KakaoTalk downloads hit 10 million in Japan
The competition amongst Asian chat apps in the APAC region has quickly turned fierce. We recently saw how many of the big names in the category have become the top social platforms in Asian markets–and many of them continue to invest heavily in penetrating foreign markets as well. For the most part, however, they have all successfully secured the leading position in their respective local markets. Japan-based Line, for example, is the leading chat app in Japan; out of its current user base of 120 million, roughly 60 million of them are in Japan. With this in mind, the news that KakaoTalk hit 10 million users in a competitor’s local market comes as a particularly impressive milestone–and a potential cause for concern for its competitors. This uptake also indicates that KakaoTalk has gained considerable momentum in the past few months; TheNextWeb notes that KakaoTalk users in Japan stood at 7.5 million as recently as December 2012. In other words, KakaoTalk has gained an additional 2.5 million users in Japan alone, and increased by 33% since the end of last year.

Tencent’s IM service, QQ has 798 million monthly active users
A recent report by China Internet Watch indicated that almost all of Tencent’s social networks grew extensively in 2012. The increase is particularly impressive given the fact that the reported figures characterise the Monthly Active Users (MAU) on each platform. Most notably, Tencent’s IM service, QQ’s MAU increased to 798 million by the end of 2012, entailing an 11% increase over the course of the year. Social network Qzone’s MAU also increased by 9 percent, and stood at 603 million in December last year. Weixin (WeChat in China) also experienced rapid growth and exceeded 300 million users worldwide by January 2013. Much of this growth is attributed to the increasing adoption of mobile web in the market. Tencent also noted that the development of social features in Weixin encouraged high rates of adoption. Ultimately, these points may collectively suggest the following: while mobile-based platforms and chat apps have continued to grow in size, they have started to evolve into full-fledged social networks in and of themselves.

100 million blogs with 44.6 billion posts on Tumblr
Tumblr recently announced that it had reached a milestone of 100 million blogs. Equally impressive is the fact that these blogs collectively contain a staggering 44.6 billion posts. The 100-million milestone also indicates that the blogging platform has doubled in size over the past year, as the platform first passed 50 million blogs in April 2012. TheNextWeb reports that this staggering growth rate is still on the rise, as 6 million of the Tumblr blogs were created during the last month alone. At this rate, the next 50 million may be close on the horizon.

In South Korea, Facebook is companies’ social network of choice
eMarketer recently reported that South Korean companies are mostly focusing their social media efforts on one platform: Facebook. Citing a February 2013 study by KPR Social Communication Research Lab, nearly 9 out of 10 of the surveyed participants reported being on Facebook. With over 87% of the respondents on the platform, Facebook claims the highest level of presence amongst Korean companies on social media. While blogs come in second with over 79%, companies on Twitter and YouTube constitute a considerably smaller portion of the results, at 66.1% and 42.6% respectively. eMarketer notes that this emphasis on Facebook is particularly striking given the platform’s relatively low user base in the local market. The platform has about 8 million users in South Korea, which translates into a 17% penetration rate amongst Internet users.

Nearly half of Instagram users are on Android
Instagram recently announced that nearly half of their users are active through Android phones. It’s been a year since Instagram was released for Android, so this news comes as a particularly fitting announcement for this anniversary. Instagram also reported that the long-awaited Android-compatible app was quickly taken by storm; the app was downloaded over 1 million times within a day of its release. As TechCrunch reports, iOS users stood at fraction of their current user base at the time, with roughly 30 million users when this rapidfire adoption took place. Not only has the user base soared to a total of 100 million monthly active users since then–it’s also continued to grow at an impressive rate.

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

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about the true number of users on Sina Weibo. The author discusses a study conducted by researchers at Hong Kong University that was based on a sample of roughly 30,000 users.

The results were quite surprising: 57% of the user studied had no posts at all in their timeline, while almost 87% made no posts during the seven-day study.

These results led the author to conclude that a significant number of Sina Weibo users are “just ‘lurking’”.

Based on my personal experience with Sina Weibo, I agree that many users are not actively creating content on their Weibo accounts; however, this does not mean that they are not doing anything useful on Sina Weibo, nor that they are of no value to brands.

In fact, Sina Weibo’s quieter users may be quite different from the ‘lurkers’ or zombie accounts on other platforms like Twitter, in part because of the technicalities of the Chinese language.

Sina Weibo has the same 140-character limit as Twitter, but 140 characters in Chinese can contain far more information than the same number of characters in English.

Collectively, these short Chinese language posts can consist of three or four sentences, and provide enough content to tell a story or a piece of news on a single weibo post. In contrast, there is usually only enough space for one sentence plus a link in a tweet in English.

As a result, Weibo users can gain a sufficient amount of information simply from reading the posts in their Weibo feed, without even having to click through to any external linked content.

For this reason, many people use Weibo as a customised news portal that allows them convenient access to real-time updates across a variety of topics, and from a variety of sources, all in a single feed.

They may not contribute to this feed themselves, but nonetheless, they take a considerable amount of value away from their experiences.

Another interesting fact is that many ‘lurkers’ on Sina Weibo are not perennial ‘lurkers’. Indeed, our research indicates that it’s relatively common to find users who are quite active during a given period of time, but become ‘lurkers’ at times when they have less time to participate in more creative Weibo activities.

It may be discouraging for brands to find that active engagement is comparatively low on their Weibo accounts, but a lack of ‘creative’ activity is not necessarily a sign that things aren’t working.

People may well go on to read links included in posts without reposting, or may choose to share them in other ways in different contexts (e.g. via more intimate conversations in platforms like WeChat).

This highlights the need for marketers and observers to understand the benefits that their audiences take out of social interactions, rather than analysing social platforms with the same metrics that they’d use to evaluate a traditional advertising medium.

Our advice for brands that find themselves in a situation of lower engagement is to explore a more ‘irresistible’ content strategy that encourages ‘lurkers’ to become more active users.

Part of this will involve experimenting with different approaches to understand what those audiences want and expect, and working with the more active members of the community to build dynamic conversations that draw other users into the action.

Most importantly, though, it’s about moving away from product-centric updates, and understanding how brands can add real value to their audience.

WeChat downloads up by 3000% in Indonesia
According to a recent report by Daily Social, WeChat has met an unprecedented level of growth in Indonesia. The increase is attributed to a TV advertisement that introduced the Chinese chat app’s launch in the market. Japan’s chat app Line had recently claimed the top spot on Google Play’s rankings; however, WeChat’s recent surge in popularity has bumped Line down to second as WeChat quickly overtook the first place spot. Whatsapp ranks third on Google Play’s top downloads, while KakaoTalk has been knocked out of the top 50, to 52 amongst free apps on mobile platforms. While a majority of WeChat’s users are based in China, Daily Social notes that the app has gained in excess of 300 million users in the past two years. In terms of the total number of downloads, WeChat still tips its hat to Whatsapp and Skype; though it is important to note that WeChat is also amongst the newest chat apps around, having only launched domestically in 2011. Equally important is the fact that “WeChat” was the result of a rebranding in 2012, that introduced languages beyond Chinese, such as English, Russian and Indonesian to name a few. As WeChat becomes increasingly accessible on a global scale, it will surely become an increasingly intimidating contender for both local and global chat apps to face.

3.2 billion accounts registered on Chinese social media sites
In China, the growth rate of social media has been unprecedented to say the least. The latest figures indicate that there are roughly 597 million active social media users in China. These social media users are also using multiple platforms; Citing an infographic via Go Globe, TechInAsia reported that these users have also registered a total of 3.2 billion accounts across the top 10 social platforms in China. Overall, more than 9 out of 10 internet users in China are on social media (91%)–a surprisingly large margin in comparison to the 67% of netizens on social media in the United States. Go Globe‘s infographic also indicates that social sharing increased by 60% in 2012, and 9 out of the top 10 social media sites have at least 100 million registered users. The largest demographic of Chinese netizens on social media belongs to the bracket of 26- to 30-year-olds (30%), followed by 31- to 35-year-olds (21%) and 19- to 25-year-olds (19%).

On Facebook, videos have double the engagement of YouTube videos
Socialbakers recently reported that brands were more likely to reach fans through videos posted to Facebook rather than YouTube. The data indicated that brands still prefer to post videos on YouTube; the sample presented a distinct bias for the video-sharing platform, with 4,731 videos posted on YouTube, compared to 554 Facebook videos. Facebook’s engagement rate for brand videos came out to an average of .22%, more than double YouTube’s engagement rate of .10%. Socialbakers notes that this may be because Facebook videos can be directly streamed from the mobile news feed, whereas YouTube links are redirected out of mobile apps. Facebook videos saw 10 times more viral reach than YouTube videos as well. It is interesting to note, however, that both kinds of videos were met with similar levels of interaction types, with 77% likes, 16% shares and 7% comments.

57% of Sina Weibo statuses are empty
Citing a recent study conducted by Hong Kong University, China Internet Watch demonstrated that Sina Weibo users are not nearly as active as you might think. The survey was based on a random sample of 30,000 users, and indicated that 57% of the Weibo timelines were completely blank. Although there are reportedly 503 million registered users in total as of December 2012, this data whittles the number of Weibos with at least one post to a mere 220 million. China Internet Watch also notes that the survey’s data is extrapolated to reveal that only 30 million users are likely to publish at least one unique post in a given week, potentially challenging Sina’s assertion that there are 46.2 million daily active users on the microblogging platform.

Traditional media ad spend declines, marketing budgets shift to digital in US
A recent report by eMarketer indicated that  traditional media ad spend was continuing to decline as more marketers increased focus and spending on digital media. Based on a survey of US marketers in February 2013 (as commissioned by the American Marketing Association, and conducted by the Duke University Fuqua School of Business), the findings confirm the downward trend in spending on traditional media. Indeed, this decline is neither steady nor subtle; while August 2011 had seen a promising increase of  1.3%, marketing spend quickly turned around to decline by .8% in February 2012. The rate of decline accelerated rapidly, to show that marketers had decreased traditional media spending by another 2.7% in February 2013.

eMarketer notes that this decline in traditional media is in favor of increasing spend on digital media. Interestingly, the changing ratio of spending on traditional and digital media differ considerably by sector and industry category. The highest growth in digital spending goes to business-to-consumer brands in the product category; while traditional ad spending will decline by 0.6%, digital spending will increase by a significant 14.6%. B2Cs in the service category will also see an increase of 10.4% on digital media spend. Interestingly, they will also decrease traditional media spending the most across sectors, reporting a negative change of 5.4% over the next 12 months.

Daily active users on Sina Weibo up by 82%, add 46 million in 2012
Sina Weibo’s growth over the past year has been an incredible spectacle. The Chinese microblogging service flew past 300 million in February last year, and the milestones kept coming in increments of 100 million: 400 million through July and 500 million by the end of December 2012. Onlookers may easily cast doubt upon these sort of numbers, however–after all, the number of registered users hardly describes user behavior. A recent report by China Internet Watch seems to dispel these doubts, as active users are reported to have increased at an impressive rate as well. Just as 500 million in December 2012 constituted a doubled user base from 2011, active daily users were up by 46.2 million or 82% compared to the same time last year.

2.8% of Twitter’s highly active users adopted Vine in its first month
It’s been six weeks since Twitter launched its micro-video sharing app Vine. Despite a few blunders with explicit content early on, the new video creation platform has started gaining some serious momentum in the social appmosphere. As TechCrunch reports, 2.8% of Twitter’s highly active users had adopted Vine in its first month.

Competitors like Viddy and Socialcam are also growing, but not quite as quickly. While Viddy lured 0.5 percent of Twitter’s active users, Socialcam came in with 0.2 percent of the same population–growth rates that contradict the rapid-fire expansion popularly associated with the growth of social platforms. This is because overall, video creation continues to be a relatively underdeveloped area in social media–a point that makes Vine’s adoption rate particularly striking.

The data was calculated from a sample of 2,500 randomly selected users who had tweeted at least 100 times within a month of Vine’s launch date, or January 24th 2013. On one hand, we know that the total population of active Twitter users exceeds 200 million; On the other, the number of users who tweet over 100 times per month isn’t as clear. Despite some indications of growth, only time will tell if a micro-video is worth 1000 words–not to mention 140 characters.

Line was the top social app for revenue in Jan 2013
TechInAsia recently reported that Japanese chat app Line claimed the top spot for revenue amongst social apps on iOS during January 2013. This claim is especially impressive as it is understood in relation to an increasingly popular category; social apps came in third globally in terms of revenue. Social apps also saw a significant increase in monthly downloads during the month, up by 30% compared to January 2012. Line has also become the top non-game for monthly revenue, on both iTunes and Google Play. This popularity may come as a surprise given the fact that the Japanese chat app constitutes the only Asian-made app in a list filled with American apps. As we have tracked through the recent months, Korean chat app KakaoTalk is quickly catching up as serious contender for the spot. AppAnnie notes that KakaoTalk ranks third highest for revenue on Android phones.

In US, 68% of small businesses to increase or maintain social ad spend
eMarketer reports that small business owners are increasing their devotion to, and investment in social media platforms. Based on a November 2012 study by Ad-ology Research, the findings suggest that a sizeable portion of businesses with fewer than 100 employees planned on increasing their budgets for marketing and advertising on social media.

The study indicated that the highest level of interest went to social advertising, with nearly 68% of respondents planning to increase or maintain their social media ad spend. Over 36% also responded that they would increase or maintain spending on promoted posts or sponsored tweets. While a majority of small business spending will still go toward conventional modes of marketing, social platforms are clearly casting a wider net of interest for their marketing potential amongst small business owners in the US.

In Singapore, average Facebook user likes 23 pages, mostly brands
Recent insights from Socialbakers indicate that Singaporean Facebook users like an average of 23 pages on the platform. The report indicated that brands were also the most popular amongst Facebook users, with 6.1 brand pages liked on average. This is followed by the categories of celebrities and entertainment, with 2.9 and 2.1 pages respectively.

The report also stated that images were the most popular form of content in Singapore, with brands posting images the most frequently on their pages, and fans sharing visual posts the most.  Socialbakers also notes that McDonalds Singapore, KFC Singapore, FlyScoot, Singtel and Starbucks are the most popular brand pages. Meanwhile, Starhub claims the top spot as the most socially-devoted brand, with over 110,000 fans and an impressive response rate of 90.3%

Sina Weibo logs 731,102 posts during the first minute of Lunar New Year
TheNextWeb recently reported that Sina Weibo announced a staggering milestone: There was an astounding 731,102 posts in the first minute of Lunar New Year, where users on the Chinese microblogging channel gathered to celebrate the year of the snake. TechInAsia also highlights that this number included an impressive 34,997 posts from the first second alone. The number also illustrates the magnitude of Sina Weibo’s growth in the past year. As TechinAsia reports, this first-minute record is particularly striking given the 481,207 posts that were logged during the last New Year, with the peak clocking in at 32,312 posts per second.

59% of top 100 brands are on Instagram, reaching 5.8M followers
According to a recent study by SimplyMeasured, 59% of the top brands have created accounts on Instagram. The social media analytics company conducted their quarterly study for the third time in February 2013. They found that this comprised an increase from 54% in November 2012, or a QoQ increase of 9%. The study breaks down the platform adoption further, to show that 55% of the top brands have active accounts–meaning they have posted photos via the photo-sharing platform. This also compares favorably, to the 49% of top brands with active Instagram accounts.

But are the top brands on Instagram being noticed? The answer seems to be a resounding “yes”, as their Instagram followers have collectively increased by 41% and engagement by 35% since November 2012. The total number of top-brand followers has increased to 5.8 million users, with 10 of the brands logging over 100,000 followers.

Sina Weibo grew 73%, passed 500 million registered users in 2012
In another report on Sina Weibo, TheNextWeb reported that China’s popular microblogging platform had accumulated over 503 million accounts by the end of last year. Sina CEO Charles Chao also revealed that daily users on the site came to a whopping 46.2 million users as of December 2012. This number expresses an 82% increase year-on-year. What’s even more impressive is the fact that Sina Weibo had only recently reached 400 million registered users late in the year, during the third quarter of 2012. TechInAsia notes, however, that growth has recently slowed down to 9% in the latest quarter. Chao similarly expressed some concern regarding decreases in usage following competitor Tencent WeChat’s growth to 300 million users in the past year. Chao stated that his concerns were ultimately mitigated by the notion that Weibo had reached a size that would inevitably keep itself going and growing–particularly given the increasing adoption of mobile web and “the formation of [an] ecosystem” around the popular platform.

68% of marketers to increase data spend, focus on social media in 2013
eMarketer reports that a majority of marketers are planning to increase spending on data, with the objective of understanding the “surge of data produced by digital interactions with customers.” As the study by Infogroup Targeting Solutions and Yesmail Interactive indicates, 68% of marketers are planning to increase spending. By contrast, 23%  had planned to spend the same amount, and only 3% of the respondents planned to decrease spending on data in 2013.

The increasing interest in social media data comes from the findings that followed. When asked about the prospect of using social media data to drive campaigns, a significant portion (78%) of the respondents indicated positive interest. While 42% of respondents reported plans to integrate social media data further, 36% indicated plans to start during 2013.

200,000 users check-in through Jiepang every day
Jiepang currently has 4 million users. While this number pales in comparison to the number of users on social giants like Sina Weibo and Tencent, China’s location-based check-in app is consistently abuzz with activity. As PandoChina notes, Jiepang’s CEO David Liu stated that over 200,000 users checked-in to locations on a daily basis. The Foursquare analogue has been around since 2010 and cultivated a relatively small but strong niche following in the past two years. As of now, the highest number of check-ins stands at 150,631 for a single location–again, somewhat paltry compared to the 1 million check-ins logged by its Western counterpart, Foursquare earlier this month. TechInAsia notes that the road ahead may indeed become difficult for Jiepang, especially given the rapid growth of other social channels in China. It is noted, however, that Jiepang plans to adapt and innovate around potential obstacles by loosening the emphasis on check-ins and increasing focus on social sharing and user content. According to Liu, their revamped app will ultimately take on a Facebook-like appearance as a social network. Ultimately opening up new ways to use the app for its current and prospective users in the upcoming year.

Social media users in China spent 884 million hours on microblogs
Resonance China reported that microblogs were by far the most popular form of social media in China during Q3 2012. A recent study by iResearch suggests that 422 million internet users are on social networking sites in China, exceeding the reach of news, search, videos and other forms of online communication. Of all forms of social media, microblogging further claimed 302 million users in Q3 2012 – the highest reach amongst Chinese social network users. Although the growth rate has slowed for microblogging platforms, users still spent 884 million hours on microblogs during Q3 2012. This number represents the highest number of hours spent on any social media platform, and also surpasses the number of hours spent on microblogs during Q2 2012.

Korean chat app KakaoTalk reaches 70 million users in 2012
TechInAsia reports that KakaoTalk recently hit its first 1,000 days since the app was launched. The Korean-made chat app commemorated this milestone by producing an infographic detailing its current user base. The insights demonstrate how the Korean-made chat app has rapidly grown its following since it launched in March 2010.  The app has more than doubled its user base in the past year, and increased to 70 million users in December 2012, up from 50 million in June of this year. Interestingly, the app’s reach is growing even in Japan, where homegrown chat app Line has consistently dominated the field. According to AppAnnie, KakaoTalk’s ranking has shot up in iOS free app downloads in Japan. KakaoTalk’s growth is further highlighted by the fact that there are 27 million unique daily visitors to the app. The users produce a staggering 4.2 billion messages on KakaoTalk every day, up from 2.6 billion at the end of Q1 2012.

Asia-Pacific to top Western Europe social network ad spend in 2013
A recent report by eMarketer revealed that spending on social network advertisements will increase significantly in the Asia-Pacific region next year. According to their projections, the region will experience 48% gains, topping a prospective valuation of over $2 billion in 2013. This significant growth in spending is linked to the increasing penetration of both globally-established social networks — such as Facebook and Twitter — as well as the sheer variety of locally-established social networks, such as Tencent and Sina Weibo in China. Collectively, they represent a social media landscape that holds an abundance of potential for marketers in the Asia-Pacific region.

A study conducted by InSites Consulting in Q2 2012 also cast light on the fact that Asian SNS users are more likely to engage with brands on social media than their Western counterparts. In particular, the study demonstrates that 2 out of 3 users in China (66%), and well-over half of users in Japan (56%)  follow one or more brands on social media. These numbers are particularly striking when understood in comparison to the percentage of users who follow brands in the US (53%).

The mature markets of Europe and the US will still claim a larger share of social network ad spending worldwide; however, the growth of spending is predicted to rise at a faster rate in the Asia-Pacific region. eMarketer forecasts that by 2013, Asia-Pacific’s regional share will reach 22.9%, surpassing Europe’s 22.3%. Spending per user is noted to remain low in Asia-Pacific. This may be due to the fact that some of the emerging markets are still developing their digital ad economies, and the fact that there are a hefty 616 million social network users at minimum in the region.

The lack of Facebook and Twitter in China would ostensibly represent barriers to such growth in this particular market. It is interesting to note however that the number of users on local social networks in China is still predicted to double the number of users in the US, to a total of 307.5 million by the end of 2012. As a result, ad spending in China will still experience rapid growth within the region, and even surpass the regional growth rate of 48.3%  with 51.3% gains in 2013.

Twitter now has 200 million monthly active users
Twitter continues to see widespread growth in its user base, with no signs of stopping soon. A report from The Next Web confirms that Twitter has released an update, stating that 200 million active users log onto Twitter every month. This amounts to a 60 million user increase since Twitter last shared a monthly active user base, of 140 million in March of this year. Despite having a fraction of Facebook’s 1 billion users, the microblogging site has seen an impressive average growth rate of 6.6 million new users per month since March 2012.

Facebook and Pinterest trigger more offline actions than other social sites
Through a recent survey by ACTIVE Network, MarketingProfs revealed that Facebook and Pinterest were the most likely to lead its users to take some form of action offline. The survey examined the relationship between offline actions and five social sites–Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest. The results of the survey demonstrated that 87% of Facebook users were influenced to do something offline because of an interaction they had while using the social network. Pinterest and LinkedIn came in close behind, with 70% and 60% of users of the respective sites reporting to have taken offline action. The type of offline action these social sites triggered also varied by platform. For instance, 70% of Facebook users and 56% of LinkedIn users were prompted to make direct contact with an individual after interacting on the respective sites. 23% of Facebook users and 21% of Pinterest users made a purchase as a result of using the platform. Pinterest also fed the creativity of its users, prompting 63% of them to create something new through interactions on the site.