We’ve grown dramatically, both globally and here locally, where we’re working with some of the biggest and most socially ambitious companies in Australia - and now we need more great people to join us in our Sydney office.

We are looking for;

• Front end Developers – Mid level
• Back end Developers – Senior level
• Digital Producers
• Account Managers
• Account Directors
• Social Strategists
• Community & Content Managers
• Social Media Researchers

How to apply;

Send us an email with your name and the role you’re applying for in the subject line.

Attach your CV, and then introduce yourself in no more than 400 words – tell us your background, examples that clearly demonstrate your proven track record – links to work if possible, and importantly, why you want to work at We Are Social.

We suggest adding links to LinkedIn and your social profiles.

We look forward to hearing from you.

According to a report from the ITU, there’s now over one billion people using social media worldwide. More interestingly, mobile is fast becoming the main way that the majority of people are using Facebook.

Use of geo-social apps grow

It’s well known that smartphone use is rising, but one of the interesting questions for a while has been whether the rising number of smartphones will see more people using geo-social apps like Foursquare.

Judging by the latest research from Pew, the answer is yes. In the last nine months, use of geo-social apps has risen by 50% to 18% of all US smartphone users. In terms of market penetration, it’s actually still quite low but it’s the next twelve months which are key for these apps. If they don’t break through now, they never will.

Over half of UK youth using Twitter

A quarterly survey of 540 young people across the UK found that 53% used Twitter in April compared to 42% at the end of 2011. It’s worth emphasising the relatively small sample size, as these figures seem markedly higher than other studies we’ve seen. It’s easier to believe their daily use figures:

Social TV becomes priority for TV channels

After 193% growth year-on-year of ‘social viewing’, TV channels are starting to view social viewing as a way to re-build live audiences. Bravo now plan social interactions in the initial concept stages, alongside other elements of the production.

Facebook changes apps ecosystem

Facebook is replacing the current Apps and Games dashboard with a new App Center feature that they will roll out over the next few weeks. The new feature will sort apps by categories and user ratings.

It’s an interesting change from a year ago, when Facebook relied on algorithmic discovery of new apps – but popularity is still incredibly important, as the best-rated apps will fly to the top of the Center. The by-product of this is that once again, ratings will be important, and developers will have a clear metric to measure their work by.

They’ve also launched a beta version of a paid app programme where users would pay to use an app – different from the previous model, where users would pay for in-app extras. In theory, it will mean there’s more fun games on Facebook.

Facebook trials new ad unit, proposes changes to Privacy Policy and Groups

Facebook is also testing out a new ad unit, where individual users could pay anything from zero to $2 to have their posts promoted and stay at the top of the News Feed. Although generally this seems like a bad idea, it could have its uses – for example, letting all your friends know you’ve become a father or similar. Nonetheless, the point of Facebook’s algorithm is that it shows up users’ most important posts in the News Feed, so this ad unit is almost an admission of failure by Facebook. It will be interesting to see whether it progresses beyond its current trial.

Forbes suggested that another bit of news this week from Facebook could make them drive considerably more revenue than users paying to highlight posts: proposed changes to their Privacy Policy would allow them to target ads based on the information Facebook has about you, off-site. Expect rumours of a Facebook powered ad-network to persist, until they actually launch one.

Facebook introduces file-sharing for all groups

In a smaller update – but one that could make their usage grow considerably, especially for collaboration purposes – Facebook has (as we predicted) introduced file-sharing capabilities for all Groups.

Facebook Timeline is good for engagement, Reach Generator has slow uptake

In good news for brands, a new study has revealed that Timeline has helped to increase the lifetime of the average post by an hour and a half, and has also boosted engagement by 13%.

According to Marketing Week, Facebook’s Reach Generator is having a slow uptake, with many brands not seeing the point of the cost.

As Robin Grant, Global MD of We Are Social says in the article:

Reach Generator is a “blunt instrument” which promotes every post for a monthly fee, which can be inefficient compared to promoting just the more important stories.

Facebook finds itself faced with a media agency landscape that just isn’t geared up to take a conversational approach to marketing – it’s as if media agencies woke up to find that their media plans are based on Newtonian physics in a world where quantum theory reigns.

Quite.

Twitter comes under fire over verification process, buys RestEngine

Digital Trends carried a fascinating story about how they lost their verified tick on Twitter, solely because they stopped advertising with Twitter. It reflects very badly on Twitter – stop buying adverts and you’re suddenly cast out as a pariah. It removes any doubt that the relationship between Twitter and businesses was anything more than transactional.

Twitter’s focus on growing engagement on the site was highlighted last week when it purchased email marketer RestEngine, which Tencrunch postulates they’ll use to make their tweet digest emails more relevant. Theoretically, the digests will tempt more lapsed users to return to the site, and thereby boost engagement.

Google+ releases new iPhone app

Google has released a new iPhone app for Google+ which is designed to be more beautiful and make the stream more immersive. According to Google, the new app will create ‘a carousel of beloved memories’ and if you believe that, you’re less of a cynic than me.

One of the more salient comments I’ve heard recently was about how Google+ wasn’t a stand-alone offering, but is part of the ‘Google product’. There’s definitely some truth in this – from now on, users will be able to respond to Google+ comments directly through their Gmail notifications.

Engagement grows for brands on Google+

According to a new report, engagement with brands on Google+ is up 112% in the last three months but that’s mainly for the top 20 brands; brands who have been circled less aren’t seeing nearly the same engagement or rate of growth.

One brand which is successful on Google+ – far more than on other social media platforms – is Cadbury, and their Head of Digital gave an interesting interview explaining their strategy.

Bing make search more social

Bing has re-designed its search engine to make it more social, with the help of a new sidebar which includes four components:

• An “ask friends” feature that lets users post a question to Facebook
• A list of “friends who might know” about the topic of a user’s query. This pulls information from users’ Facebook profiles to make suggestions based on what friends Like, photos they’ve added, where they’ve lived, work history, where they went to school and more.
• Suggestions of experts, enthusiasts and other “people who know” about a topic based on their public activity and authority on networks like Twitter, Quora, Foursquare, Google+ and others.
• An activity feed of real-time posts and queries, from which users can answer their friends questions and Like posts. This activity will simultaneously appear on Bing and Facebook.

This is very impressive stuff. Although, just like Google+, no-one actually uses Bing, so it’s hard to tell what difference this will make.

According to CNet, Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg gave the engineers a lot of guidance in building this, repeatedly telling them:

Don’t try to do social by building social on the side. Build it into the experience.

I’m sure I’ve said that before…

Foursquare look to merge check-ins with coupons

Foursquare has thus far failed to drive significant revenue – but then again, it hasn’t really tried that hard to do so. Now it’s planning to through offering coupons for check-ins. The idea is that they’ll charge venues a small fee for issuing the coupons and through this, make a lot of money.

Foursquare check-ins finally link up with Facebook properly

Foursquare has also finally introduced a link-up so that Foursquare check-ins are posted to the Facebook Timeline Map. Overdue.

The Wall Street Journal is using Facebook to cover Facebook

After Facebook Timeline launched, there was a lot of reporting about how it wouldn’t help media organisations, despite social being ‘their saviour’.

Well, the Wall Street Journal is starting to disprove the comments about Timeline, launching a Facebook Page to cover Facebook’s IPO and using Timeline to tell Facebook’s story. It’s a nice idea, but as with similar ‘projects’, it’s hit the stumbling block of a lack of fans. As of today, the page has 980 fans, compared to 490,000 for the main newspaper Page. Even considering that people might read the Timeline without liking the Page, it’s basically a really good bit of journalism which isn’t being seen by anyone. They might as well have built a Facebook App…

Uniqlo launch wake up app

Uniqlo have launched a social wake up app, which changes the music it plays depending on the weather – and then shares the time, weather and temperature at the time users stopped the alarm to Facebook or Twitter.

Domino’s bring pizza ordering to Facebook

Domino’s have launched an app which allows customers in Australia and New Zealand to order their pizza directly through Facebook. It remains to be seen whether Facebook will take a slice of the revenue from each order and whether topping it all off will be some free dips.

Pay with miles run instead of money

Nike have been running a really nice campaign in Mexico: rather than paying for a new pair of trainers with money, you can bid for them with miles you’ve run in your Nike+ enabled trainers. Nifty. You might even call it a sweatshop.

Ford teams up with PeerIndex

Ford have teamed up with PeerIndex for a massive influencer campaign, where they’ll send 1,000 social media users various ‘perks’ including a hologram of their new car, the B-Max.

Cathay Pacific’s Klout perk

Cathay Pacific have launched a cool perk using Klout scores: anyone in the international terminal at San Francisco International Airport with a Klout score of 40 or higher will be allowed into the airline’s lounge, which is normally limited to Cathay’s first class and business class passengers. Flying.

Made In Chelsea star in trouble for plugging freebies on Twitter

Made In Chelsea star Rosie Fortescue (yep, me neither) could be in breach of strict Consumer Protection Regulations for repeatedly plugging products on Twitter she’d received for free, without disclosing she’d received them for free.

Twitter resists demands to release Occupy tweets

Twitter is contesting a US court order ordering it to hand over the message history of one of its users, on the basis that tweets are owned by individual users, rather than the company. It’s a great way of championing freedom of speech – Twitter, I applaud you.

For many brands, mobile marketing is an exciting prospect but largely under invested, particularly considering the rapid growth of adoption and usage.

Everyone knows that mobile is important, but incorporating it into an overall marketing strategy has been daunting and frequently it has been bolted on the end with a small budget and utilised in a tactical sense. One barrier is that mobile is still seen as a separate “media” type, but as our research shows consumers are increasingly spreading their internet behaviour across multiple platforms, with the mobile device increasingly at the core. This follows on from Robin’s post on ‘How we use our mobile devices’ that suggests PC, mobile and tablets are going to be interchangeable when accessing the internet. For this reason you cannot look at “The Internet” and “The mobile” separately, they are integrated and linked.

At the Mobile Marketing Association’s Brand and Agency Briefing, we discussed the latest set of research that shows that consumers don’t see the distinctions between devices in the same way brands and marketers do and suggests that we need a radical rethink in how we approach mobile:

The briefing gave us a chance to highlight some of the most important insights that coming out of our research at the moment which include:

1. Mobile internet usage continues to grow rapidly, spearheading a multi-platform post PC world and in many markets mobile activities such as news and social networking are reaching parity with PC
2. Emerging internet markets are leading the way, as shown by China and Indonesia, and increasingly being driven by high end smart phones as the huge sales of the iPhone in China demonstrate.
3. There are key internet activities that are becoming device agnostic – this includes social media. It isn’t the device that dictates how people behave online anymore. People’s activities are driving the decision to which device fits the purpose. Certain internet activities have a much higher level of cross-device usage than others; micro-bloggers, for example, are nearly twice as likely to be using PCs, smartphones, and tablets to tweet. Other activities, such as uploading photos and using mapping services, users are much more likely to use mobile phones rather than tablets. These differences are less driven by the device function and more a reflection of the specific consumer segment, their interests and lifestyle
4. Due to growing device agnostic behaviour it’s more important than ever to understand your target audience, as the device is no longer a barrier. Our research shows that specific target segments replicate behaviour across devices. This means understanding your consumer and their needs and interests is more important than ever to delivering great strategy and ideas

In summary, it’s no longer right to look at “Mobile” as a separate platform. We need to plan and build a strategy across multiple platforms.

Participation inequality: 1/9/90 rule no longer applies?
After carrying out an in-depth investigation into how the UK online population uses digital media, the BBC has developed a new model of digital participation: The Participation Choice. Going against accepted models, specifically the 1/9/90 rule, it suggests that participation is now the norm, claiming that 77% of the online population in the UK is now active ‘in some way’. For those wanting to know more (as well as those who remain unconvinced) a presentation on the research should be available later this week on the BBC Internet blog.

The impact of Twitter (it’s bigger than you think)

Some research from Edison suggests that Twitter is managing to reach beyond the one in ten Americans who actively use the service. The research reveals that more than four or ten Americans hear or read about tweets almost everyday in the media. With numbers that large the importance of Twitter as a broadcast network is evident, both for brands seeking to get their message out there as well as those seeking to combat any potential social media crises.

Poor social media customer service? You just lost a sale!

A new report from American Express exploring consumer attitudes and preferences towards consumer services confirms the value of social media as a customer service tool. It found that of those who use social media to make customer service queries, 83% had chosen not to make a purchase because of a poor customer service experience. The report also found that while consumers who use social media for customer service are the most vocal in both their praise and criticism, like their offline counterparts they are much more likely to share a negative experience, telling an average of 53 other people about it.

Brazil now 2nd largest country on Facebook

Brazil has overtaken India to gain the position of Facebook’s second largest country. With over 46 million users and penetration of around 23%, now would be a good time to think about your social media strategy in Brazil – our São Paulo office is here to help.

Facebook popular with mobile users

While most already expect mobile will play an important part in Facebook’s future fortunes, research from comScore underscores how important it is in Facebook’s present: in March, US mobile visitors spent an average of 7.35 hours on their mobile site and/or app, putting Facebook way ahead of Twitter and Foursquare.

Global social media report reveals top industries on Facebook

Socialbakers has published a report on the top 10 performing industries on Facebook and brands within each. Auto and alcohol brands came out on top for both engagement and fan growth.

Facebook finally sets a date for its IPO

Facebook shares will float on the US stock market on Friday the 18th of May, according to sources in Silicon Valley, following a Zuckerberg-helmed roadshow that kicked off yesterday in New York. It had been expected that the founder would not attend the roadshow, instead being led by COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO David Ebersman, but he did and initial reports suggest he came across as ‘likeable and affable’.

Another milestone for Facebook’s Instagram: 50 million users

CNet claim that Intstagram has now reached 50 million users and is adding 5 million users per week. Growth doesn’t look like it will slowing down any time soon either, with news that since allowing users to post to Sina Weibo, 100,000 Instagram photos have been shared on the network.

Facebook adds Instagam-lite functionality for feature phones

Facebook hasn’t forgotten about those of you without a smartphone, updating their Facebook for Every Phone app to provide simple photo filter options so everyone can join in the vintage-feel-fun.

Facebook makes another mobile acquisition: Glancee

In what’s arguably a blow for Foursquare, and definitely one for direct competitor and SXSW darling Highlight, Facebook has acquired location app Glancee. While Facebook has been typically quiet on its plans for the app, it fits in well with the company’s location strategy of going beyond simple check-ins toward allowing users to share their past, present and future locations.

Facebook releases mobile app data

The Facebook developer blog last week revealed the traffic it drives to mobile apps, sending 160 million visitors to mobile apps just last month (an increase of 100m since late February). The impact of integrating Facebook functionality is revealed further by looking at the top grossing apps for mobile, 7 of the top ten iOS and 6 of the top 10 Android apps are integrated with the platform. Facebook suggest that features like Single Sign On and Open Graph have been responsible for the phenomenal growth of apps such as iOS video sharing app Viddy, which now has more than 16 million users.

Open Graph is ‘steroids for start-ups’. Or is it?

More evidence of the impact of Facebook’s Open Graph, with the latest study looking at how Facebook helped accelerate growth for apps such as Pinterest, Viddy and Socialcam. Inside Facebook has also delved further into Viddy and Socialcam’s techniques, which seem to be pretty successful.

The risks associated with this kind of super-speed growth, and dependence on the Facebook platform, are becoming evident too, with Pinterest’s recent sharp drop in active users being put down to Facebook disabling the auto-publish function and today’s furore over the Washington Post’s and the Guardian’s decline in traffic from their social reader apps, which Martin Belam has expertly dissected.

Facebook’s new ‘action links’

Also of interest to brands, Facebook has reintroduced ‘action links’, the customisable links which provide a way for users to engage with apps more easily, increasing the viral potential of each story. Foursquare is one of the first to take advantage of the new functionality, adding a “save this place” link to check-in stories. Clicking on an action link will share a story on users Timelines. Previously, users could Like or comment on an activity or click to visit the app, but there weren’t app-specific calls to action that functioned this way.

The social (engineering) network?

Facebook’s desire to get users to share their organ donor status has come under the spotlight this week. Although some are clearly happy to sign-up (by the end of it’s first day 100,000 users had registered) it does raise questions over Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for Facebook and if it will continue as a platform that connects individuals or becomes one that seeks to influence them.

Twitter personalises discovering stories

Twitter will roll out a redesign with increased personalisation of the Discover tab in the coming weeks. It will use additional signals, such as tweets that are popular among people you follow, to select stories to display. The new design will also show who tweeted about particular stories, adding a social context to them.

Google+ Hangouts On Air now available to users worldwide

Originally only available to selected broadcasters Google+ has now made its Hangouts On Air feature available to all users. If you have something to say to the world you will be able to broadcast live publicly from Google+, YouTube or a website, see viewing figures, and record and share your broadcast.

Pinterest drives more sales than Facebook

On the other hand, Pinterest’s reputation as a driver of sales continues to grow. According to jewelry retailer Bottica, Pinterest drives 10% of its sales compared to 7% from Facebook. More importantly, those customers spend twice that of Facebook users. It goes to show that people perhaps really do use Pinterest to discover new products.

Foursquare partners with OpenTable to offer dinner reservations

Foursquare have launched a function to actually make a dinner reservation through their app using OpenTable. OpenTable, an online reservations service is currently available in over 15,000 places across the US, handy for users and another incentive for restaurant owners to maintain their Foursquare presence.

LinkedIn claims B2B top-spot, acquires SlideShare

In the wake of research from HubSpot indicating that LinkedIn is the place to be for B2B conversions. In 2011, LinkedIn generated a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of 2.60%, on average four times higher than Twitter (0.67%) and seven times higher than Facebook (0.39%). It’s also growing faster than these two rivals but recently fell behind in monthly user activity

More importantly, LinkedIn confirmed last week that it had acquired professional content sharing community SlideShare for around $120 million. In March, SlideShare had 29 million unique visitors and the site currently has 7.4 million presentations uploaded. SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha made an important point: he perceives LinkedIn as a genuine social network, rather than just a collection of online CVs.

Man City vs Man Utd scores a million tweets

The popularity of sporting events on Twitter continues: after the record-breaking tweet total generated by the Barcelona-Chelsea game, data from Sysomos suggests that the Manchester City vs Manchester United football match received over 1 million mentions on Twitter.

Budweiser run Zeebox dual-screen campaign for FA Cup Final

In more football news, Budweiser ran a dual-screen campaign together with Zeebox to allow users to interact with Saturday’s FA Cup Final. Most interestingly, viewers could also play a Be The Ref social game within the app, which let them enact the part of the referee or dispute decisions, and share their decisions with other friends via the app’s Facebook integration.

Nutella go nuts over Facebook

Nutella claims that it’s Facebook ads outperformed TV in a recent campaign. Ferrero attributed 15% of sales from their Christmas campaign to Facebook, and it was also the channel that gave the highest return on investment. It’s fair to say that social media helped them spread their story.

Der Big Mäc: McDonalds Germany crowdsource burger

In celebration of it’s 40th anniversary in Germany McDonalds will create its first crowdsourced burger. Part of the ‘Mein Burger’ campaign fans were asked to create their own burger using an online burger-builder, name it and put it to the public vote. After 5 million votes were cast on over 100,000 burgers, the winner emerged as the ‘Pretzelnator’. According to McDonalds (and somewhat implausibly, considering the number of votes), 1 in 4 Germans took part in the campaign:

Baskin Robbins launches Foursquare promotion for Men In Black 3

Despite the first Men In Black movie being released over 10 years ago, marketers are hoping to cash in on the franchises success a third time around. One of the more interesting promotions comes in the form of a Foursquare check-in competition from Baskin Robbins, which is supported by a mobile site where consumers can register and also add Facebook check-ins or share their entries. Check-ins on either platform enter the user into a sweepstakes as well as earning them achievement badges they can share across Facebook and Twitter.

National Trust: a great British day out

The National Trust are launching a campaign that asks Facebook users to design a ‘Great British Day Out’. Aimed at targeting a younger audience, the Facebook app allows users to select a National Trust destination, choose a theme for their trip and invite friends. Facebook users can vote for the top 20 days out with the winner eventually being decided by the National Trust.

Republicans expand social media efforts with ‘Social Victory Centre’

The Republican National Committee digital team has created the ‘Social Victory Centre’ app, the first of its kind in the political sector. Working on the principle that politics is inherently social, they hope that the app will amplify natural sharing activities such as recommending articles. The app also features a ‘phone from home’ ability that allows those in non-contentious states to make calls on behalf of the RNC to attempt to persuade voters in battleground states.

• How are marketers creating and executing global social media campaigns?
• How can companies overcome cultural, language and other barriers when doing social media marketing?
• What are the best practices for businesses to manage their social media presence around the world?
• What are the pros and cons of using worldwide social media such as Facebook or Twitter vs. working with local social platforms?

We’re rather chuffed that We Are Social was included as one of the four vendors they identified as able to help marketers on a global basis.

It’s worth either watching the recording of webinar or going through their deck below:

Welcome to your weekly social status update, a round up of the biggest stories in social media.

Without further adieu;

Paying for Tweets a PR disaster waiting to happen
An ABC Media Watch revelation last Monday has opened a can of worms for organisations paying celebrities to tweet for them. The Australian highlighted the negative response by the Australian public to the South Australian Tourist Board paying chef Matt Moran $750 to tweet about Kangaroo Island. We Are Social’s own Julian Ward commented on how less than a dozen tweets can create a crisis for a brand:

The total reach of potentially damaging tweets was 3,453,843 and the cost is huge but unknown at this point. By doing what they have done, what does it say about the brand? Why go so cheap and why risk so much?

Facebook advertising revenue stalls despite strong growth
Figures from the 1st quarter of 2012 have shown that even the might of Facebook is not impervious to the advertising business cycle. Sales of $1.06 billion in Q1 were slightly down on the $1.13 billion reported in Q4 of 2011, though it’s not uncommon for marketers to tighten their belts at the start of a new year.

Even so, it’s important to emphasise how Facebook’s users remain enamoured with the site – the social network now has 900 million users, of which 526 million use the site every day.

Despite this Facebook has shown strong growth in areas beyond new users. A recent amendment to their filings for their public offering has shown that Facebook now hosts over 42 million pages and 9 million apps. Since December 31, 2011 the number of pages with 10 or more likes has increased by 5 million and  the number of integrated apps has increased by 2 million.

Facebook upgrades Android app
Late last week Facebook released an updated version of their Android app including updated messenger features and new shortcuts to encourage photo sharing. From the outside this seems like a direct attempt by Facebook to negate Google’s advantage on the platform.

As they own the operating system Google can integrate Google+ into the phone in ways that Facebook cannot. The updated app hopes to combat this by adding new icons allowing users to access Facebook’s camera feature with ‘one tap’.

Facebook have further enhanced their Android offering by announcing that Android apps will now work the same as web apps – if you click on a link to an app from your mobile Facebook News Feed, it will now load on your Android phone (or take you to the download page if it’s not installed).

Instagram sharing on Twitter increases 20x in 12 months
The Instagram juggernaut keeps on rolling. Not satisfied with being bought for $1 billion dollars this month the photo sharing app has been taking Twitter by storm. Sharing between Instagram and Twitter has doubled in the last two months and is 20x what it was a year ago.

Though some of this growth can be attributed to the new Android app, research shows that the average number of shares is also increasing. Impressive.

Facebook tests and launches a new set of features for select brands 
Facebook is testing a new button that will simplify the process through which Pages create Sponsored Stories directly from their posts. Rather than using a complex ad dashboard, the ‘promote’ button will appear on the Page publisher as well as on posts that have already gone live.

The feature is aimed at small to medium sized businesses that want to promote their content but cannot afford premium products such as Facebook Reach Generator.

Facebook has also made Offers available through the API to a select number of partners. Offers are a new type of story that enables Page Owners to post coupons that fans can collect through the News Feed.

Making this available through the API will allow developers to integrate the feature into their social media management systems.

In addition, Facebook have also relaunched their ‘Locations’ app to fit the Timeline layout. The app allows users to search from a company’s Page to find business locations near to them. At the moment the app is only available to select brands working with Facebook.

New Facebook Timeline apps
Christian Hernandez, Facebook’s Director of Platform Partnerships has revealed the latest set of Timeline apps to be released. JustGiving, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Sky Italy and Canal+ are among the 18 new additions to the Open Graph world.

LinkedIn launch iPad app
LinkedIn have added an iPad app to their iPhone, Android and Mobile Web products. The app has the ability to sync with the iPad’s calendar offering the user Linkedin profile data on attendees of meetings and conferences.

Google+ launch share button
Google+ have launched a share button available to publishers worldwide to add to their site. What’s interesting about it is that is stands alongside the +1 button, in case users want to share to their Circles without necessarily showing approval to a story. Particularly at a time Facebook are downgrading the importance of the share button, it will be interesting to see how this performs.

Barcelona vs Chelsea sets new Twitter record
There’s nothing like a sporting giant killing to get us all talking. Last Tuesday was no exception with Chelsea’s dramatic upset of the reigning European Champions Barcelona sending Twitter into a frenzy of excitement. The game knocked the NFL’s Superbowl off the top spot as the biggest sporting event on Twitter peaking at 13,684 tweets per second. This demonstrates the growing use of Twitter as a way people share experiences of live events on a mass scale.

Will.i.am live-tweeting during The Voice 
Building on the theme of enhancing live events through social media, The Voice judge Will.i.am was not satisfied with merely providing entertainment through the UK’s TV screens. Will tweeted from his judging chair during the show to provide followers with extra insight into how he was feeling about his act’s performances.

Channel 4 air live Twitter response ad
On Sunday night, in the first ad break for Homeland, the UK’s Channel 4 premiered the trailer for Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s new film. Viewers were then asked to share their thoughts on Twitter using the hashtag #areyouseeingthis, with the best tweets picked out to appear in a live response ad in the next break. It was the first time ever viewers tweets have been shown in a live response ad and it worked – the hashtag was a trending topic in the UK, and the response ad worked well:

With Prometheus also teaming up with Zeebox, a dual-screen TV app, to offer a pair of Premiere tickets to one winner out of the many who watched a synchronised ad through the app, it was a successful night for the film’s promo team.

Gawker’s new commenting service
Gawker have launched a new proprietary commenting system called Burner, which is based on anonymity.

What’s interesting is not so much the change itself, but the reasons behind it – namely, to disrupt commenting cliques. Removing names means that in theory, it won’t just be the same people repeatedly dominating commenting threads. Which all in all, is probably a good thing.

Elle launches Shoppable Trend Guide
Elle have launched a clever Facebook app where users can click ‘love’, ‘want’, ‘own’ or ‘buy’ on each product page. By default, all interactions with the app are shared automatically on their Facebook Timeline — so even if users don’t make a purchase, they may draw curious friends in to interact with the app. It’s a nice way of attempting f-commerce – including purchase as part of the app, rather than being the entire point of the app.

Pepsi launch global campaign focussing on social
Pepsi have launched a new brand campaign called Live For Now, which puts social at the heart of the campaign. This is partly through a ‘social media cheat sheet’, the #NOW board which pulls together the hottest stories from social media.

According to Techcrunch:

Beyond serving as a news aggregator, Singh says the site will include other features, like the ability for celebrities to pose challenges to their fans, and exclusive deals courtesy of sites like Thrillist. And naturally, the content can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

But according to Pepsi, the campaign will go above and beyond the Pepsi micro-site:

As part of the “Live for Now” platform in the U.S., Pepsi will present a series of exclusive pop-up, Twitter-enabled concerts this summer featuring major music artists. Additionally, Pepsi’s first of its kind Twitter music partnership will enhance consumers’ music experiences and bring them closer to what is hot in music today.

Considering their previous success in social media, it will be interesting to see how this campaign gets on.

Kraft personally thanks 4,632 Facebook fans with music video
Apart from competition prizes, there’s very little reciprocal love from brands on Facebook. Kraft tried to change this on Tuesday. First, they posted on their Facebook Page ‘LIKE this post, and you never know what may happen’.

The post garnered over 4,600 likes – with each person then thanked in a ‘Likeapella music video’:

C&A Brazil puts Facebook likes on store hangers
Before Mother’s Day, C&A Brazil put Facebook like counters on the hangers in their flagship store – and uploaded their collection to their Facebook Page. Then, whenever anyone liked one of the products, the numbers would update in real-time. A nice way of convincing people to purchase.

Volkswagen create innovative flipbook ad for their Facebook Page
Volkswagen have created a genius little ad on their Facebook page. Through a photo album that doubles as a flipbook you can click to watch the Volkswagen Tricari Arc drive through the desert into an urban area in a continuous loop. The ad builds on what Smart Argentina did in Twitter recently, but is the first of its kind on a Facebook page. (The comments are also worth a read).

Hasbro bully tactics create social media backlash
Toy manufacturer Hasbro have received large scale condemnation for the way they dealt with blogger Martyn Yang. The blogger, whose hobby was writing about the brand, was tricked into giving his home address so that Hasbro could press legal proceedings against him. It seems ridiculous that brands still operate in this way when a quick email or phone call would have most likely wrapped the whole situation up with a far more satisfactory result.

The team here at We Are Social spends a lot of time tracking the latest developments in social media.

A large part of that investigation is designed to help us put together an accurate and up-to-date picture of social media platforms and their audiences around the world.

However, in addition to mapping out today’s social media behaviour, we also spend a lot of time thinking about what’s going to happen next – understanding how social media are likely to evolve, and identifying the next big opportunities for brands and organisations to connect with their audiences.

We’ve been working with a number of brands around the world over the past few months to explore that future, and those explorations helped inform a presentation we gave this morning at the Internet Show in Singapore.

The focus of our session was ’12 Provocations’ on the things that we believe will determine the next wave of success in social media.

It’s important to note that these aren’t ‘predictions’ in the classic sense; rather, they’re the areas we believe brands should be thinking about and bringing to life if they want to stay at the forefront of social media excellence.

Some of the underlying trends will (hopefully) sound familiar, but the key takeaways from this session were the implications for brands and marketers within these trends.

You’ll find the full context for these 12 provocations in the SlideShare deck above, but here’s a convenient overview:

1. Mobile Social

The future of social will be mobile, so marketers need to adapt their approach and content for smaller screens and slower connections.

2. SoLoMo Takes Over

With that shift to mobile, location-specific mobile platforms (SoLoMo) will move to the core of our audiences’ social media activities. As a consequence, marketers need to work out how they can bring their brands’ social promises to life wherever they have relevance.

3. Search-Social Crossover

People will increasingly turn to their social networks to get more personally relevant answers to their searches. As a result, conversations will become a central component of SEO – one reason why we believe Google is banking on Google+.

4. Social Baked-In

Social media experiences are no longer confined to host platforms. The Like, Tweet and +1 buttons are now ubiquitous across the web, and this trend towards ‘social everywhere’ functionality will only accelerate in the coming months.

5. Social CRM

There’s much more value to be earned from a conversation than there is when you simply talk at someone. As a result, brands need to shift the focus of social media activities away from an advertising mentality and into a more supportive, interactive approach.

6. Inclusive Content

People are more engaged when they are actually part of the action. As a result, brands need to explore ways to create content that features everyone in the audience, rather than simply delivering one-size-fits-all broadcast messaging.

7. Interface Innovation

The way we interact with internet-powered devices is changing all the time, and that change is accelerating. Brands need to rethink the ‘point-and-click’ paradigm of traditional web experiences, and start exploring multi-sensory social media experiences.

8. Curation and Funnelling

People are struggling to keep up with all the activity in their various social streams, and are turning to aggregation services like Flipboard and Zite to help manage that flow. However, there is currently no place on these platforms for platform-specific display advertising (e.g. Facebook banner ads) or hosted apps, so brands need to identify better ways to use core content to engage people organically.

9. Social ‘Nicheworks’

Brands are realising that huge fan bases mean little if no-one’s engaged. The savviest brands will begin to build small, highly engaged communities where they can learn more about what their audiences want, need, and desire.

10. Corporate Social Proactivity

Beyond just making great products, people expect brands to make a meaningful impact on their world. As a result, brands need to explore ways to actively build their broader communities, and use social media to celebrate these activities.

11. Influencer Measurement

A brand’s promise is much more credible when a third party endorses it. As a result, influencer activity will form a key part of brands’ social media strategies, but in order for that to be effective, we need more sophisticated and reliable ways to measure meaningful influence (beyond generic measures like reach). We fully expect to see the big monitoring companies push this area in the coming months.

12. End-to-End Measurement

Any marketer who says that they still don’t know which half of their marketing dollars is wasted is clearly not investing enough in measurement. Simple techniques like UTM tracking (for online purchase) and control group research (for offline purchase) can help reveal highly meaningful indications on the dollar value delivered by each specific social media activity.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, so we’d love to hear your thoughts on the trends that are shaping the future of social media too – why not let us know in the comments?

And if you’d like a more tailored view of the implications these ‘12 provocations’ will have for your brand, just drop us an email and we’ll be happy to explore the future with you.

According to Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising report, social networks and consumer-generated media continue to have a significant impact on advertising as consumers reliance on word-of-mouth in the decision-making process has increased significantly. The report showed that 92% of consumers trust friend’s recommendations above all other forms of advertising – up 18% since 2007, with trust in consumer opinions posted online up to 70%, a 15% increase in four years.

Sponsored ads on social networks, a new format included in the 2011 Nielsen survey were found to be trusted by just 36% of consumers, underlining that a paid strategy for social networks alone is not enough.

Consumers respond to social media symbols on TV

A new survey has reinforced the idea that social media and television are a perfect match. The survey, carried out by Accenture, found that one-third of US television viewers interacted with a social network ‘after seeing a social media symbol on the TV screen’, with the Facebook ‘Like’ being the most recognised symbol. Interestingly, US television viewers are more likely to recognise QR codes than Twitter hashtags.

Facebook tests and launches a range of new features

It’s not exactly news that Facebook is focusing on mobile – witness the purchase of Instagram – but it is interesting that they’re focussing on all mobile users. Recently, they’ve launched a new ‘Facebook for every phone’ app which creates a much better mobile experience for non-smartphone users, and in good news for brands, includes the ability to vist Facebook Pages within the app. It’s a move which shows Facebook is keen on mobile domination across the market.

Facebook has implemented a ‘listen’ button on artists’ fan Pages that lets users instantly stream songs from an artist’s catalogue. The feature could help make Facebook a go-to option for people looking for new music, similar to the Myspace in its glory days, but more likely will just integrate music more strongly into the existing Facebook product.

Facebook is also testing a new “trending articles” feature to highlight social reader articles within users’ News Feeds in an attempt to drive more users to Open Graph news apps. Particularly for smaller news sites, this could have a big impact on the number of people reading their site.

In addition, Facebook has delivered “real-time” analytics to Page admins for the first time. This overdue improvement provides new abilities to help marketers measure how well a post is performing on their Pages now, rather than 48 hours later, and modify their content (and advertising spend) accordingly.

It’s an interesting move now, as over the next few weeks, Facebook will introduce more granular metrics, measuring actions other than ‘Likes’, within its ads management platform. Facebook’s product manager for Pages Insights David Baser said the measurable actions “could be anything [such as] commenting or sharing a page post, claiming an offer, or, instead of just installing an app, actually using an app or doing things within an app.” The new feature titled “Action Measurement” will appear as a column and pie chart in Facebook’s Ads Manager and will help marketers tailor ads for relevant consumers.

It seems clear that Facebook are trying as hard as they can to get existing advertisers to spend more money with them – both through letting marketers to optimise the performance of their posts, and by making advertising more measurable.

Google products get the social treatment

YouTube aims to become more social and increase revenue by possibly introducing Google+ comments to the site. It could be a mutually beneficial move for Google – encouraging better quality comments on YouTube and also increased use of Google+.

In a smaller piece of news, Gmail users can expect to see recent photo and video thumbnails from Google+ when they hover over the “people” widget within their inbox.

Foursquare announce 20 million users and advertising platform launch

Foursquare announced last week that it now has 20 million users accounting for 2 billion checkins and adding another 10 million new members since it hit the 10 million mark in June 2011. Users were awarded with the ‘4sqDay 2012′ badge, which took them to a page reading:

In 2010, Foursquare fans declared April 16 4sqDay (4/4^2 – nerds after our own heart!). Two years and two billion check-ins later, you’re still why we get out of bed each day. Thanks to all 20 million of you for making us part of your lives. Happy 4sqDay!

Plans for a mid-June launch for a paid-media platform have surfaced which will give merchants the ability to promote a deal to check in at a given place. According to the reports, Foursquare is pitching brands to become launch partners, and it’s a move which we can definitely see being of particular interest to restaurant chains.

Tumblr to overtake blogs, will introduce advertising

Tumblr looks set to overtake ‘blog’ by the end of the year in Google searches. It’s not surprising then that the micro-blogging giant announced monetisation plans for the site with the obvious route being into paid advertising.

Tumblr CEO David Karp has in the past dismissed the idea of using ads to monetise the site, but it looks like he has little alternative now – investors want a return on their dollar, and ads are by far the easiest large-scale way to monetise the site. Nonetheless, it will be a bespoke ad product, as rather than launching display ads, brands will be able to pay to promote their Tumblr posts on users’ dashboards.

Pinterest losing its interest

After its explosive growth in recent months, it seems Pinterest’s bubble may have burst and might now actually be losing users. Monthly active users of their Facebook app are down from 11.3 million on March 1 to just 8.3 million today. It’s likely that the hype around the photo-sharing/collecting site motivated many people to join who have now decided Pinterest is not their bag.

Quora and Path both raise funds and plan expansion

According to TechCrunch, Quora is set to raise between $30 – $50 million in its Series B fundraising, giving it a $400 million valuation. Co-founder Adam D’Angelo will also be investing up to $20 million of his own money along with other investors according to one source.

Location-based app Path closed its Series B funding of ”more than $30 million” with investors including Sir Richard Branson, which values it at $250 million. In his email statement, Path CEO Dave Mortin noted the investors’ commitment to building Path “for the long term” with the funding being used for “international growth and expansion as well as user adoption”. It’s unclear whether he meant they would be spending money on advertising, or just on improving the product to boost user adoption.

Klout launches Brand Pages – ‘a new twist on influence’

Klout, the influence measurement company, is now topping 12 billion API calls a month – and has launched Brand Pages to try and work more with brands. According to Klout, the newly launched Brand Pages give ‘influencers a place to be recognised and have a direct impact on the brands they care about most’.

Red Bull have teamed up with Klout for the Beta launch and are offering their top advocates the chance to win a trip to the X Games or, more likely, some merchandise. It’s good to see Klout trying something new, but what they really need to work on is their influence measurement which could do with some work.

Brands tweeting and the Olympics

If you’re working for a brand which isn’t an official Olympic sponsor, even mentioning the Olympics on social media channels could get you in hot water. While Rax Lakhani makes a fair point that it will be impossible for the IOC to keep an eye on every tweet, but while the rules are clearly overbearing, it’s still an unnecessary risk to break them.

It was notable in the pre-Christmas period how little variety there was on brand social media accounts, with everyone talking about Christmas and little else, so it will be interesting to see how skilled community managers perform in posting content which deflects attention away from their competitors’ Olympic sponsorship, without breaking the rules.

In other Olympic news, the IOC has launched the nicely designed ‘Athlete’s Hub’ which will bring together social media updates from different athletes. While you could just follow them all on Twitter, this is an easier way to follow the Olympic stars, with less effort for the ordinary fan. Nice.

Honda ask people to give up Pinterest – sort of

The new Honda campaign for the CR-V strikes of one where somebody has come up with a decent pun – Pintermission – and built a campaign around it. The campaign revolves around offering active pinners $500 to give up Pinterest for a day, and instead go outside and do the things they’ve been pinning about. It even features personalised invitations and persuaded a few super-users to give Pinterest up for a day.

But as Adweek neatly put it:

The campaign is nicely designed and executed, but somewhat frustrating. If the only way your brand can relate to Pinterest is by dissing it, isn’t it disingenuous to build a whole campaign around it?

Quite.

Dr Pepper’s new Facebook Connect campaign

Dr Pepper have launched a new campaign called ‘The Best Day Of High School’ which creates a bespoke video for each user by connecting it up with their Facebook profile. Considering how long Facebook Connect has been around, it’s a little underwhelming.

Air New Zealand give consumers cashback for recommendations

UK-based Air New Zealand customers can earn £50 for every Twitter, Facebook, email or blog recommendation that turns into a premium economy booking. Consumers that register for the trial can earn cashback on bookings for the premium economy seats. Although the campaign will probably show impressive numbers, it will hard to prove it has convinced people to book who wouldn’t have otherwise. Looks like the marketing team may be winging it.

Fulham FC attempt Foursquare Super Swarm

Before their home game against Wigan on Saturday, Fulham attempted to unlock the Super Swarm badge for all those checking in on Foursquare. While this isn’t particularly innovative or interesting on its own when you consider there was a crowd of 20,000+ at the Cottage, Fulham also plan to introduce special offers on tickets and retail items throughout the season that you can only redeem with Foursquare.

Boris joins Sina Weibo

Boris Johnson’s campaign for re-election as Mayor of London has even seen him join Sina Weibo in a bid to win over London’s Chinese community. We don’t think we’re going out on too much of a limb to say Boris probably isn’t writing his updates…

Italian ‘blog killer’ law returns

In a quite incredible story, the Italian government is trying to pass a law so brilliantly ridiculous one could be mistaken for thinking Silvio Berlusconi was still Prime Minister.

The proposed law – which is designed to protect those libelled online – works like this:

In order to protect people from online defamation, this law states that each webmaster of whatever website must rectify within 48 hours (even if you’re a private blogger who just left for the weekend!) any page on the website itself, if somebody just tells him or her (how?) that they consider themselves wronged by that page. No discussion or reply allowed, no judge needed, and the fine for not “rectifying” within 2 days is 12K Euros [about $15,000].

Nuts. In other words, if I write a fact and somebody disputes it, I have to change what I’ve written. Looks like the trolls have finally won.