Week in digital #3: brands and bands on Instagram, iPhone4S, Burberry UK #1 on Facebook
This week sees the launch of the iPhone4S, but no iPhone5, Apple’s “visionary” Steve Jobs dies, Burberry is UK’s most successful brand on Facebook, more bands and brands use Instagram, Facebook Pages reveals translation tool and much more.
New Facebook metric means brands cannot rest on their ‘Likes’ laurels
As part of its recent changes Facebook has introduced a new metric ‘People Talking About’ which is designed to help brands get closer to users. With ‘Likes’ no longer being the only – and perhaps not most accurate – way to measure user engagement and such, Mashable (via Big Spaceship) has discovered that the introduction of this new metric changes the top ten list of the most popular Facebook brands based on engagement. Coca-cola has been bumped of the top spot if you look at talked about, giving space to Starbucks to claim number one. Interestingly Victoria’s Secret jumped from 10th (Likes) to 3rd (Talked About).
Björk releases ‘Biophillia’ album online first and offers highlights on iPad
We’ve already seen how the iPad lends itself to fashion and creatives alike who are looking to push boundaries for technology, so it comes as no surprise that musicians are joining in. To promote her newest album ‘Biophillia’ – which she has released online first – Icelandic artist Björk has released an iPad app where you can hear her use the iPad as a musical instrument. You can also have a go by downloading her app!
Burberry is UK’s most successful brand on Facebook
According to research by online analytics company Socialbakers the British fashion house – which was the first one with a tweetwalk during London Fashion Week -has the highest number of fans in the UK followed by Skittles and ASOS, writes NewMediaAge. Meanwhile car manufacturer Volkswagen has seen the greatest growth in percentages from January to September with an astonishing growth of 1833% (from 2,446 to 47,277).
The Vaccines crowdsources fan photos through Instagram for new music video
More and more brands are using Instagram successfully to interact with people online, and now indie rockers The Vaccines have used the iPhone photo-sharing app to make their new video. “Wetsuit” is made almost entirely of crowdsourced images by fans which have been submitted through Instagram using the tag #vaccinesvideo. The band received nearly 3,000 photos from fans who were keen to get their seconds of fame.
YouGov says the tablet war will be between the iPad and the Amazon Kindle Fire
Research by the polling company on people’s perceptions about tablet PCs shows that the iPad is the most-wanted tablet (no surprise there) and that the only serious rival to Apple’s device is likely to be the Kindle Fire. While no date has been given, the launch of the latter on the UK market could see the tablet war heat up as Amazon is likely to sell the Kindle Fire at a much lower cost than Apple’s iPad, not to mention that the online retailer can match that of iTunes content offering.
Ted Baker integrates Instagram in autumn/winter social campaign
High street fashion retailer Ted Baker has launched a social media campaign to push its autumn/winter collection and is encouraging UK shoppers to try on their latest collection and pose in deer masks. Photos of the shoppers will be taken by fashion bloggers using the popular Instagram iPhone app and uploaded to the Ted Baker Facebook page. We’re sure that people would do it just for the fun of posing in deer masks but to be on the safe side the image with the most likes will win £500 worth of Ted Baker vouchers.
YouTube launches film rentals in UK
Great news for film lovers in the UK as they can now rent more than a thousand feature films by going to youtube.com/movies. The video giant announced this via its official blog and marks a major shift in the online video rental market as well as a big move for YouTube.
Apple unveils the iPhone fi… four S? What happened to the iPhone5?
Yes that’s right the most anticipated phone the iPhone5 never happened and instead Apple proudly unveiled the iPhone 4S. The Guardian was even so excited about the 5th version of the popular smartphone that it announced it… You can read more about the updated fourth version here, but the biggest update is Siri a new voice recognition app. We tested it in the office this week and while it is pretty cool we expect it can become pretty annoying when people around you start dictating text messages/emails/tweets/Facebook updates for everyone to hear…
YouGov says the tablet war will be between the iPad and the Amazon Kindle Fire
Research by the polling company on people’s perceptions about tablet PCs shows that the iPad is the most-wanted tablet (no surprise there) and that the only serious rival to Apple’s device is likely to be the Kindle Fire. While no date has been given, the launch of the latter on the UK market could see the tablet war heat up as Amazon is likely to sell the Kindle Fire at a much lower cost than Apple’s iPad, not to mention that the online retailer can match that of iTunes content offering.
Spotify adds 2 million users after Facebook integration
After becoming buddies with Facebook, Spotify now forces new users to sign up with Facebook so if you want to stream music you now need to be Facebooker. Despite people expressing their dislike, this controversial twist doesn’t appear to have had any negative impact to the service which has seen Spotify’s user base grow from 3.4 million users BF (that’s Before Facebook) to 5 million AF (After Facebook)
No sprechen Italiano? Facebook introduces instant online language translation tool
Facebook is as we all know a country in its own right without boarders but unfortunately with language barriers if you’ve got loads of international friends, which is particularly the case of Facebook Pages. With one single click you can now easily understand the whole thread by translating the content– and for those with the knowledge you can also help translate to make the service more accurate. This will be a great feature when it’s introduced on personal profile pages too as it can be annoying to not understand what multi-lingual friends are talking about.
Facebook is the size of the internet in 2004
With more than 800 million users the largest social network now has as many users as the WHOLE internet had in 2004, which is also the year Facebook debuted writes digital analyst and marketing executive Brian Solis. Based on data released by Pingdom, Facebook now is apparently larger than the population of Europe – with Russia included – representing 28% of the current internet population.
Gumtree launches social media-based daily deals
We’ve seen the rise in popularity of daily deals sites like Groupon and LivingSocial over the last years, and now online classifieds website Gumtree.com has followed suit. Using social media Gumtree will ask consumers to suggest the offers they’d like to see as well as trialling deals with a group of volunteer bloggers who will write reviews of their experiences.
Heinz sells personalised cans of soup through Facebook
Dubbed the Get Well Soup, Heinz are allowing Facebook fans to personalise cans of their favourite soup to send to friends and family. An innovative idea now that the autumn colds are increasing as well as the Arctic conditions that might be sweeping across the UK in a few weeks.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dies, aged 56
After a long battle against pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs passed away this week at the age of 56. Apple said Jobs has been “source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives”, with US President Barack Obama leading the long line of tribute saying the world had “lost a visionary”.
