All posts by Pierre

Tencent’s Qzone Still Reigns in China Despite Sina Weibo’s Buzz – eMarketer

Tencent’s social site may not enjoy the hype of Sina Weibo, but it still accounts for significant usage and user share

Chinese online media giant Tencent has a genuine hit with instant messaging in QQ, reporting over 700 million (unaudited) users at the end of 2011. But what about the firm’s other services?

Tencent Weibo, probably the second most well-known internet service developed by the firm, is popular, but often plays second-fiddle in the marketing press to competitor Sina Weibo.

Perhaps the success of QQ can help the firm in other endeavors, then. According to an April 2012 report from McKinsey & Company, a global consultancy, Tencent’s Qzone, the social site linked to the IM app, was the most popular social media site among internet users surveyed in the country.

via Tencent’s Qzone Still Reigns in China Despite Sina Weibo’s Buzz – eMarketer.

Facebook Social Readers Are All Collapsing

The Washington Post was the first publication to experiment with a “frictionless” social reader app, which launched last year. If you use Facebook you’ve probably come across it: it manifests as a clustered list of stories that are almost completely unrelated except for the fact that they all come from the same publication.

If you decide to click on a link it doesn’t take you to the story. Instead, it shunts you over to a signup screen for Social Reader, which you have to accept if you want to make it through to the site. This forceful behavior is how the Post’s reader app gained tens of millions of users in a few short months; it’s also how, as Jeff Bercovici at Forbes pointed out this morning, the Washington Post seems to have worn its readers — or Facebook — out. They’re annoyed, and they’re quitting in droves:

via Facebook Social Readers Are All Collapsing.

Is Your Social Media Strategy Global? – eMarketer

As the worldwide social network audience soars well past 1 billion people, marketers are tackling the difficult task of coordinating their social media marketing efforts on a global scale.

A grassroots, organic approach may have worked in the early days, but many marketers now have dozens or even hundreds of social media profiles to manage worldwide. This requires a delicate combination of corporate oversight, to keep brand messaging consistent, and flexibility, to empower local managers who know their markets best.

via Is Your Social Media Strategy Global? – eMarketer.

How to make friends with bloggers – Inside PR – PRmoment

Bloggers can add great value to a PR campaign as they are at the forefront of digital opinion forming. Readers of blogs tend to be loyal and are more likely to be convinced by a blogger’s opinion than any advertising they see.

When building your relationship with bloggers, it’s first crucial to identify those who are most relevant to your audience, to avoid wasting your time and theirs. Stuart Lambert, director of consumer technology at PR firm Weber Shandwick says: “Choose those with greater influence in terms of online hits, Twitter followers and reach via other social media channels such as Facebook, Google+ or YouTube.”

via How to make friends with bloggers – Inside PR – PRmoment.

How to Prevent Scope Creep

Scope creep is the kind of thing that accumulates so slowly and subtly that you don’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late, like when you’ve already promised it or, worse, when you’re already building it. Scope creep is like slowly loading up your plate with little portions of everything on the buffet until you realize man, this plate is getting heavy and omigod I can’t eat all of this, what was I thinking! Except, for the metaphor to work in our case, we have to imagine escorting our clients to the buffet and willingly loading up their plate with every single thing they want knowing full well that they have no hope of eating it all (and that price-per-pound buffets always win by betting on big appetites).

via How to Prevent Scope Creep.

Facebook Timeline Changed the Way We See Brand Pages; Here’s How

When Facebook launched Timeline for brands last month, it wasn’t just marketers’ social media strategies that got turned upside down.

The new format also changed the way consumers experience brands on Facebook.

In a webcam eye-tracking study for Mashable by EyeTrackShop, participants spent less time looking at Wall posts and ads and more time looking at the cover photo on brands’ timelines than they did on their old Facebook Walls.

via Facebook Timeline Changed the Way We See Brand Pages; Here’s How.

Foursquare Launches $10 Instant Verification Service For Businesses | TechCrunch

Foursquare is enhancing its feature set for businesses today, with the introduction of a new verification service for merchants. The company says that for a one-time, $10 fee, owners and managers will now be able to instantly verify their business in order to start using Foursquare’s business tools, which include the ability to offer specials, update the business listing, and access data about their customers and visitors.

via Foursquare Launches $10 Instant Verification Service For Businesses | TechCrunch.

AdamVincenzini.com: 10 Innovative Examples of Traditional Media Using Social Media

However, the smarter operators have realised that they can use social media channels and tools, especially in real-time scenarios, to keep them in their ‘consideration mix’ (this theory that when a consumer is considering between you and your competitors, they will lean more favourably towards you because of the value you have added elsewhere).

via AdamVincenzini.com: 10 Innovative Examples of Traditional Media Using Social Media.

Why memes matter (or what I learned at ROFLCon) — Tech News and Analysis

It’s easy to write off Internet memes — LOLcats, Double Rainbow Guy, taxidermist Chuck Testa – as trivial but entertaining ways to waste time. At least that was my feeling coming into ROFLCon 2012 this weekend. But then a funny thing happened: After two sessions — one on Supercuts and another on Lolitics — it sunk in that memes say a lot about us as a culture and as such bear serious examination.

via Why memes matter (or what I learned at ROFLCon) — Tech News and Analysis.