Mediaboss Marketing

Twitter has been on a journey following CEO Jack Dorseys declaration last year that the brand had struggled to identify whats its core function should be.

Despite now being a 12-year-old company, it was only after 10 years that the brand stood back and asked the question what is Twitter?, according to Joel Lunenfeld, Twitters global vice-president of brand strategy and Oliver Snoddy, senior director of marketing, talking to Marketing Week at the Cannes Lions Festival last week.

If you talk to 100 different people, theyll tell you 100 different use cases for Twitter thats what we were trying to go after, says Lunenfeld.

The marketing team has spent the past 18 monthsredefining the brand and clarifying what Twitter is and how people should use it, an approachchampioned by the brands first CMO Leslie Berland who joined the company from American Express last February.

Its amazing how one crystallised decision can help be the filter for everything else we do

Leslie has been driving this heavily since she came on board, says Snoddy. How do we simply communicate what, why and how Twitter? If we can do that at the very highest level everything else fits into it. There are products that help tell that story but we just wanted to step back and tell our brand story in a simple way.

READ MORE:Twitters new CMO kicks off marketing push to lure new users

Twitter is now looking to shift perceptions around the brand and what it should be used for, part of which involved changingits category on the app store from social networking to news.

A lot of people still see us as a social network and have other misperceptions about the brand, Snoddy explains. So our focus is to shift some of those misperceptions. We know thats not how our users are using Twitter. As a brand we need to do a better job at mirroring that back to people.

People do network on Twitter but it is not the main reason people come, adds Lunenfeld.

To promote this new messaging and position as a news brand rather than a social network, Twitter has gone to market with its first brand-level campaign in the US.

The message is quite simple, its around seeing every side of whats happening but its almost a product demonstration wrapped up in a brand film, says Snoddy. The hope is that you get to see what Twitter is for and also get to see howit makes you feel when conversations are happening. When things are firing up and trending theres that sort of joy that we refer to as the Twitter smile.

The first TV spot is around music but the brand plans to introduce further iterations focused on entertainment, sport and news. Similar activity will be launched in other parts of the world too, including in the UK.

This is the first time weve really led with a brand-level message, Snoddy explains. So rather than centring the message on individual products were trying to message the entirety of what Twitter is. Thats something we havent done before. To us at least, thats what we saw as the big opportunity.

Its amazing how one crystallised decision can help be the filter for everything else we do, adds Lunenfeld.

Simplifying the product was one aspect of that, which involved making peoples timelines more relevant to them, as well asmaking video a first class citizen on the platform.

Twitter has so far announced 16 live streaming partners, with everything from a 24-hour news network on Bloomberg and a partnership with NFL, to the launch of an original show called #WhatsHappening.

Its the first time weve done something like this, says Lunenfeld. Were powering it, not hosting it. It will be a daily show built exactly for Twitter.

Its just one way the brand is looking to shift peoples perceptions from it being a social network to a news site.

If you come to Twitter for the first time and dont know what to do it will be a great way to catch up with a voice telling you whats happening and narrating it. It will be good for user growth, it will be good for our brand and it will be great for sponsors, he adds.

Rather than centring the message on individual products were trying to message the entirety of what Twitter is.

In the first quarter of this year Twitter streamed more than 800 hours of live premium video content from partners across more than 450 events. This reached 45 million unique viewers, according to the brand, an increase of 31% from the last quarter of 2016, its first full quarter of live streaming premium content.

Of these hours, 51% were sports thanks in part to the tie up with NFL while 35% was spent watching news and politics, and 14% entertainment. Around 60% of unique viewers were based outside the US, with approximately 55% of unique viewers under the age of 25.

Making this shift and redefining its core proposition is also helping the platform fight fake news, according to Snoddy. Twitter has policies in place to prevent the spread of false information but he claims the way people use Twitter means it is less of a problem for the platform than some other networks.

There is an openness to Twitter and it is structurally quite different to other networks, he claims. We definitely see people fact checking and people taking part in the conversation. Truths organically rise up in the platform.

One of the powers of Twitter is how quickly journalists, the media, influencers whoever might be best placed can actually correct errors and spread true information to counteract misinformation.In some ways the best approach to misinformation is more information and an open dialogue coupled with policy that obviously takes down misinformation.

The brand will be hoping that its new, better defined positioning will help it boost user numbers, which after rising rapidly initially have now slowed. Over the past two years the platform has only gained an additional 31 million users, according to data from Statista. By comparison, Facebook attracted 467 million.

The brands revenues have also suffered in recent months. Itreported a loss of $167m (133m) in the final quarter of 2016, compared to a $90m (72m) loss in the same period in 2015.

And despite a boost in the run up to the US presidential election at the end of 2016, it still only increased active users by 4% to 319 million.

READ MORE:Can Twitter turn its influence and impact into ad revenues?

In order to bring new people to Twitter and reach the right potential audience the brand has been working on a lookalike segmentation model.

Its not as simple as finding as finding 18 to 34s and just going after them, says Snoddy. We looked at people who are current healthy Twitter users and did extensive segmentation of them their behaviour, their value on the platform.

Then we did a lookalike to find people out there that actually look like our current happy users but the one difference being they dont currently use the platform. Its quite a broad group of people but they have commonalities in terms of their interest, mindset and attitude.

As Twitter continues to roll out its brand-level messaging time will tell whether the new approach pays off.

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Twitter insists it is 'not just a social network' with launch of first brand campaign - Marketing Week

New Delhi, June 29: The rise of social networking, especially with the penetration of the internet among all people must create an imagery where each human being is connected to the other in harmony. But then the dark side of the social networking does lurk behind every such positive trait and as a new report suggests, social networking giant Facebook has to remove more than 66,000 hateful posts per week, to make sure that utopian human harmony is maintained.

According to the US-based company, tracking the trend in the last two months, they have removed on an average 66,000 hateful posts per week while monitoring posts which might have been flagged off by other users. Notably, Facebook, and other social networking sites do have an option for the users to report any post they deem offensive, which after being monitored and examined is removed if found violating user terms and conditions.

Disclosing the information on Tuesday while talking about its various methods to control other issues like fake news, Vice President of Public Policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa stated in a post that they are opposed to hate speech in all forms. We are opposed to hate speech in all its forms and dont allow it on our platform, VP Richard Allen said reinstating their opposition to hate speech.

Clarifying as to what qualifies as hate speech, he said, Our definition of hate speech is anything that directly attacks people on their protected characteristics race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or serious disability or disease.

However, it has been agreed by the social networking giant that sometimes the fine line between what is a hate speech and what is not is pretty blurred, which creates a problem in arriving at a consensus as to if a post is indeed a hateful one or not. According them, in such cases, a team internally reviews such posts and take a decision whether to take it down or not.

There have been speculations regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in filtering the content on Facebook, but they clearly stated that although such a step would be really convenient but they are still reliant on users reporting posts as such an AI has not been yet successfully developed. On this Allen said, While were investing in these promising advances, were a long way from being able to rely on machine learning and AI to handle the complexity involved in assessing hate speech.

(With agency inputs)

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Social, Anti-Social networking: Facebook Inc. removes over 66000 hate-speech posts per week - India.com

STAFF WRITER CONNIE SWINNEY

The neighborhood social network site Nextdoor.com allows cities and residents to interact through the dissemination and sharing information.

MARBLE FALLS Just how well do you know whats going on in your neighborhood?

Thats the question Marble Falls city leaders have posed to residents as the municipality joins an online platform that allows users to share information with each other.

Acting as an intermediary between the city and its residents, the neighborhood social networking site Nextdoor.com will foster neighbor-to-neighbor and citywide communication, according to the city of Marble Falls website.

Officials are touting the online tool as a way for residents to have direct access to information provided by law enforcement, fire services, utilities, and administrators.

Also, the platform is expected to encourage residents to offer recommendations to the municipality.

Participants typically post about neighborhood watch programs, safety issues, local events, school activities, garage sales, and lost pets.

The self-managed platform will rely on active participation from the community.

Staff will review the site engagement in six months, Marble Falls City Secretary Christina McDonald said in a news release. There are already 223 Nextdoor residents signed up, and we are confident, with some encouragement, we can increase that number.

The city of Marble Falls has a population of approximately 6,000.

Participants can subscribe to Nextdoor.com for free but must provide proof of residency.

Officials pointed to the success of the website in Georgetown.

Nextdoor is quickly becoming the top social media platform for cities, law enforcement, and fire departments to connect with their citizens, said McDonald in the release. According to the communications department in Georgetown, Nextdoor is their top social media site.

(The service) will be used as an additional tool to provide citizens of the city of Marble Falls information and to encourage engagement with their neighbors and their city, she stated.

The platform is password protected, and city officials said the site never shares personal information with any third parties.

connie@thepicayune.com

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City of Marble Falls to share info with residents through neighborhood social network site - DailyTrib.com

Dating apps are, in their own way, a form of social networking especially as they expand into new areas like friend-finding or professional networking. So it only makes sense that they would adopt video as well, given the growing popularity of the format on social apps like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, as well as the industrys larger embrace of Stories as a means of offering an angle into peoples lives, activities, and interests.

This week, both Hinge and Zoosks Lively are rolling out support for video, each in their own way.

Hinge, for example, will now allow users to augment their user profiles on the service with video. The company says users can add videos up to 30 seconds long, by pulling from those that already exist on their phone. However, its shying away from short-form, disappearing videos like those found in Instagram, Snapchat, or Messenger Stories.

In fact,Hinge will not prompt people to take a front-facing video at all, only those pre-recorded or previously shared to Facebook or Instagram. (The videos imported from social networks can be longer than 30 seconds, Hinge notes.)

Instead, Hinge believes support for videos will allow members to better show who they really are, by sharing fun or memorable moments and activities from their lives. This continues the dating services larger mission of helping users find relationships, not casual encounters.

On Hinge we encourage our members to be authentic with one another because we know that leads to the best connections, explains Hinge founder and CEO Justin McLeod. Our profiles already do a great job, but video creates the opportunity for our members to learn about potential matches in a way that simply cant be captured with still photos and text.

The company will also encourage video adoption, too, by showing Hinge profiles with video to five times more people it says.

Meanwhile, Zoosks newer product Lively is hoping to capitalize on video to bring more people to its app.

Launched last summer as a product from the companys R&D group, Zoosk Labs, Lively had adopted video from the get-go. In Lively, users upload photos and videos that are then turned into story collages, which also include transitions and movement.

Again, the idea is that using video can show off someones personality much better than static, photo-only profiles.

Now, Zoosk is pushing the bar even further in terms of video with the launch of live video chat. The feature, which will be public on Wednesday morning, is designed to help users make connections with people that extend beyond dating.

In the updated app, users will be able to pick a topic and start chatting with others who are also available to chat. But unlike with Livelys profile videos, the chat feature allows users to start their session with their screen blurred. This helps users instantly feel more comfortable, the company explains, without having to worry about what they look like right away.

As users continue to talk, the blur fades away but users can opt to add it back if they want to remain hidden. Zoosk says the blur fades over 40 seconds, but you can tap Add Blur whenever you like to remain hidden.

Lively is about creating fun ways to help people connect, not just match, says Zoosks SVP of Product Behzad Behrouzi. Were hoping to create an overall experience where people can feel more relaxed being themselves, and more excited to meet and get to know other people.

This feature will push Lively beyond dating to help users just generally meet new people. This trend is not one thats limited to Lively. Top dating apps like Tinder, Bumble and others have also adopted friend-finding features as of late, as they become more like social networks. And Bumble is preparing to launch into professional networking in September, with the debut of BumbleBizz.

Shortly after, Bumble will roll out its own video support as well.

Announced in January, BumbleVID will allow users to share video stories on their profile. Bumble says it decided to hold the feature back because it would make more sense from an engineering perspective to launch it in the rebuilt app arriving this fall. That version of the app will support BumbleBizz, but will also introduce features that let you craft different profiles for dating, friends, and professional networking.

Similar to Snapchat and Instagram, Bumble will support short-form videos recorded live or in the past 24 hours, which can be either posted to your profile for all to see, or only shared with matches.

Also like Stories on other social apps, these videos will vanish in a day. However, a later version of the app will allow for a semi-permanent way to keep them. (More to come on that this fall.)

Again, Bumbles interest in video has a lot to do with how the company feels the format will help users show more of themselves, which is the common thread between all the dating apps embrace of video.

Its more of a way to storytell, and express yourself beyond a photo, explains Bumble co-founder CEO Whitney Wolfe, but in a way that was native to how we in our audience already use social media video. We didnt want to reinvent the wheel we wanted to just take what was already working well in other platforms, and give them the opportunity to do that with people they dont know yet, versus their friends, she says.

But these newer dating apps like Lively, Bumble and Hinge arent alone in making video a key feature in their updated user experiences. Even longtime dating giant Match.com is getting into the video game.

The company this week announced its plans for a Stories feature, too. In Matchs case, the stories can stretch to 60 seconds, as compared with Bumbles 10-second videos, for example. And theyre meant to be a combination of photos and videos, similar to whats available on Lively. Plus, you can narrate the content if youd like, to describe the imagery youre showing.

It gives people flexibility, Match CEO Mandy Ginsberg explained earlier in an interview with Mashable. Hearing someone talk about their photo is far better than just seeing the photo. Seeing a video and hearing their voice is, I think, the holy grail in terms of figuring out your attraction.

Match says Stories will launch into testing in the coming weeks, with a national rollout planned for later this year.

Video chat, however, is not on Match.coms public roadmap, nor Bumbles, nor Hinges.

This is likely because of the additional overhead that comes with allowing users to chat live, not only from a product and engineering standpoint, but also from a community safety perspective. It also may not be necessary after all, if two people enjoy chatting with each other a lot, what usually comes next is a request along the lines of, lets get off this app.

Livelys video chat launches tomorrow, around 9 AM PT. Hinges video is live now. Match and Bumble will roll out video later this year.

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Dating apps are embracing video - TechCrunch

June 28, 2017 | Mobile | Social Media

India has experienced explosive growth in the number of Facebook users over the past few years, making the country home to the largest share (32.6%) of users in Asia-Pacific.

According to eMarketers latest worldwide social network users forecast, 182.9 million people in India will log on to Facebook regularly in 2017, equating to 69.9% of social network users and 42.6% of internet users. eMarketer expects user growth to continue throughout the forecast period, increasing 20.0% this year. By 2021, 70.1% of social network users in India will access Facebook at least once per month.

Mobile social network usage is helping to drive up Facebook usage in India. This year, 96.5% of Facebook users will access the platform via mobile device, up from 90.3% in 2015.

By comparison, Twitter users in India will total 10.9 million this year, with 4.2% of social network users and 2.6% of internet users in the country accessing the platform. That number is forecast to reach 15.7 million by 2021, eMarketer estimates.

Mobile devices continue to fall in price, making them increasingly accessible to the average Indian consumer, according to Monica Peart, eMarketers senior forecasting director. This trend will continue to positively impact the growth of various internet activities, including regular use of the countrys most popular social networking platform, Facebook.

Using data collected from sensors, infrastructure and networked devices, smart-city projects are helping municipalities improve efficiency, boost sustainability and encourage economic development. They are also creating more collaborative environments among cities and their businesses and residents. Preview Report

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eMarketer Forecasts Strong Growth in Facebook Users in India - eMarketer