

3) Google+ sign-ins were a special gift to developers everywhere from Google last month, the feature allowing users to sign-in to non-Google websites using their Google log-in, much like its Twitter and Facebook counterparts. Now, Google has announced support for social infrastructure platforms Janrain and Gigya which enables adding trust authentication to apps and sites, allows users to share interactive posts with connections and much more.
Read more here.

The Mav Wrap up – April Fool’s special

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April Fool’s Day is always a big day for the more mischievous of the lot, but the rest of us enjoy it just as much, as long as our role is that of spectators. But it wasn’t just a day full of pranks. Here’s our round-up of the most arresting technology and design news from yesterday.

1) Top 10 YouTube Prank Videos:

Parents Tell Children That Their Halloween Candy is Over

April Fool’s obviously initiated a flurry of prank videos on YouTube, but the YouTube took the time to sift and curate the best of the lot. To see the full list of videos, click here.

2) Game of Thrones Autotune:

HBO’s super-popular series Game of Thrones returned for a 3rd season this past Sunday night, sending the internet fandom into a tizzy. As a result, an auto tune remix of Arya’s list of enemies with the house motto ‘A Lannister always pays his debts’, is now a thing. Don’t believe us? See for yourself.

3) Amazon Updates Cloud Drive:

Giving Dropbox and Google Drive some stiff competition in the area of cloud storage, Amazon has updated its Cloud Drive service with desktop file-syncing feature, which was lacking since its May 2012 launch. “The updated app makes it simple for users to put files in Cloud Drive and to access them from any of their computers, ensuring that they always have access to the latest version of their files from home and on the road,” the company states.

4) Thierry Cohen’s Cities Without Light Pollution:

We have always been fans of great graphic design work combined with astounding photography to make a statement, and Thierry Cohen’s ‘Major Cities Without Light Pollution falls right under that bracket. The French photographer took nighttime pictures of major cityscapes and combined them with pictures of deserted places with corresponding angles and latitudes and the results are breathtaking. Kinda goes to show what we’re all missing. See the full story and images here.

Brand Pages for Business on Facebook

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Facebook has a Timeline format for its Brand pages. This timeline layout has an effect on what brands have built on Facebook in the past (i.e. applications, posts, photos and more) and how Brands can best use Facebook in the future.

This layout enhances the visual branding power of Facebook by many customizable options. These Business Pages act as more of a brand narrative than a community message board and combination of a focused and more systematic layout makes it user-friendly.

The main features of the Timeline are a cover photo (read more about the new guidelines here), a profile picture (preferably your logo) and an about section. The apps can be placed on the customized tabs which can then be prioritized on the page (read more about how to Promote Your Facebook Apps). Talking of Facebook apps, do check out Apps Mav for loads of Facebook Applications that will be useful for your business marketing.

Timeline for Business Pages changes how you do Facebook Marketing. In the past you just had to set up a Fan Gate on a default Page tab and you didn’t have to worry too much about content other than the marketing blasts that you would do to everyone that “Liked” you in the past.

Well, that approach doesn’t work anymore and Facebook’s Timeline for Business Pages changed the game.

Important: Facebook Timeline for brand pages is now all about “engagement” and “content”.

New Facebook Timeline redesign – Are you ready?

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Recently Facebook updated the news feed and soon enough is all set to roll out the new redesigned Timeline.

As the new Timeline was recently tested in New Zealand, we’re eager to discuss some of the features of the redesign.

One of the major changes can be observed on the top tabs where the photographs, friends were listed, they have been now replaced with just text.

The timeline navigation has been placed on the top right where the ads appeared earlier. The spot below your profile picture has now been dedicated to your About information, we think it makes the profile look more cleaner.

One of the additions is to overlay the your name on the Cover/Timeline image. A more personalized profile.

Photos have a home on the left side of the page in a matrix of nine pictures. It’s a more organized way to display the pictures. You get to view more pictures in an efficiently designed Timeline.

New design to display photographs

Another addition to the new design is that you can add apps of your interest like Goodreads, which are placed alongside your photos and the friend list.

Talking of apps, it’ll be pretty cool to have our own Apps Mav apps listed in that section!

What do you think about the new Timeline redesign? Are these the changes you would like? Do share your opinions in the comments!

New Facebook Insights Data

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Admin panel also has an Insights section. Click on the ‘See All’ link to get indepth data about your page.

(Know more here: http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/creative/insights/page-insights-guide.pdf)

Hot Tip:You will find the some exciting information which helps you to understand the growth of your brand on this platform.

Overview

This is the main Insights dashboard and here you’ll see the total number of likes (and whether this is increasing or decreasing), the number of friends of fans available (this is the potential number of people you can reach!), how many people are actively talking about your page as well as your total weekly reach.

Total Likes

The number of people who like your page. This number does not include Facebook pages that like your page.

Friends of Fans

The number of people who are friends with people who like your page. This number doesn not incude subscribers of people who like your page. It definitely would have been a great addition though.

People Talking About This

The number of people who have created a story about your page including posting to your wall, interacting with a status update (likes, comments, and shares), answering a question, responding to an event, mentioning your page in a status update, tagging your page, or checking in at your place.

Weekly Total Reach

The number of people who have seen any content from your page for the last seven days.

Posts

The purple bubble on the graph represents the number of posts your page has published on a given day.

Beneath the graph, you can see engagement information about your individual page posts. Columns are sort-able by date, post snippet, reach, engaged users and talking about this of each post. Virality percentage of each post is one of the most important data which can be extracted out of this section.

All Post Types

The default view for this section will show all of your latest posts. Click on this dropdown to see posts with photos, links, videos, or questions. You can also view the data for the other posts by clicking View other posts at the bottom.

Post

The post column shows the beginning snippet of your post. Click on it to see a full preview.

Reach

Shows you how you reached your audience whether it was organic, paid, viral or total. This is useful because it tells you how people are finding out about your content and gives you insight as to whether or not you should consider doing Facebook Ads if organic and viral is not paying off.

Organic is from news feed, news ticker or from your page.
Paid is who saw your content from an Ad or Sponsored Story you placed.
Viral is the number of people who saw your page from a story that was published by a friend. This can include when a friend likes your page, likes a post, comments on your fan page wall (if you allow this type of action), sharing one of your posts and any other actions you allow on your page so their friends may see.

Engaged Users

The number of people who have clicked on the post within the first 28 days after it was published. Click on the number to see the number of times your post generated clicks and engagement from users including likes, comments, and shares.

Virality

The percentage of people who have created a story from your page post (shares) out of the total number of people who have seen it.

Likes

The Likes section shows you a demographic breakdown of people who have liked your page including age, gender, countries, cities, and languages.

Beneath the demographics is a section that tells you where your page’s likes have come from.

Hot Tip:This is a great way to see what converts visitors into fans and keep a track on your conversion channels as well.

On Page – Likes generated from your Facebook page itself.

Like Box and Like Button – Likes generated from the Like Box and Like Button social plugins on external websites.

Admin Invite – Likes generated from the use of suggesting a page to a friend from the Admin Panel > Build Audience > Invite Friends.

Timeline – Likes generated from people clicking on your page in a person’s personal Timeline profile Likes section.

Mobile

Likes generated from people on a mobile device.

Search Results

Likes generated from people who used Facebook’s search box.

Page Like Another Page

Likes generated from other pages that like your page.

Facebook Recommendations

Likes generated from a Recommended Pages unit in the right hand column on Facebook.

On Hover

Likes generated from the popup window shown when someone hovers over a link leading to your page anywhere on Facebook.

Ticker – Likes generated from mentions of your page in the news ticker.
Friend Referrals – Likes generated from a story about someone liking your page.

Hot Tip:You can also see the number of unlikes you have on a given day. If you see a big spike in unlikes on a particular day, you should see if you posted something on your page’s wall that day and avoid similar updates.

Reach

The Reach section shows you demographics about the people you have reached through your page’s content, posts, and stories by others. Scroll down to the bottom of this section to see two important pieces of information.

Total Tab Views – The number of times each tab is viewed on your Facebook page, including the main timeline itself.

External Referrers – The number of referral visits from sites other than Facebook, including any site you have included a link to your Facebook page.

Talking About This

The Talking about This section shows you demographics about the people who have created stories around your Facebook page. It measures these nine (9) actions: liking a page, posting (a comment, photo, link or video) to a page’s wall, commenting or liking or sharing a page’s status update, photo, video or other content, answering a question posted by a page, RSVP’ing to an event hosted by a page, mentioning the page (users must formally tag the page), tagging a page in a photo, liking or sharing a check-in deal, checking in at a place..

Export Data

Want to see the raw data? You can export your page and post level data to Excel (.xls) and comma-separated text format (.csv).

Hot Tip:This can be helpful since most of the Insights screens will only allow you to go 89 days back. This report will include any data before the current date.

Facebook Insights for All

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While detailed insights are limited to page administrators, you can now see some basic insights about any page by visiting the page and clicking on their number of likes.

Here, you can see the number of people talking about a particular page this week, the number of total likes, the most popular week for that page, the top location engaging with the page, the age groups of the most engaged fans are, and a graph of their latest engagement activity.

Hot Tip:This is a great way to do some competitive research.

You can target your competitor’s most popular city and age group in Facebook ads to generate new likes for your page.
You can scroll through your competitor’s timeline to see what they did to make their page popular on the most popular week.
You can see if your competitor’s latest Facebook marketing strategy is increasing or decreasing their page’s engagement and model your similarly or not.

It’s not just about collating the data of analytics, it is important to know how to analyse it and derive relevant findings from it for better community management. You could use the data to figure out what kinds of posts work the best for your fans, what time do they respond to the post. Try to use the posts which have high viral reach.
Share with us how you use the Facebook Analytics in the comments.

Maverick Mav Blog

Internet|Social Marketing+Analytics

Playboy’s iPhone App, Facebook iPhone OS and Google+ News For Developers

The Mav Wrap up – April Fool’s special

Brand Pages for Business on Facebook

New Facebook Timeline redesign – Are you ready?

New Facebook Insights Data

Facebook Insights for All