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 buys US$586 million stake in Sina Weibo
As part of its push into social media, Alibaba (China’s top e-commerce company) has purchased an 18% stake in Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-esque service with a userbase in excess of 500 million. The deal gives Alibaba the option to increase its stake in Sina Weibo to 30% and is expected to rake in revenue of about US$380 million within the next 3 years. Sina Weibo users can expect more e-commerce offerings in the coming months

Line to launch toy smartphone for kids
Japanese chat app, Line, clearly believes in starting young. Shortly after launching its own cartoon series, Line is expected to launch a toy smartphone priced at US$70 on August 8. Using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, children will be able to send stamps and messages when two toy Line phones are in contact.

Top brands on social media in ASEAN
Thailand-based social analytics firm, Zocialinc, has released an infographic ranking best-performing brands on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram in Southeast Asia. The coverage is largely focused on Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and seems to penalize brands that may not have an active presence on all four networks even though they may be doing very well on their network of choice. The full infographic includes interesting insights into user behaviour on the different social networks.

(click through for the full infographic)

Swedish food supplier uses Instagram as Asian food education tool
Want to learn about Asian food? Upload a picture of the dish to Instagram and hashtag #askctfood or tag @AskCTFood and receive details on how to prepare them. The catch? This service is only available in Swedish, as this app was built by Swedish food supplier CT Food.

UK photo sharing users to lose rights to uploaded photos
Changes to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act has resulted in an overnight loss of rights by amateur and professional illustrators and photographers to work that they’ve uploaded to platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Flickr. The Act contains changes UK copyright law which allow commercial use of images deemed “orphan works”, ie. where information identifying the owner is missing. The far-reaching consequences is that millions of photos are at risk since metadata is often stripped from the photos when they’re uploaded. As if that isn’t bad enough, the Act allows for sub-licensing, which allows wholesale of work by someone who has it, without paying the originator a single penny. Penny for your thoughts!

New layout for pages on Facebook mobile
Facebook has updated the way pages appear on mobile, citing a number of benefits for users and page owners. For the former, they note a ‘cleaner, simpler look’, with relevant information such as photos and location positioned alongside interaction buttons at the top of the page. These seem to constitute benefits for page owners too, who will look to benefit from higher engagement as a result of the changes. They’re also set to be provided with the ability to pin important posts and a streamlined management tool. To see how the changes will appear for different users, see the image below:

Twitter testing two-factor authentication
Twitter has begun testing two-factor authentication, in a move that looks to prevent a continuation of the high-profile hackings that have happened recently. From the Associated Press to FIFA president Sepp Blatter, a number of large, verified accounts have been taken over, posting strange and often embarrassing content. Whilst two-factor authentication would be unlikely to be rolled out universally for the sake of avoiding hassle on smaller, personal accounts, it would likely be a welcome move for brands and public figures. Both Google and Facebook already offer a similar system.

LinkedIn launch ‘Contacts’
LinkedIn have introduced a new service called ‘Contacts’. Essentially, it takes details of contacts from various areas of your phone or computer, including email accounts, calendars and address books and compiles them in one place, allowing you to interact with people more easily and maintain important relationships. The service will be launched both on the LinkedIn platform and as a standalone mobile app. The full details are contained in the following slides:

Tumblr introduce in-stream mobile ads
For the first time, Tumblr will include ads on mobile that look like normal posts. Previously, adverts only appeared in “Radar”, where now mobile users will see up to 4 ads per day in the home stream. With collaborators including GE, Warner Bros and ABC, Tumblr are really set to bulk up their advertising revenue, but claim to be devoted to maintaining the current Tumblr experience. Head of sales Lee Brown has stated that:

This mobile advertising opportunity is native to how our consumers experience content on our apps; as a continuous stream.

Advertised posts will be differentiated from others with a $ symbol. Tumblr have stated that, the move will ultimately expand to desktop, but there is no timeframe given as yet.

Budweiser’s ‘buddy cup’ app
Budweiser’s new campaign looks to play on the emotional connection created by touching cups during a shared beer. Their new ‘buddy cups’ link to Facebook, so that you can become friends with someone on the network by tapping cups with one another. Now when you drunkenly agree to add someone on Facebook, you won’t have until the morning to change your mind.

Nike PHOTOiD and Instagram
For the past few years, Nike iD has allowed create their own, customised clothing from a range of colours. Now, the sportswear brand is taking it one step further, linking with Instagram to launch ‘PHOTOiD’, a tool that designs clothing based on the colours of your favourite Instagram photos. It’s certainly a novel idea and it will be interesting to see the extent to which people are willing to use a system like this. Here are some examples that have already been made:

Photograph an advert for free Weetabix biscuits
Weetabix are looking to take advantage of ‘dual screening’ behaviours with their new #takethebiscuit campaign, which asks for fans to take a photograph of their latest TV advert. Fans can then show their picture at a branch of Boots to pick up a free breakfast biscuit. Whilst the idea is an interesting one, it did have a couple of problems. The barrier to entry is quite high and, according to reports, some Boots stores were unaware the campaign was happening. You can see the advert below in all its glory, complete with #takethebiscuit hashtag to encourage Twitter conversation.

We Are Social’s design campaign for Kleenex
We Are Social have launched a competition to design the new Kleenex Box, partnering with internationally-renowned designer Kelly Hoppen to create a brief asking young creative talent to decorate the box in their own style. Using Talenthouse to collect entries, the final decision will then be made by Kleenex’s Facebook community, who will vote on which design gets made into the next tissue box.

Urban Outfitters and Converse’s joint Vine competition
Fashion retailer UO and trainer brand Converse have partnered to produce a competition on Vine, which asks fans to post a video of ‘A day in the life of your Converse’ for the opportunity to win $1500 in UO gift cards, 10 pairs of trainers and 2 different music related trips, in San Francisco and Brooklyn respectively. Whilst a number of brands have started using Vine to produce content, this is one of the first examples of a more in-depth campaign usage.

Ours go to play Chuck Chuck Goose. Where do #YourChucks go? @converse vine.co/v/bUzhzq5mFUK

— Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) April 17, 2013

— Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) April 17, 2013

Guided Twitter tour by the Tate Modern
To highlight a new Roy Lichtenstein exhibition, the Tate Modern produced a guided tour on Twitter. A museum curator spent half an hour tweeting images and information about the artist’s work, allowing those who would be otherwise unable to attend the museum to interact with the content in a meaningful way.

Evans support ‘golden bikes’ activity on Twitter
UK bike shop Evans Cycles have partnered with record-holding British Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy for a campaign called ‘Hoy’s Golden Bikes’, for which the Olympian has hidden 3 gold coloured bicycles around the country. Whoever finds them can trade one in for a brand new bike of their own, worth £1000. They’re supporting the activity on Twitter, with clues coming both from the official @chrishoy account and via the hashtag #hoyshiddenbikes.

In US and Europe, more tweets come from mobile than PC
The increasing adoption of mobile web has continued to have a significant impact on the online behaviour of internet users. Using a study conducted by Strategy Analytics, TheNextWeb proves that this has clearly remained a trend amongst Twitter users as well. The survey compared how 6,500 Twitter users in the US and Europe used the platform between March and October of 2012. The findings showed that mobile users increased from 56% to 71% during the period. Of these users, mobile phone users increased from 53% to 64%, while tablet users doubled from 9% to 18% of the respondents. Meanwhile, users who tweeted through desktop or laptop computers declined considerably, from 77% down to 64%. TheNextWeb notes that this trend may continue to unfold given the sharp drop in PC sales in the last year.

Urban netizens in China have a vast appetite for digital content
A recent report by eMarketer suggests that a vast majority of netizens in metro China are keen on digital content consumption. Based on a survey by KPMG, the findings indicate that social networking and streamed music constitute the highest share of digital activities, each claiming a response rate of  72%. These activities are followed by downloaded music (68%), streamed online films (67%) and accessed news (61%).

In fact, internet users in metro China surpassed those in other metropolitan areas across the globe when it came to music and international news. The highest number of respondents indicated they had accessed music content in urban China (77%), followed close behind by metro Brazil (75%). While 69% of internet users in urban China accessed international news through digital media, Singapore came second–this time at a considerable margin of 58%.

Spotify launches in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong
According to TechInAsia, Spotify has launched in three markets across Asia: Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. As these are the first steps into the region for the music streaming giant, many questions were abound regarding the decision to come into these Asian markets.  After all, the platform already claims 24 million active users across 23 different markets, with a whopping total of one billion playlists created. Spotify’s Sriram Krishnan indicated that Asia had actually been in sight all along–it only took a while to launch in the region because they had to tune it correctly “for this part of the world.” Although Spotify will face a local competitor called KKBOX, TechInAsia notes that Chinese-language music constitute the majority amongst the songs offered by the Taiwanese platform.

Smartphones help drive users to Facebook in US
A recent study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC) has illustrated how smartphones are encouraging Facebook users to visit the platform more often than before. As noted by eMarketer, the findings suggest that 74% of the respondents in the 18-24 age bracket used their smartphones immediately upon waking up in the morning. A whopping 89% of the participants claimed to use their smartphones within the first 15 minutes of their day. The overall results amongst all of the respondents show that the numbers did decrease but only slightly.  Even amongst the 18-44 age bracket, 62% of the participants reported using their smartphones immediately, with 79% of smartphone users taking to their devices within 15 minutes of waking.

IDC also found that amongst these smartphone users, Facebook usage through mobile constitutes an average daily engagement time of 32.5 minutes overall. Over half of these minutes are spent checking their newsfeeds (16.4), while 9.5 minutes are spent messaging and 6.6 minutes are spent on photos or photo statuses every day. The total number of sessions averaged 13.8, with Newsfeed claiming the top spot again with an average of 7 sessions. Messaging similarly came in second with 4.1 sessions, while photo/photo status averaged 2.7 sessions per day.

Sina Weibo enters Thailand, aims to reach 1.6M users by year end
TechInAsia recently reported that Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo has made strides toward entering the Thai market. To this end, Sina Weibo has partnered up with Jiaranai Entertainment, a local company, and set some lofty goals for their expansion into Thailand. In particular, Sina Weibo aims to earn $1 million in revenue, and acquire 1.6 million active users by the end of their first year in the market. On one hand, Thailand is a popular destination amongst Chinese tourists; as TechInAsia notes, however, this hardly supports the venture on its own, not to mention the ambitious goals set forth within the short span of a year. Given Twitter’s presence in Thailand, as well as the increasing reach of (and possible displacement by) chat apps, Sina Weibo may be facing an uphill battle–one that is much steeper than they had anticipated.

SocialBakers has published its latest set of infographics on the Top Facebook Pages for the month of March. Here are a selection of reports from the Asean countries.

Indonesia has kept its user base at 47 Million since the removal of fake profiles by Facebook. Local food nutritionist WRP recorded the highest response rate in the month of March. Also, interestingly, the fourth most Liked media page was Facebook Security reflecting that Indonesians’ high concerns with privacy and security on Facebook.

Philippines‘ most shared post with 39,000 interactions was from Nescafe Philippines on the new Pope. Whilst most brands would avoid religious content on their Facebook page, Nescafe Philippines leveraged on the nation’s faith.

Thailand’s Ichitan Green Tea has been drawing a lot of attention on Facebook recently. The newly launched beverage brand has been aggressively promoting via Facebook with giveaways that are attracting fans in hundreds of thousands.

Fast food pages such as KFC and McDonalds continue to provide the best performing content in Malaysia – KFC with 99,000 interactions in February and McDonalds with 41,000 interactions in March.

Singapore’s best performing posts usually tend to come from Facebook pages that are targeting the tourists, such as the Singapore Flyer or Changi Airport. However, one of March’s best performing post is my personal favourite where Changi Airport celebrated its staff’s honesty that brought the community together in pride.

VNG launches microblogging platform in Vietnam
The creators of Vietnamese chat app, Zalo, have recently launched microblogging platform Zing.vn. This news comes shortly after the company announced reaching 1 million users on their chat app last month. VNG also created the local social network Zing Me, which is reported to have about 12 million users. Zing.vn puts a heavy emphasis on hashtags, mirroring the traits of other well-known microblogging platforms such as Twitter and Sina Weibo. With a chat app, a social network and the launch of Zing.vn, VNG seems to complete a social trifecta of sorts in the Vietnamese market.

Finland-based chat app Jongla expands in Asia
Asian chat apps have continued to dominate in mobile apps this year, particularly in the APAC region. Foreign chat apps have also come into the chat app scene in Asia, and are seeing significant levels of success in the local markets. TechInAsia reports that Finland-based chat app, Jongla, has recently moved into Asian markets with an eye to increase their reach across the region. Although Jongla’s users are marginal compared to reigning giants such as WeChat, it is noted that they have seen increasing user bases in countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia.

China’s QQ launches as a Facebook app
QQ messenger is the top social network in China. With almost 800 million users, it seems likely to reach a billion-user milestone–an achievement that Facebook reached only late last year. TechInAsia reports that, to this end,  QQ has launched as a Facebook app with an eye to increase their user base further across the globe.

Smartphone users check Facebook 14 times a day
Are you a Facebook addict? Unless you check it more than 14 times a day on your smartphone, you actually fall below the daily average – no wonder Facebook is the third most popular app on smartphones! Channels of communication are now a constant in our lives which explains the fact that 79 per cent of smartphone users check their devices within 15 minutes of waking up – 62 per cent don’t even wait 15 minutes in the morning, and grab their phones immediately. The world’s addiction to Facebook is growing with almost half of Facebook users checking on updates while out and about – we’re even checking in at the gym, whilst cooking and at the cinema…

Facebook is still the dominant social media network in the UK
The latest Ipsos Mori quarterly tech tracker report showed that “50% of British adults access social networks”, with over half of them using smartphones to do so. Nearly 50% have used Facebook in the last three months, compared to 16% using Twitter, and perhaps surprisingly, 17% using Google+.

Online video accounts for 5% of all UK Internet usage
The UK population “made over a billion visits to video sites last month”, accounting for 5% of the UK’s internet usage. In February 2013 the UK spent 323 million hours watching online video content, that’s 100 million more hours than in February 2012. This makes it one of the few sectors that people are increasingly spending time on per visit. The average visit time online has decreased by 20% year-on-year, yet online video average visit time has increased by just over 3 minutes.

Hashtags have changed the way people communicate
“Hashtags have become one of the most ubiquitous symbols used in social sharing” by brands and consumers. Research conducted by RadiumOne into mobile hashtag usage revealed a large number of consumers now utilise hashtags via mobile devices. In fact “58% of respondents from the survey utilize hashtags on a regular basis, and 71 percent of regular hashtag users do so from their mobile devices.”

Twitter’s ad revenue to near $1 billion in 2014
It has been forecast by eMarketer that Twitter will earn $582.8 million in global ad revenue in 2013, with roughly 53% of that projected to come from mobile advertising. Over the next 24 months Twitter should expect to see advertising on mobile devices grow a great deal more, increasing Twitter’s ad revenue to $1 billion in 2014. This “comes as advertisers have shown more interest in spending money on mobile advertisements on Twitter.”

Details about Facebook Home for Android leaked
Facebook are due to make announcements this Thursday about their new offering for Android, however aspects of this have been leaked ahead of time. It is believed that Facebook will release a modified version of the Android operating system, a new product called ‘Facebook Home’, “software that any Android device can run to give users a more socially integrated homescreen experience.” The updated version is thought to include features from News Feed and Messenger and will be running on “a new device by Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC”.

Advertisers can now create ‘unpublished posts’ on Facebook 
Facebook has now given advertisers the option to create unpublished posts which can then be supported with specifically targeted ads and will not appear in fans News Feeds organically. Due to the nature of the News Feed this has not been possible until now as previously a page was required to create posts that would be visible to fans. “Unpublished posts that run as page post ads in News Feed will now enable advertisers to show users more relevant content[...] taking a message that matters to the people it’s relevant to in the most engaging place on Facebook.” In tests, AdParlor found that unpublished post ads had initial success, with 0.87% clickthrough rate compared to “organic post ads with a CTR of 0.30 percent.”

Facebook Exchange ads in desktop News Feed
Facebook have made changes to the way their Facebook Exchange partners can advertise on the site, “by letting advertisers serve ads directly in users’ main News Feed.” The ads will look like normal sponsored newsfeed stories rather than display ads, allowing “users to Like, Share or Comment on an ad, whereas previously users could only click on the ad and be taken to a third-party site.” The placement of Facebook Exchange ads in the News Feed will allow advertisers to behaviourally target huge numbers of users using a ‘native’ format.

Embed your Vine posts on the web
It is now possible to embed Vine posts on the web through a post’s page on vine.co, or using the mobile app. You’ll not only be able to share your own posts but others as well, as long as its already been shared outside of Vine.co.

Tumblr hits the 100 million blogs mark 
Tumblr, last week crossed over the 100 million blogs threshold, with 44.6 billion individual posts! The online platform has grown significantly in the last year, with roughly 50 million blogs being created since last April, and 6 million of those being created in the last month.

LinkedIn search is getting smarter
Gone are the days of searching for people, groups, companies and jobs separately, now “all you need to do is type what you’re looking for into the search box and you’ll see a comprehensive page of results that pulls content from all across LinkedIn.” All searches will be customised to your personal profile, so no two searches will produce the same results. The smarter search will be available to members today and to global members in the coming weeks.

Google+ gets a refresh for Android and iPhone
Google+ functionalities that have been available on desktop have now been rolled out for mobile. The Google+ app has been updated to include basic image editing tools using Snapseed’s technology, e.g. crop, rotate, change contrast, saturation, brightness and filters. The view of posts has been updated to include more text as well as single tap links to photos and videos, enabling users to read more content in a shorted period of time. A really nice addition is the ability to swipe through an entire photo album inline, without having to head over to a separate album page. Additionally, the +1, share and comment buttons are more prominent.

Amazon has acquired Goodreads in a bid to further socialise itself
Between the two platforms, Amazon and Goodreads have changed the way authors reach their audiences and readers choose books. It is thought that through last week’s acquisition of Goodreads, the world’s largest community for book recommendations, Amazon will develop its ability” to share users lists, e.g. “want to read”, improving book recommendation sharing and other such areas.

AT&T owned March Madness Twitter activity
It could be said that AT&T are this year owning March Madness, the US college basketball frenzy, as part of a sponsorship deal with the NCAA and Turner Broadcasting. AT&T have “continuously bought ads for tweets going out from @MarchMadness, NCAA’s handle.” The social media team worked towards providing “behind-the-scenes content so people from their living rooms on their couches can be a part of the on-site game experience.” A Twitter based programme was implemented incorporating key moment tweets from the @MarchMadness handle which were then pushed out at Promoted Tweets by AT&T and AT&T’s Promoted Trend ads which linked to television viewing. The Promoted Trend rather than just Promoted Tweets really helped AT&T rise above the other noise.

Buick uses Pinterest to design its 2013 Encore luxury car
Buick have designed its 2013 Encore luxury car based on a Pinterest board chosen from its ‘Pinterest to Dashboard’ campaign entries. The winner, Michael Wurm Jr., was picked as the inspiration for new color palates, textures and design features for the car. Using the boards, three designers “pulled key elements from his boards that they thought were interesting[...] and came up with their own interpretations of the boards, and expanded on it based on mood, a theme and an environment. Buick wanted to “connect with a younger audience and show a different, more playful side of the brand.”

We Are Social launches adidas: Join Team Messi
The We Are Social London office worked alongside adidas and Media Monks to launch a new personalised social experience, Join Team Messi last week, giving Messi fans the chance to join his team.

The online experience use Facebook data to place fans in a personalised short film alongside the Argentine icon, with the user controlling how play evolves, and at the end are given a trailer of their experience, personalised to the user to share with friends.

BrewDog to launch its first Twitter beer
In a bid to slake the thirst of tweeters, BrewDog will be designing the ‘first democratically designed beer‘ and all major decisions will be handed over to social media users. Votes determining all elements of #Mashtag brew will be cast via Twitter, Facebook and the BrewDog blog, with BrewDog “giving up the important brewing decisions to fans, customers and any who wants to learn more about the craft beer process.”

Red Bull Editions launched by We Are Social
Last week We Are Social launched a campaign around Red Bull’s three new flavours, creating a collaborative art project to bring to life the colours of the three Editions through the lens of Instagram. Red Bull fans are encouraged to share photos on Instagram with the hashtags #rededitionplease, #silvereditionplease and #blueeditionplease, and include @redbulluk to enter. If the users Instagram makes it into the Red Bull gallery they could, qualify for a can of Red Bull Editions, or even have their Instagram showcased in cities across the UK. The campaign is going swimmingly so far, but don’t miss out on the chance to be part of it.

Doritos use Vine to get creative
Doritos used vine to share clips of the Mariachi band from their current campaign asking their community to guess the name of the song to win Easter prizes. It was a really innovative way of using the platform. Bravo Doritos!

For Easter prizes can YOU name that tune? #DoritosNameThatTune vine.co/v/bDYuOgFgthq

— Doritos (@doritosuk) March 26, 2013

The first film to be previewed on Vine
Six days before the official trailer was released, a ‘tweaser’ of the new Wolverine movie was shared on Vine by the film’s director, James Mangold. This is a huge win for the app in terms of placing itself as a player in the social media ring.

The tweaser. vine.co/v/bDExaiMjJ1F

— James Mangold (@mang0ld) March 25, 2013

Thailand’s Chang  takes water orders through WeChat
Chang, Thailand’s largest beverage producer that’s best known for its beer, started an official account on WeChat last week. Calling themselves “WeChang”, followers are greeted with a welcome message that provides instructions on how to use the chat app to order drinking water for home delivery. In addition to offering a quick access to customer service representatives via WeChat, WeChang also allows customers to download a set of cute Chang stickers like the ones below. The chat app is currently also used to provide China Merchant Bank’s followers access to their bank balances in China. This might herald the future for consumer conveniences such as ordering home deliveries for food or groceries.

WeChat’s BlackBerry app gets ‘look around’ feature
Months after the launch of its BlackBerry app, WeChat has released an update that allows users to ‘look around‘ for people to chat or flirt with. The update also includes other popular features such as allowing users to add friends by scanning QR codes and downloading animated sticker packs. The recent rollout brings the BlackBerry version pretty close to the chat app’s current form on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone platforms with the notable exclusion of video or voice calling. Tencent has indicated that the latter features will be made available in the WeChat for BB10 app, that is currently under development. In the meantime, Indonesian users seeking a specialized location-based flirting app can try Qute, a Tencent app that’s created just for the Indonesian market.

6 Chinese social networks observe Earth Hour
Last Saturday, people around the world switched their lights off for an hour from 8.30pm local time to observe “Earth Hour”, a movement to remind the world not to waste vital resources. 6 Chinese social media sites, Renren, Youku, QQ, Ushi, 139 and Kaixin, pledged to turn the lights off on their sites. Users were able to view their pages via a virtual light that followed their cursor. Although technically, most gadgets will not consume less power with darkened pages, the move was intended to raise awareness of the difference that the world can make with changes to their energy consumption habits.

Tencent lays out monetization plans for WeChat
Tencent, the maker of popular chat app, WeChat, will be rolling out a suite of services intended to build revenue streams that will help them monetize the app. The app will offer online-to-offline e-commerce capabilities, value-added services and games. WeChat member card holders can enjoy discounts for following specific merchants and daily deals on the official WeiTuanGou account. WeChat users will soon be able to buy special stickers and emoticons which may be sold as bundles through subscription. Gamers will also be able to play social games via WeChat in the near future.

Tribehired, Malaysian social recruitment site gets seed investment
Malaysian startup social networking-based jobs site, Tribehired, has secured a US$ 560K (about S$ 696K) seed investment from Singapore’s TNF Ventures. The funds will be applied towards expanding the team and expanding its job seeker and employer base as the company moves towards launching its services globally. The premise is simple: Using Facebook as a working platform, people are incentivized to recommend vacancies to friends while virtual resumes can be created for users of the service. The service has already attracted quite a few companies including Rocket Internet-funded e-commerce firms such as Lazada and Zalora.

YouTube hit the 1 billion a month unique users mark
Online video giant YouTube put their success into context for us last Wednesday, announcing their achievement of 1 billion unique users per month. This means “almost half of the people on the Internet visit the online site each month”. Looking specifically at Generation C (18-34 year olds), YouTube stated  that this “demographic spend 74% more time watching YouTube on their smartphones now than they were last year”. 

Facebook cover photo policy has been changed
The rule against page cover photos featuring a call to action, contact information, references to price or purchase information has been updated. Page owners now have more flexibility in terms of what they can include in their cover photo, however the no more than 20% text overlay rule still applies. The rule for cover photos and ad images are now consistent, “this is important as cover photos are beginning to be included in both organic and sponsored page-Like stories in News Feeds”.

Facebook to roll out its new commenting system
Facebook have been testing its new commenting system since November 2012, it “includes threaded conversations and a ranking algorithm meant to put the most relevant and high quality comments first”. The new updates will be available on an opt-in basis for all pages with more than 10,000 fans. Some of the key features of the new comments are the “option to reply to a specific comment and a ranking system that takes into account positive and negative signals, and connections”. Facebook are hoping the update will improve conversation management, enhancing the fans experience and public figure profiles.

Facebook to introduce Lookalike Audiences globally
Last week Facebook rolled out Lookalike Audiences to Power Editor accounts, this is a tool which helps advertisers target similar users “to those in their Custom Audience database”. Facebook reported that Lookalike Audiences have decreased cost per action and an online retailer experienced “lower costs per checkout when the Lookalike Audience feature was in limited beta”. To create Lookalike Audiences a list of first-party data must be uploaded, such as, email, phone number or user ID to create a Custom Audience. Facebook then uses algorithms to analyse the Custom Audience and produces a Lookalike Audience based on demographics, interests and what people are talking about.

iPhone users make calls using Facebook Messenger for free
Following on from its successful launch in the US and Canada, it is now possible for iPhone users in the UK to make calls to other Facebook Messenger users for free. You simply open the Facebook Messenger app, select the person you want to call and hit the ‘I’ button.

Happy 7th Birthday Twitter
Last week Twitter celebrated its 7th birthday - In the last seven years the social network has gained more than 200 million active users who create over 400 million Tweets each day. Twitter is now considered by most to be the go platform for the “lastest news, to exchange ideas and connect with people all in real time”. To celebrate this milestone, Twitter have made a video celebrating some of the many moments on Twitter so far, and a few of the UK’s best known Twitter personalities have been shouting about why they love Twitter so much.

Britney Spears is first to reach 6 million followers on Google+ 
Britney Spears has had the highest number of followers on Google+ since November 2011, and is now the first person to reach 6 million followers. According to Starcount, Lady Gaga is hot on her heels with a mere 100,000 followers seperating them.

Puma are paying for UGC 
German sports giant, Puma, announced they’re trialing iPhone app, Foap. The new app allows users to upload photos to the platform and sell them to brands. Puma has asked Foap users to take photos in response to ‘Missions’ for its ‘Nature of Performance’ global campaign, the UGC purchased will promote the campaign across all social media channels. The ability to “create a library of content and achieve further engagement by getting users to rate the images” in Foap is one of the reasons Puma decided to use this platform.

Friendly Twitter war between Kit Kat and Oreo
A friendly Twitter war can be fun and exciting for the brand and their followers, and this is no exception:

A Twitter user tweets her two favourite chocolate brands…

@KITKAT respond with a game of noughts and crosses…

To which @oreo responded very cleverly…

Oreo triumphed over KitKat on this occasion, we’re look forward to the next round!

Capital One get savvy about social for March Madness
Financial giant, Capital One, have recruited retired ball player Charles Barkley as a spokesperson during March Madness 2013 and they’re hoping he’s going to jump on the Twitter bandwagon very soon, and understandably so as tweeting has become an important part of spokesperson deals. In the meantime they have a social media plan to see them through March Madness, cashing in on real time marketing opportunities with a newsroom-styled social media team responding to tweets whilst watching the games. Capital One understand that being part of the conversation is integral to online success, but have also invested in promoted Tweets, Facebook ads, YouTube promos, and general displays across the Internet to ensure all bases are covered during March Madness.

Press regulation to affect  all forms of media
Bloggers could be facing libel fines under the new UK Leveson deal with exemplary damages imposed if they don’t sign up to the new regulator. The updated definition of a ‘relevant’ blogger or website under Clause 29 “includes any that generate news material where there is an editorial structure giving someone control over publication”. Many see this is a negative move for a country that has had a “free press for the last 300 years”, it could impact online news sites as well as small publications and local newspapers. It has been said that the new rules are there to protect small-scale bloggers and publications and to ensure publications like Hello! magazine would be subject to regulation but a small voluntary blog would be exempt.

The UK’s 2013 Budget in terms of social 
We Are Social’s London analyst Ed Kitchingman gave us the low down on social figures during the UK 2013 budget announcements last week, and what a difference twelve months made. The 2012 budget received 138,500 tweets total, whereas the 2013 budget received 258,000, tweets in the first day. The sentiment of tweets however was overwhelmingly negative, but mainly in relation to the Chancellor himself and not the policies. #budget2013 was the top hashtag used on the day, it was tweeted 125,102 times. Here’s a look at the top 10 hashtags used throughout the budget announcement and immediately after in order of popularity:

The tweet that cost £14,268
UK parliament member Fiona MacTaggart underestimated the power of social media when she vowed to donate £1 for every retweet she received. Within the 35 minute timeframe Fiona set she received 14,268 retweets on Red Nose Day 2013. Fiona certainly wasn’t expecting the reaction she received but will live up to her word and intends to donate the full £14,268 to Comic Relief.

SocialBakers has published its latest set of infographics on the Top Facebook Pages around the world. Here are a selection of reports from the Asean countries.

Indonesia’s Facebook numbers continued to drop a hefty 2 million following the clearing up of fake profiles. It is noteworthy that Indonesia has a Facebook penetration of 198% of Indonesia’s online population, reflecting that an average netizen would have more than one Facebook profile.

Thailand’s Facebook numbers have remained constant for a while now. However, as mentioned in last month’s post, Thailand continues to have an impressive average response rate on its Facebook pages. The top pages of February have at least 85% average response rate showing that there is high interaction between fans and the admin on the page.

The Philippines witnessed an eventful Valentine’s period last month with Nestle Drumstick and Stellar pages seeing high volume of interactions on their content during the Valentine season. The infographic below reports an impressive growth in average post engagement rate, reflecting that the content from these pages had a significant viral reach.

Interestingly, Malaysia’s top pages and top content were both garnered by fast food chains. With regards to Facebook penetration, the country has reached a plateau with more than 80% of its online population on the social network.

Highlights from Singapore’s Facebook scene last month show that tourist attractions – Resort Worlds Sentosa and the Singapore Flyer – took top spots when it came to having the most interactive content. Having said that, these pages received most engagement from non-Singaporeans as they are tourist spots. Additionally, it was heart warming to see that irememberSG received high post engagement rate.