KakaoTalk to launch PC version in June
Korean’s leading chat app, KakaoTalk, will soon unveil a PC version of its popular mobile messenger application. It is expected to launch later this month upon completion of its beta test to access user reception. This desktop version is equivalent to its mobile version, with features such as friend lists, chat rooms and notification features. To get on board, users have to register with their computers first and will be notified via the mobile app each time they log in from the PC. This latest move by Kakao could potentially shake the landscape of South Korea’s instant messaging market, with increased chances of users abandoning other desktop messengers, such as NateOn, for KakaoTalk’s upcoming PC version.

China Mobile’s VoIP  app, Jego, is set to take on Skype
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator, will be releasing a VoIP app similar to Skype called Jego. Like other chat apps, it provides free in-app text messaging, video calling and multimedia sharing but has an edge over the rest with its global calling plans to landlines and mobile phones. In fact, its infrastructure is likely to deliver more reliable VoIP calls than Skype and the calls may even be cheaper depending on its offerings. This latest development puts up a good fight for China Mobile against other chat apps and is a great stepping stone for its international expansion.

All-in-one app MelonFriends for the Overseas Chinese
MelonFriends is an Android app that was launched on 3rd June by a startup team in Singapore called Melon Sail. It targets the Overseas Chinese and aims to help them better manage their multiple social networks from both Chinese and overseas platforms namely Sina Weibo, Ren Ren, Facebook and Twitter. Users can view the streams separately or aggregate them into one. With more developments in the works, including interest-based channels and social shopping services, MelonFriends may just be the best native app for the overseas Chinese.  

Leaked document reveals Line’s monetization model
As reported by TheNextWeb, Line has been working on official corporate accounts to diversify and increase its revenue streams. Companies can now connect with online users for either six months or a year, with a cap of 15 or 30 messages a month to its followers. Line is expected to earn thousands of dollars per subscribed company, charging company fees for both sending and receiving texts and varying these charges based on the number of followers.

Apart from texts, Line also extends its popular cutesy stickers to companies by offering corporate sticker accounts. Publishing fee for production of stickers will cost NTD 1 million ($33,438) excluding taxes. This allows for 8 downloadable stickers for a period of one month, which can be used by fans for a duration of six months.

Smartphone usage hits 50% in 6 countries
eMarketer research has found that, in 2012, the percentage of mobile phone users with smartphones hit 50% in the UK, Norway, Sweden, South Korea, Australia and the USA, where the figure of 50.1% amounted to a year-on-year increase of 11 percentage points, up from 39.1% in 2011. Other markets are expected to reach the milestone in 2013, particularly in Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland. The global average figure lags slightly behind at less than one third, not expected to approach 50% until 2017, when a figure of 49.3% has been mooted.

Mobile and social set for biggest increase in digital ad spend
The Association of National Advertisers has surveyed 20 major US brands about their digital ad spends, finding that mobile and social are set for the biggest increases. For mobile, 65% plan to increase their budget and 25% keep it the same, with only 10% intended to reduce. For social, 55% are planning to increase their budget, whilst not a single brand had plans to take money away.

Facebook introduces verified pages
As is already the case on Twitter, Facebook has rolled out verified pages for brands, celebrities and public figures. Once an account has been verified, a small blue tick will appear next to the name on their profile and in searches, allowing Facebook users to recognise the true social presence of their favourite brands and celebrities. So far, the network is working on applying the process to those pages with the largest audiences; currently, it is not possible to request verification.

Twitter planning FBX-style ad retargeting exchange
Twitter is rumoured to be planning an ‘ad retargeting exchange’, much like Facebook’s FBX, which would allow brands to retarget people who have visited their website with adverts on Twitter. This could prove lucrative for the network, especially considering FBX’s success. It is worth noting that, as yet, the changes are unconfirmed and Twitter has made no statement about them.

Tumblr to introduce in-steam desktop ads
Just a week after its acquisition by Yahoo, Tumblr has announced plans to roll out in-stream desktop ads next month. The plans would be expected to produce a great increase in Tumblr’s ad revenue from last year’s $13 million, especially with the assistance of Yahoo’s 2,500 strong sales team, compared with the pre-acquisition department of 25. However, one of the greatest fears after the $1.1bn deal that saw Yahoo purchase the network was that of over-commercialisation; it will be interesting to see how users respond to the changes.

We Are Social create social element of adidas’ ‘Nitrocharge’ launch
adidas has worked with a number of agencies including We Are Social to produce an integrated campaign surrounding the launch of its new ‘Nitrocharge’ football boot. The product, aimed at the tireless, fearless ‘Engine’ of a team, is being promoted with the likes of TV ad, mobile game and a social campaign that uses the hashtag #TheEngine to drive interest and tease the boot, followed by a series of local ‘Power Pitch’ competitions to find the ultimate Engine, culminating in a global final held in Brazil, the host country of the 2014 World Cup.

Etihad use LinkedIn to create business-focussed mapping tool
The national airline of United Arab Emirates, Etihad Airways, has used LinkedIn to create a mapping tool aimed at increasing the efficiency of business trips. The tool allows business travellers to search their LinkedIn connections by location; these are then displayed on a map, displaying the geographical proximity of the user’s connections at various points on their trip. Detailed search functionality based on area, industry and importance allows contacts to be filtered for increased relevance. Peter Baumgartner, CCO of Etihad, said:

This tool is particularly useful for our guests traveling for business. Ahead of a business trip, the guest can use this tool to see not only his or her immediate contacts in the region, but also second-degree contacts. This fosters more effective networking and greater opportunity to create connections across international boundaries.

Insta-Model campaign to promote Sky Living Series
Sky Living has produced an Instagram campaign called ‘Insta-Model’ to promote the latest series of Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model. Three hashtag-led competitions, dubbed #Pout, #Fierce and #Selfie, will see fans upload photos of themselves in the hope of winning a VIP trip to London, plus the chance to feature in the show’s credits. The winners of each preliminary round will be judged by Dannii Minogue, Elle Macpherson (both judges on the show) and Sky Living respectively, with the overall victor chosen by fans on Twitter.

The consequences of hate-speech on Facebook
As we reported in last week’s Tuesday Tweakup, a great deal of public furore has occurred as a result of Facebook’s failure to adequately monitor content that promoted violence towards women, especially after a number of brands pulled targeted adverts that had appeared alongside it. Facebook has been forced to admit that its hate-speech monitoring has failed, “particularly around issues of gender-based hate”, noting that it plans to crack down harder on such messaging in future. The issue for brands remains the fact that, as Facebook’s ads are targeted by user and not by content, it is impossible to know where on the site your ads will appear. We Are Social’s Robin Grant discussed the problem with Marketing Magazine, pointing out that users will automatically make the connection between the page they are on and the adverts on the page.

They see ads next to content and they make that connection.

As such, brands will have to be vigilant as long as such content remains on the network. Yes, it’s up to Facebook to ensure that inappropriate content is dealt with quickly and adequately, but brands must also have measures in place for when things slip through the net. However, brands can’t possibly respond to the demands of every pressure group, as Robin says:

Brands cannot afford to have their day to day business held hostage by campaigners. It is crucial to take a nuanced approach, you can’t simply respond to everything.

Line now has 160 million users worldwide
Line hit 150 million users earlier this month, and it has continued to grow at an incredible rate. TechInAsia recently reported that Line has now reached 160 million users worldwide. The biggest contributors to this growth are Asian markets, with Indonesia at the forefront of the Japan-based chat app’s continuing expansion. In a press conference this week, Line revealed that its entire suite of apps had exceeded 23 million downloads in Indonesia – apps that include Line messenger, as well as Line Games, Line Camera and others. Being well-aware of the potential in this market, the company has been vigorously targeting potential users in the market with TV commercials starring local celebrities. In particular, top celebrity Twitter user Agnes Monica has been featured in the ads; her own line of stickers will soon be launched on the messaging app as well. Line is also succeeding in other Asian markets as well, as Line has revealed a user base of 16 million in Taiwan.

Indian brands shift marketing spend to social media
According to a recent report by eMarketer, social is quickly coming into focus for marketers in India. Citing a survey by Ernst & Young, the findings suggested that 83 percent of Indian businesses with “robust social presences” were also advertising their brands on social media this year. Of these brands that advertised on social media, 42 percent were purchasing ads to promote contests or online campaigns. 34.2 percent were using these ads to strengthen brand awareness through social platforms. Advertising budgets for social media were also increasing according to the survey. Nearly 22 percent of the surveyed brands were allocating 10 percent or more of their marketing budgets to social media, while almost 59% had dedicated at least 6 percent.

eMarketer notes that Facebook and Twitter claimed the most focus amongst social platforms; more than two-thirds of these brands were regularly posting twice per day on Facebook, while Twitter came close with 62 percent of brands tweeting at the same frequency. It is interesting to note, however, that these brands are also paying attention to emerging social networks as well. Most notably, Pinterest, Google+ and Foursquare have come into the limelight for Indian marketers. Over 73 percent of brands are already using Pinterest or have plans to use the platform in the next year, while over 71 percent are using Google+ or have plans to do so within a year.

In UK, 56% of young adults recall mobile ads on social
A new study from March 2013 indicates that young adults in the UK are paying more attention to ads they encounter on their mobile devices. Citing a study by ComScore MobiLens, eMarketer reports that 38% of smartphone users in the 18 to 24 age bracket were more likely to recall an ad they had encountered if they were mobile. The findings of the study revealed that over 56 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old respondents recalled reading brand posts on social networks through mobile devices. By contrast, only 35.5 percent of the general population recalled the same. This disparity continued across all mobile advertising activities discussed in the survey, as indicated in the graph below:

eMarketer predicts that this trend will only continue to grow, as more and more UK consumers are adopting smartphones; this is particularly true of those in the young adult age bracket, as 84 percent of them are expected to use smartphones this year with an astonishing prediction of 98% smartphone penetration by 2017.

Two-thirds of Indian employees feel social boosts productivity
Zeenews India reports that over two-thirds of Indian employees believe social media increases productivity at work. Citing a March-April 2013 study conducted for Microsoft by research house Ipsos, the findings suggest a disparity between employee perception, employer restrictions and the results from the study, which found social media was a hinderance to workplace productivity. While 70 percent of employees cited security concerns for social media restrictions, 60 percent indicated that the restrictions themselves were leading to declines in productivity. Meanwhile, 71 percent of the respondents believed that social media was a beneficial to increasing productivity in the workplace. 7 out of 10 saw social media as a valuable resource for collaboration at work.

Social advertisers prefer branded pages over paid ads
eMarketer reports that 7 in 10 brands are marketing to customers through branded pages. Citing a Q1 2013 survey by Forrester Consulting, the results suggested that 73 percent of respondents were using brand pages on social platforms to communicate with their audience. Amongst the US brands surveyed (those that spent at least $100,000 on social advertising), this strategy proved to be the most popular method for reaching out to the brand’s audience. By contrast, only 56 percent of the respondents were using paid ads on a social media platform. Microblogs like Twitter had been used by 52 percent of the respondents in the survey. Professional networks were less popular, but still claimed a higher share of brands for company pages than it did for paid ad space.

KakaoHome receives 500K downloads in 9 days
Korea’s leading chat app KakaoTalk has seen its Android app KakaoHome take off at an immediately rapid rate. According to TheNextWeb, the app which resembles Facebook Home surpassed 500,000 downloads since launch last week, in a matter of days – 9 to be exact. As TheNextWeb notes, this means that KakaoHome reached this half-million downloads one day sooner than Facebook Home, which took ten days to reach 500,000. What’s more impressive is the fact that this app is only available in its home market. KakaoTalk users are the highest in South Korea, as the app is downloaded on an estimated 90 percent of smartphones in the market. This rapid rate may also be explained by the fact that 90% of these Kakao-enabled smartphones are Android-powered devices.

Twitter’s popularity in Japan rivals Facebook
When it comes to social media in Japan, platforms have seen relatively sluggish rates of adoption across the board. According to eMarketer, the percentage of the Japanese population on social networks comes in at 38%, lagging behind “South Korea, the US, most of the Western European countries and even Russia and Brazil.” The report also notes, however, that Twitter has been the exception to this general state of social media in the Japanese market as 36% of internet users over the age of 10 were on Twitter. Based on a study conducted by goo Research, this percentage illustrates that Twitter’s user base is encroaching upon Facebook’s current rank at the top amongst social platforms. The results indicated that about 38.9% of the respondents in the study were Facebook users, just over three percentage points above Twitter’s 35.8%. By contrast, home-grown Mixi claimed third place with a significantly wider margin at 27.1%. eMarketer also predicts, however, that Facebook grow by a considerable 43% this year, a rate that is surpassed by the respective growth rates of India, Russia and Brazil.

WeChat now has 50M overseas users
It’s been just over a month since WeChat hit a milestone of 40 million overseas users (out of a total user base of nearly 400 million). TechInAsia reports that WeChat has added 10 million overseas users since then, to reach an impressive 50 million registered users outside of China. While this figure suggests an impressive growth rate among international users, TechInAsia notes that this percentage is still a far cry from those of other messaging apps. Whatsapp’s 200 million active users are mostly outside of China, while 105 million of Line’s 150 million users are outside of Japan, Line’s market of origin. Tencent notes that WeChat is popular across many of the major app stores (such as iTunes, and the app stores for Android and Windows Phone). This popularity is particularly strong in some South and Southeast Asian markets as well, such as Singapore, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Tencent to open Malaysia office, target WeChat growth
According to TheNextWeb, Tencent is planning on opening a new office in Malaysia, in order to leverage the particularly strong popularity of its messaging service, WeChat. Posheu Yung, the VP of International Business at the Chinese company, reasoned that the new branch was a smart move and planned because the WeChat user base was so strong already in Malaysia.WeChat users in Malaysia reached one million in Fall 2012. Upon launching a localised version of the app six weeks ago, Yung claims that WeChat has further strengthened its foothold, to claim an impressive 70% penetration amongst all smartphone users in the market.

Teens tired of Facebook but stay to keep in loop
The Pew Research Center has released some interesting research into teens on social media. The major story that the press has taken from the research is that teens are supposedly tiring of Facebook, with many citing boredom due to “drama” and an ever-increasing adult presence. However, it should be noted that teens feel they need to stay on Facebook in order to not miss out and the report shows usage growing by one percentage point to 94% of all teenagers surveyed. The below graph gives an overall picture of the areas teenagers occupy on social media.

Has Facebook usage in the UK decreased?
YouGov has claimed that Facebook usage in the UK has decreased by 9% from this time last year. According to the ‘YouGov SixthSense report”, an examination into interaction with brands online, the proportion of those who have stopped using social media sites due to annoyance at marketing has risen by 18% since April 2012, while 20% have stopped doing so due to the possibility of third parties using their information. Of those still on Facebook, 45% have liked a brand page and 22% have followed a brand on Twitter. The reasons for following or liking a company range from wishing to get something in return (34%) to being a current customer (33%) and looking for special offers (47%). Facebook has looked to rebuff the figures, claiming that its monthly active usage figures are increasing in the UK, up from 30 million in March 2011 to 33 million in December 2012 and that this had continued to increase throughout the last month.

How do mums in UK use social media?
Social media is a hugely important parenting resource for internet-using UK mums, with 40% of users claiming to have bought products based on comments they’d read and 31% stating they’d decided against a product for the same reason.

Of these, forums like Mumsnet were the most important, visited by 15% of those surveyed at least once a week, followed by the Facebook pages of parenting blogs (12%) and the blogs themselves (6%). Toys were the most popular product they wished to learn about at 36%, whilst 33% mentioned baby food and drink and 28% baby medicine or health products. Mums also showed significantly different behaviour to men and other women, as shown in the graph below.

Facebook ‘likes’ on TV pages translate to likelihood to view
Viacom has discovered that those who ‘like’ Facebook pages of their shows are 75% more likely to watch them than those who do not. Based on 5,000 viewers aged 13-49 in 5 key markets, they also found that social media was the 3rd most important point of discovery for new shows after word of mouth and promos, as well as that, of those who discovered a show via social media, 70% would watch its debut, compared with 48% of those who discovered it elsewhere. The way in which viewers interact with social content was divided into three categories: functional, communal and playful, with the two former groups most important to fans. For example, 45% used social to keep up with show news and 44% wanted information on air dates and times (both functional), compared with 34% who wish the brand themselves and share their tasted (communal) and 30% who participate in games related to the shows (playful).

How Twitter influences automotive consumers
Following on from research in the UK, Twitter has partnered with Compete to examine how the network affects prospective US automotive buyers, finding that exposure to an automotive brand’s tweet made users more likely to take actions off-platform, from searching for car brands to interacting with third party sites. Users who saw a Tweet from an auto manufacturer were also over 4x as likely to perform “lower funnel actions”, such as requesting a quote or looking for dealerships to test-drive.

Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter & driving traffic
When it comes to driving traffic, Facebook has the highest conversion rate of social networks examined in Monetate’s latest Ecommerce quarterly, but Pinterest wins when it comes to average order value. Facebook’s conversion rate, of 1.08%, well outstrips Pinterest (0.36%) and Twitter (0.22%), but Pinterest’s order value of $80.54 is over ten dollars higher than Twitter ($70.17) with Facebook ($71.26) only slightly closer.

Brands’ social marketing activities
A survey into US advertisers spending over $100,000 annually on social media has shown that branded pages are more common than paid adverts. On the whole, ad spending in social is expected to grow 31.6% in 2013, reaching $4.2 billion by the end of the year.

Facebook ads can be targeted by recency of activity
Facebook advertisers using third-party tools with access to Facebook’s ads API can now target ads by recency of activity, using the “action spec” parameter. Previously, they were capable of specifying an ad audience of people who had performed a certain action (either on Open Graph or Facebook directly) within a 14-day period. Now, the time frame can be changed to allow for increased accuracy. It is also possible to target via a “negative action-spec”, meaning that brands can push adverts to consumers who have not performed an activity within a specific time frame.

Twitter introduces two-factor login authentication
Following on from a spate of recent high-profile hackings, Twitter has introduced a form of two-factor login authentication based on a verified mobile number. To register, you simply need to visit the ‘account settings’ page, select ‘require a verification code when I sign in’ and follow the prompts to add a phone. Then, every time you look to login to Twitter, a six-digit code will be sent to the chosen phone number, which you’ll need to input in order to gain access.

Twitter’s TV ad targeting
As a result of the strong connection between watching TV and tweeting, Twitter has introduced targeting based on TV advertising. Using video fingerprinting technology, the system automatically assesses where a TV commercial has been aired, as well as which users have tweeted about the show during which the ad was shown. The selected number of partners who are running national US TV commercials will then be able to target Twitter advertising in order to support their on-screen campaign.

Twitter releases Lead Generation Card
The latest addition to Twitter’s ‘Cards’, whereby richer content can be included in an expanded tweet, is a ‘Lead Generation Card’ for advertisers. Within these, brands can post a description of an offer along with a call to action, as shown in the below example. The user’s name, @username and email address are then filled in automatically and sent to the brand, upon them clicking the CTA button.

Some brands have started using the system already, which is currently only available to Twitter’s managed ad clients. Priceline has posted travel deals and an opportunity to receive email updates, while other users have included New Relic, for-profit university Full Sail and a number of startups seeking beta-testers. Undoubtedly, there are a number of positives to the new system, especially for advertisers. The collection of leads is hugely important to a number of businesses, especially if these are directly offered by people interested in a particular product. Including this functionality within an expanded tweet greatly reduces barrier to entry, which should result in increased lead collection.

Yahoo launches new Flickr
On the same day as her company’s purchase of Tumblr, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced a wealth of updates to photo-sharing network Flickr. An attempt to become more photo-centric has seen updates to the home page, as well as a new activity feed and photo stream, all of which put photos at the forefront.

There will also be a free terabyte of space for every Flickr user, meaning essentially no limit on the number of photos you can upload (within reason). Discussing the focus for the changes, Mayer stated:

It didn’t fare so well, it languished. We can make Flickr awesome again… Flickr had become about words and blue links. This product is heart-stoppingly beautiful.

We’ll wait and see if users agree with her.

MessageMe passes 5 million users
Mobile messenger app MessageMe has passed 5 million users, just 75 days after launch. Having grown beyond 1 million in its first week, the app’s multimedia-rich approach seems to be paying off, with a $10 million round of seed funding following their initial $1.9 million round in December 2012. The figures, whilst impressive, leave MessageMe far behind competitors including WhatsApp, with 200 million monthly active users and WeChat, with 195 million. Nevertheless, it does have a planned growth strategy, with two new buttons for Stickers and Money expected to be introduced when it switches focus to monetisation.

The Champions’ League Final on Twitter
Saturday night saw the Champions’ League Final, the culmination of the European football season. Naturally, this was discussed on Twitter a great deal, with 4.8 million tweets worldwide in the period from an hour before kick off until 30 minutes after the final whistle. Arjen Robben of Bayern Munich was the most talked about player and his 89th minute winner brought about 107,229 tweets per minute, eclipsed only by the 117,601 in the minutes after the game ended. Three other moments, the two other goals and one disallowed goal, were responsible for between 70,000 and 80,000 tweets per minute.

Brands also used the final to create some interesting Twitter content. UEFA, organisers of the Champions’ League, hosted a ‘Twitter Mirror’, whereby fans could view exclusive behind-the-scenes content of celebrities at a special charity match for the occasion.

Live from the UEFA Champions Festival, London, #AfterEarth stars Will Smith and @officialjaden #UCLfinal twitter.com/ChampionsLeagu…

— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) May 25, 2013

Here’s the great Zinedine Zidane at the UEFA Champions Festival via @adidasfootball #allforthis #UCLfinal twitter.com/ChampionsLeagu…

— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) May 25, 2013

This has been used at other sporting events, including French Open tennis and IPL cricket, and will also be in place at Wimbledon this year. As well as this, adidas football posted an excellent responsive tweet after the match, contrasting Bayern Munich player Bastian Schweinsteiger’s emotions when winning the tournament this year and losing it a year ago.

The image resonated with the highs and lows experienced by football fans and was retweeted over 3,000 times.

Sky Brazil enables TV recording via Twitter
Sky, Brazil’s largest TV company, has created a system by which customers can record TV programmes through a special hashtag. First, users must sync their Twitter @handle to their Sky subscriber number. Then, when they see @skybrasil tweet about a show they want to record, all they have to do is retweet those posts with the hashtag #skyrec. The Twitter handle is then connected to the home DVR and the show is automatically recorded. The campaign will be promoted via TV, through paid digital media spend and by using Brazilian celebrities.

World Nutella Day
Sara Rosso, an American blogger based in Italy, set up ‘World Nutella Day’ in 2007, an unofficial event aimed at celebrating the chocolate and hazelnut spread. However, the day seemed to be jeopardised when she received a cease & desist letter from Ferrero, the company who own Nutella. Many were surprised by the brand’s failure to embrace fans’ love. We Are Social’s own Jim Coleman told Marketing Week that Nutella should have decided to “champion and hero” the day and “love people who love the brand”. Instead, he said, their approach seemed “dictatorial”, due to a “risk averse” strategy worried about profiteering from an unofficial recipe book and site advertising. However, it seems as though the day will likely survive after all; after a great deal of public furore, Ferrero backed down and withdrew their cease & desist order.

Branded content and violence towards women on Facebook
On Facebook, ads are targeted by user, not content. This was a problem last week, when ads appeared next to a page making light of violence towards women. Brands such as Nissan, American Express, British Airways, Sky, Easyjet, Ocado and Dove all had ads appear alongside the page and were forced into a reaction by an organised campaign made up of 50,000 tweets with the hashtag #FBrape. Nissan UK were quick to remove the advertising and apologise via Twitter, while Dove faced further backlash by leaving adverts running. Facebook claimed that it is not their business to monitor such content, despite a history of removing certain material. Talking to Marketing Magazine, Robin Grant of We Are Social said:

Despite the facts the ads are targeted at people not content, if this continues, Facebook will need to reconsider their position.

Taco Bell send rings to influencers
Taco Bell attempted a piece of odd influencer outreach last week, when they sent out a number of rings to minor celebrities, along with personalised letters thanking them for their love of the chain. Each ring and letter was accompanied by a $20 voucher and, in some cases, an invitation to the company’s test kitchen at their LA headquarters. Strangely enough, the scheme has paid off, with many of their targets tweeting about the stunt. ‘Model and aspiring actress’ Acacia Brinley, for example, posted the following:

OMG @tacobell IM CRYING THANK YOU OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS HOLY COW JUICE IM SO HAPPY twitter.com/KshaClark/stat…

— Acacia Brinley (@KshaClark) May 17, 2013

Continuing the series on the top Facebook pages for the month of April, here are the reports from the remaining Asian countries.

India:
Pepsi is a new addition to the top 10 brands in the country. This success can be contributed to the Pepsi’s sponsorship at Cricket, Indian Premier League.

Pakistan:

Nepal:

South Korea:
Samsung continues to be top performing brand in Korea. It is interesting to see Ted Talks gaining huge popularity in Korea.

Japan:

Hong Kong:

LinkedIn passes 20M users in India, is second largest market behind US
TheNextWeb recently reported that LinkedIn users in India had soared to an impressive milestone of 20 million users. This makes India the second largest market on the platform, only behind the US in terms of registered users. What’s more impressive is the fact that user sign-ups on the professional networking platform has gone up by over 500 percent since November 2009, when the company opened its first office in the market. Currently, India represents half of the 40 million users in Asia Pacific, and 9 percent of its 225 million users worldwide. In other markets across the region, the user bases are comparatively small, but growing as well: there are 4 million users in Australia, 2 million in Indonesia, and 1 million in both Malaysia and the Philippines. Singapore also recently passed 1 million users as well.

There are 18M social media users in Thailand; Instagram users up 163%
According to a recent report by TechInAsia, Thailand’s social media landscape has seen rapid growth this year. Citing a new infographic by ZocialInc, the results indicated that Instagram users had increased by a staggering 163 percent in the last year, to over 600,000 users. While this figure still pales in comparison to Facebook’s 18 million, the social network’s growth also declined to a relatively sluggish rate of 28 percent in the same time period. Social media is growing healthily across other platforms as well: Line has 15 million users, while YouTube has over 5 million and Twitter has about 2 million in the market.

Emerging markets drive Facebook user growth
Facebook continues to gain users at a rapid pace, even after passing 1 billion users last year, and 1.1 billion users last month. eMarketer reports that the growth in user base is being strongly driven by emerging markets across the globe; India, Brazil, Russia, the Middle East and Africa are particularly strong markets in the recent gains for Facebook’s user base worldwide. eMarketer predicts that active users will continue to grow as well, to pass 1 billion active users at some point this year. In terms of regions, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America are set to contribute the most across the global user base, by growing at a rate of at least 30% during 2013. eMarketer estimates that Facebook will reach 1.26 billion global users in 2014.

WeChat now has 195M monthly active users
WeChat has continued seeing rapid growth this year. Last week, we reported that the chat app had grown to an impressive 190 million monthly active users. Without skipping a beat, it’s grown again to reach 195 million monthly active users. TechInAsia reports that the chat app has increased by about 23% since last quarter, and over 228% in a year. While WeChat’s 300 million registered accounts are predicted to breach 400 million during this month, the increase in WeChat’s monthly actives suggest that WeChat and Whatsapp are quickly becoming neck and neck for this figure (Whatsapp has 200 million monthly active users).

In the US, 90% of mom internet users are on social media
According to a recent report by eMarketer, over 90% of US moms who used the internet were also active social media users as well. Based on a comScore study from March 2013, the results suggested that moms who used social media in 2013 were up by 20% compared to those who did in 2010. The study also indicated that moms in the 18-34 age bracket were the most likely to use social media, but also the demographic that spent the most time on them. In fact, young mothers spent the most time on Facebook, even compared to the general population. While time spent on Facebook was 24 percent higher on desktop, the combined differece of desktop and mobile Facebook usage suggested that “young moms spent 260 perent more time than the average user.” US moms were also more likely to spend more time on other platforms across social media as well. 77 percent of US moms were on YouTube, compared to 61 percent of the total internet users in the country. 27 percent of US moms were on Instagram, while only 15 percent of the general internet population were using the platform.

Alibaba invests $294M in China’s top online mapping company AutoNavi
Two weeks after taking an 18 percent stake in Sina Weibo, China’s biggest e-commerce company has announced another investment of $294 million in AutoNavi. This investment will take up 28 percent shares of the company. AutoNavi is China’s top online mapping company, beating search giant Baidu and even Google Maps in terms of mobile maps market share in China. As an industry leader, AutoNavi seems to be a perfect partner for Alibaba in seeking opportunities to explore and develop new location-based e-commerce services. It is also clear that this deal will give Alibaba access to a huge pool of consumer behavior data based on location. With Alibaba’s acquisition of the social music service Xiami last year and their more recent stake in Sina Weibo and AutoNavi, Alibaba has quickly become equipped with big social data and strategic alliances to explore a new kind of e-commerce service—one that will integrate three big things: social, mobile and location. It will be interesting to see what kind of revolutionized services Alibaba will bring out to the market in the future.

In Japan, politicians leverage Line to deepen ties with supporters
The importance of mobile messaging apps is growing. Many brands already know it and try to leverage the increasing impact of mobile messaging app to engage with their consumers. Politicians in Japan are no exception to this recent trend. According to Japan-based mobile messaging app Line, ten political parties in Japan have opened official accounts on the app. This was after the ban on the use of internet-based mediums for election campaigns (including social networks and blogs) was lifted. Line provides politicians an opportunity to engage with their supporters more directly and actively, by allowing users to opt-in to receive message from political parties, as well as leave feedback and comments on their accounts. Will this impact on the way politicians in Japan communicate with public?

IGAWorks joins KakaoTalk to increase game releases and app traffic
Korea-based mobile messaging app Kakaotalk has announced a partnership with IGAWorks, the local in-Game advertisement provider. The partnership will involve integrating IGAWorks’ adPOPcorn into Kakaotalk that will provide “in-game and in-app incentivized offers, as well as pop-up adverts that link through to social and mobile media channels.” This collaboration is intended to strengthen Kakaotalk’s video game offerings—features that have contributed to distinguishing Kakaotalk from other mobile chat apps. By allowing all game developers on Kakaotalk to access adPOPcorn, Kakaotalk is looking to create a new channel of income for video game developers and publishers. The goal is to encourage more game releases which will drive more user traffic to the app. This also reflects KakaoTalk’s desire to attract more brands as well, to tap into Kakaotalk as a mobile advertising platform.

Japan’s Quan-inc partner with AIS to roll out sticker maker app “AIS myStickerShop”
Japan based mobile application maker Quan-inc has partnered with AIS, Thailand’s top mobile network operator. Quan-inc is well known for developing Lounge - a mobile messaging app with unique features of collaborative drawing and message decoration. The partnership is intended to release an app called “AIS myStickerShop”. The app allows users to create their own stickers for their mobile messaging apps. Currently, only Android users can enjoy the service. iOS users will have to wait a while for an iOS version to come out later this month. Quan Inc’s partnership with AIS could be indicative of a desire to expand their presence in Southeast Asia, as the deal with AIS may open up an opportunity to launch future apps for Singtel, Singapore’s top mobile network operator and a stakeholder in AIS.

We recently spotted this great video over at Vietnamnay‘s YouTube Channel.

They’ve remixed much of the info we shared in our recent report on Vietnam’s online ecosystem, but they’ve translated it all into Vietnamese, and they’ve added some great new stats and insights into the mix too:

We’re big fans of remixed content, so let us know if you’ve made one too, or if you spot any others you think we should feature.