According to a new report by Vision Critical, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter drive as much in-store purchasing as online purchasing, but affect purchasing behavior in different ways. The research gathered 5,900 responses to online surveys to determine how social media influences a consumer’s path to purchase. Facebook was best for motivating customers to make purchases offline and online, while those who purchased after viewing on Pinterest hadn’t thought of making that purchase until viewing the item on the network. Ultimately, technology items – after being recommended to users – are most frequently purchased directly as a result of a recommendation from a friend or social network.
Tag: twitter
Instagram Video: Is It Better For Brands?
The answer, at least at first, seems to be yes. Although Vine is currently more popular than Instagram for media sharing on Twitter, Instagram is quickly making up for lost time. Over 5 million videos were uploaded onto the social network within 24 hours of its release, in addition to the one billion Likes logged per day, and its total user base of over 130 million. What’s more, 67% of brands are already familiar with the platform for marketing purposes, and the extra 9 seconds of video is crucial for advertisers looking to make a pitch. The fact that Instagram is already used widely by social media marketers means that it’s easier for their brands to jump into the video game very quickly. And according to Mashable, videos shared on Instagram have twice as much engagement as photos – and significantly higher engagement than videos on Vine. Ultimately, this means that it’s easier for brands to transition to video production on an app they’re already familiar with, and by breaking down the time limit and adding professional editing features, Instagram video provides a much friendlier, broader marketing platform – with all of Facebook’s users to boot.
Twitter Adds Embed Tracking To Tweets
In an effort to be a more engaging service, Twitter has been working to make Tweets more interactive. Among hundreds of small changes to the service is the addition of links indicating where any given Tweet is embedded on the web. The advantages of this addition are several, providing context for a Tweet’s viral trajectory, and giving sponsors another opportunity to appear with popular content.
Twitter Lists Where Tweets Have Been Embedded
In conjunction with its broader initiative to experiment with different ways of making Tweets interactive, Twitter today announced another new development: Twitter will display a list of sites linking to where a Tweet has been embedded. Listing where a Tweet has been used is another sign of how Twitter hopes to continue to make its platform more interactive and cross-platform across the Internet. This means that Twitter can sell itself better as a broadcasting platform that makes advertisers hungry for promoted spots – rather than taking a best guess about where the Tweet goes after it’s sent.
Twitter Tests Automatic In-Stream Image Previews
In an effort to expand its multimedia capabilities, Twitter is testing an automatic, in-stream image preview. Currently Twitter.com supports two-step in-stream previews, which means that some photos can be displayed in a user’s timeline after the user clicks anywhere inside the tweet. Some users have even reported noticing in-stream previews without the need to click. What this means for sponsored images or posts remains to be seen, but keep an eye out for this important new feature that looks to be rolling out soon.
What Facebook Hashtags Mean For Marketers
Facebook has added hashtags recently, following in the footsteps of Twitter. While privacy settings will still be in effect, the new feature will give brand’s hashtag campaigns a much wider audiences as it can naturally extend to Facebook. It will also give marketers a better measure of engagement than the ubiquitous “like” as it indicates relevance and recency. That being said, do not expect it to have quite the same impact as Twitter as Facebook does not lend itself to real-time conversations in the same way.
Second Screen TV Competition Expands At Cannes
At the Cannes Lions conference, Twitter made the case for its Amplify program, that generates buzz around big TV shows by introducing its latest recruit: Viacom. The pilot program for the partnership will be the MTV Video Music Awards on August 25th, which was one of the first events to generate an authentically trending social media presence. Brands working with Twitter Amplify now include ESPN, Turner Sports, and the NBA, as well as specific campaigns by Ford, AT&T and Coca-Cola. Also pitching at Cannes was Shazam, who announced the “Shazam Engagement Rate,” which is a proprietary metric to judge the effectiveness of TV ads driving people to tag using the app. It will combine data from Nielsen with its own stats, with the goal of showing which ads are most effective at persuading viewers to interact.
Instagram Video And Facebook Hashtags Borrow Twitter’s Model
Yesterday saw the big announcement that Facebook has been hinting at for weeks: video for Instagram, in the form of short 15-second clips. The basic intention of playing catchup to Vine is obvious, but in combination with Facebook’s support for hashtags, the shift in direction indicates an even larger shift towards branding and marketers. Hashtags are a convenient way to organize real-time conversation and create an anchor for people to connect to trending topics – and that’s precisely what marketers want, to be a part of these big discussions. Facebook’s prior ad model, in essence, makes the consumer a pitch-man for a product that they might or might not genuinely enjoy. But the new video and hashtag functions, in combination with the elimination of promoted stories, signals an about face. And it’s no accident that Instagram videos are 15 seconds long, the same exact length as the average TV commercial. Facebook and Twitter are now facing off in a veritable battle for real-time broadcast advertising.
SeatGeek Partners With State Farm
SeatGeek is an Entertainment ticket search engine that uses its data to index popularity, helping brands spot up and coming bands to sponsor. One such brand is insurer State Farm, who has partnered with the startup to look for the next big thing. By watching ticket sales across the web, along with the size of the ticket resale market, SeatGeek believes it can identify bands on the verge of popularity among younger crowds that brands want to reach. This data will help State Farm to sponsor bands that will generate buzz for the brand within the younger age group that it often fails to reach.
Instagram To Launch Videos June 20
Beginning June 20, Instagram will be launching video service, allowing users create and share 5-10 second videos. The announcement comes on the heels of recent news that Vine has surpassed Instagram for Twitter sharing. While Vine has taken off, Facebook’s Instagram does have the advantage of their existing 100 million user base who will not have to install a new app to begin creating videos. Twitter and Facebook have not played nice with integration of their subsidiaries so do not expect inline views of these videos on Twitter.
