Customer Experience

By Nick Johnson - October 14th, 2013

Youth and video, the commercial opportunities with Twitter and Pinterest widget for Android

Pin to Android

If your corporation has been experimenting with Pinterest, news that the platform will soon have a widget for Android will offer a whole raft of new opportunities. As part of the strategic agreement, each Telefonica mobile business, including Vivo, O2 and Movistar, will have the exclusive rights to provide the new Pinterest Android widget to its customers.

The global partnership will see the Pinterest Android Widget exclusively distributed and available for immediate download on Android devices sold by Telefonica, starting initially in the UK. The Widget, built by Pinterest for the partnership, will be pre-installed on Android devices in participating Telefonica territories. In the UK, it will be featured in O2 Recommends and the Android Widget folder, as well as promoted through multiple channels.

"Interests are global, which is why we want Pinterest to be available wherever people want to find ideas for the everyday projects in their lives and get inspired for the future," said Don Faul, Head of Operations, Pinterest. "Telefonica is one of the world's most advanced communications companies, and together we can provide a one-of-a-kind mobile experience to new and existing pinners around the globe."

Like Facebook Home users, this move opens Pinterest to an even larger potential user base by placing the widget on handsets. Any barrier to use is completely removed. The convergence of the major social networks onto mobile platforms is now complete and offers brand owners a unique opportunity to cultivate their brand advocates no matter their location.

Youth like video

The latest results from the Voxburner annual Youth 100 survey, with YouTube being crowned the leading brand in the 18-24 age group in the UK. The brand beat the likes of Facebook and even Google to the top spot. To bolster this research from Thinkhouse also revealed why the youth market is so attracted to some brands over others. The overwhelming reason given was that the content was linked to a ‘brand they can relate to’ with over half of respondents also stating that the content on these social networks is compelling.

Luke Mitchell, head of insight, Voxburner said: "YouTube has come out on top again because of the broad utility it has in young people's lives every day - from music player to information provider and entertainer - and the fact it delivers a high-value experience almost every time. So much exposure to YouTube content comes through shares, young people are either inspired, amused or informed each time, leading to strong positive sentiment."

It seems that content is still king when it comes to engagement across all social networks, with video continuing to claim the top spot year-on-year, as the most compelling type of content that any brand can produce.

Twitter not a commercial platform?

The Twitter IPO is being watched very carefully by brand owners and their marketing departments, as a potential new ad platform. However, the small print in the Twitter IPO has raised a few eyebrows as the company has stated that it only has just under 220 million active users each month. Many have pointed to this number as being too small for realistic conversion levels. Facebook claims over a billion active users during the same time period.

Says Adam Shlachter , senior vice president of media at DigitasLBi said: “Scale still matters. How consumers embrace [Twitter] and tap into it or tune in or out is going to be critical. A consistent audience to tap into and it's not an audience that is just churning in and out.”

Twitter certainly makes money from advertising as figures from 2012 show that of the company’s $317 million revenue, 85% of this came from ads. This is of course far short of Facebook’s reported $4.3 billion in ad revenue for the same period.

However the doomsayers are missing the point of Twitter, which has a very different proposition for ad marketing. Focusing on what appears to be low unique users misses that Twitter is more immediate than all other social media networks. The value therefore, of any given tweet – or more importantly how often and with whom they are shared – is important to understand and build into the ROI that can be expected from the Twitter component of any given marketing campaign.

Remember forums?

In an age of social media, it’s easy to forget the heritage of these platforms. The humble forum it seems is the unsung hero of today’s social media networks, as according to a new infographic from ProBoards, the forum is still as popular as it ever was. “The survey results do not surprise us since platforms such as Facebook and Twitter do not give you the level of control that forums do,” said Patrick Clinger, founder and CEO of ProBoards. “Forums provide greater customization and more options...”

Clearly the background of the user will have to be taken into consideration. Users of a certain age will have used forums, with the coveted 18-24 age group growing up with social media networks. For brands, the forum can be an easy win for their websites if they would like to place discussions within their online presence. However, has the forum had its day with social media platforms offer so much more flexibility?

Until next time….

The Useful Social Media team.