How many of your Twitter followers read every tweet you send? The number is probably smaller than you think. Reading all of a brand’s tweets requires users to either A) Log in and read tweets extremely frequently… or perpetually, or B) Constantly visit the Twitter profiles of the brands they want to hear from. And as much as it would be great if your tweets were so engaging that they pulled all of your followers over to your profile, the hard truth is, they aren’t. And they don’t.
No matter how witty, interesting, or how much value your tweets contain, most of your audience will likely “luck” onto them – they will only see them if they happen to be online right around the time you tweet.
So if you’ve got a compelling message, how do you ensure more of your audience sees it? You duplicate your tweets.
Now, when we say “duplicate tweets,” that doesn’t mean copy and pasting tweets word-for-word and spamming your followers’ timelines. Instead, we’re using the term loosely, to mean tweeting the same meaning using different words, phrases, calls-to-action and multimedia.
So when is duplicating tweets a good idea? Here are some situations where it works:
When you’ve created a killer piece of content. After all, why tweet it once and then let your audience forget about it (or, for many of them, not see it at all)?
When you’re running a time-sensitive promotion, deal, contests or event. Tweeting before, during and after will help keep it top-of-mind.
When you want to get your stuff on someone’s radar. Tweeting to them once might be easily ignored – but ten times? That should get some attention.
But, as we discussed, duplicate tweeting isn’t just a matter of highlighting some text and hitting copy + paste. To be successful, it takes finesse.
You have to keep your entire audience in mind when duplicating tweets. Some of them will have seen the first tweet, and might be turned off if they see an exact copy an hour later. In fact, they might even think it’s spam, and click the dreaded “unfollow” button.
So, you’ve got to flex your creative muscles and write brand new tweets – but tweets that contain the same information as the original.
Let’s say you’re promoting an upcoming event, and you’re offering an early-bird special of 20% off ticket prices. Here are three tweets that get the same information across, but that won’t alienate any audience members who see more than one:
“Get your tickets to TheGreatEvent before the end of the month, and save 20% with our Early Bird special!”
“Tickets to TheGreatEvent are selling fast – and if you get in on the action before the cutoff date, you will save yourself a cool $100.”
“Only a few more days left until ticket prices for TheGreatEvent go up! Get yours today to save $$.”
Sending these tweets hours, days or even weeks apart will result in more eyeballs on the content, and more potential event signups. And since each tweet is unique, they act more as reminders – rather than spam – to anyone who sees more than one in their timelines.
Do you use duplicate tweeting as part of your Twitter marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments below.
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Social communication platform Rounds has announced the launch of its Booyah video chat app on iOS. The app was designed to be a companion to WhatsApp, and allows users to make free group video calls with their contacts.
Booyah supports video calls for up to 12 users. Once a user begins a call, they can tap a button to invite their WhatsApp contacts into the call. However, the app doesn’t limit itself to just WhatsApp users, as users can invite others to live video chats by sending invite links through email or text message, or posting invite links on Twitter and other platforms. When responding to invites, new users are prompted to downloaded Booyah before joining the call.
Booyah doesn’t require users to create an account before joining or starting a call. In addition, the app does not share content back to WhatsApp, or save content on users’ devices.
In a statement, Dany Fishel, CEO of Rounds, commented:
WhatsApp is the pioneer in group messaging, and therefore was the natural choice as the primary companion to Booyah. We took it one step further, and brought Snapchat’s ephemerality to group video chat, making these live conversations easy and casual. Ultimately, it’s our job to do all the labor intensive steps, and all you need to do to join a group chat is show up—and Booyah!
Booyah is available to download for free on the iTunes App Store. The app is coming soon to Android.
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Latin America is a stronghold for WhatsApp, while North America presents a weak spot, but the biggest opportunity for the Facebook-owned messaging application may be in Asia.
GlobalWebIndex shared the infographic below showing WhatsApp usage by region, and GWI said in an email to SocialTimes:
WhatsApp has already made substantial progress in Latin America and the Middle East, where around two-thirds of internet users are now WhatsApping. In contrast, North America has always been a problem for WhatsApp, with Facebook Messenger being the dominant messaging service.
But it’s in Asia where WhatsApp’s free model could bring the biggest increases. Leaving aside China, where WeChat is in total control, WhatsApp can claim 35 percent usage rates across the rest of the region – a decent figure, certainly, but one that shows how much room there is for further expansion.
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Emojis have emerged as a new language in digital media. The medium, once dominated by text, has moved more toward visual media, with emojis as the means of communicating tone and sentiment on messaging apps and social media among consumers.
This emoji communication creates actionable data for brands, including improving on-site customer service experiences in real time. According toLarry Kim, founder and CTO of online advertising agency WordStream, emojis also have applications for advertising on Twitter.
Kim conducted an experiment where he explored the impact of emojis on engagement. He used the Twitter ad platform to isolate the isolate the audience and A/B tested two ads: one with emojis and one without. The emoji version of the Tweet got 25.4 percent higher engagement than the non-emoji Tweet. What’s more, the Tweet with emoji had a lower cost per engagement, Kim said:
The cost to advertise on [Facebook or Twitter] is inversely related proportional to the engagement rate of the thing you’re looking to promote.
Based on his finding, Kim said brands should use emojis in every tweet, paid advertisements or not. Here were some guidelines to consider:
Learn the emoji characters. You can’t use emojis effectively if you don’t know what’s available to you. Kim recommended getting to know the emojis options and become fluent in the language.
Make it relevant.Once you understand the language, you should have no problem selecting topically relevant emojis. The more relevant, the higher the engagement.
Communicate like a real person.Brands can use emojis in much the same way as consumers, to communicate sentiment. This gives the brand’s online presence a more personable and human quality.
Use emojis for response.Instead of just “liking” or “favoriting a post on social media, respond with an emoji to communicate a specific emotion.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: Republican Debate & Google, AdWords iOS App & Adobe Report appeared first on Search Engine Land.
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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If you’re looking for a new mobile game to play this weekend, you have lots of new options to try, like Path of War, a strategy game from Nexon and Envision Entertainment. The game takes players to the near-future United States, and allows them to join the rebel militia as they attempt to take back Washington D.C. from the government regime.
In addition, Bandai Namco Entertainment America released its newest game this week: Digimon Heroes. The match-three card battle game allows players to collect more than 1,000 Digimon from all eras of the Digimon universe, and upgrade their Digimon over time.
If you’re looking for something else to try, here are more of this week’s new releases.
Super Phantom Cat ($1.99 on iOS) – This side-scrolling platformer from Veewo Games asks players to complete levels and collect data shards to change into different characters, like a chicken or vampire, as examples. Players explore environments using buttons for movement and jumping, and can defeat enemies and discover secret areas as they play. Gamers can also collect sprites as they play, which may give them special powers. Players can collect three stars in each stage, and can replay stages to collect the stars they’ve missed.
Hero Forces (Free on iOS, Android) – From Playcube, this third-person shooter challenges players to save the world from an organization known as D.O.O.M. As players progress, they can unlock new gear and upgrade their weapons and armor to become stronger. Outside of the game’s campaign mode, players can try survival mode, which features successive waves of enemies, and can also battle against other players in one-on-one or two-on-two matches. Finally, up to four players can team up to battle zombies in a cooperative mode.
Pridefest (Free on iOS, Android) – From Atari, Pridefest is a simulation game inspired by the LGBTQ community, which asks players to bring color and fun back to a city. Players can customize their own avatar, and are challenged to complete more than 40 quests to unlock new content. Gamers can customize shops and storefronts, and throw parades to bring happiness to their city.
Hoppy Naut (Free on iOS, Android; $0.99 on Amazon) – From shark apps, Hoppy Naut is a side-scrolling endless runner, challenging players to help an alien survive as long as possible in each game. The alien runs from left to right automatically, leaving players to tap once to jump, tap twice to double jump or tap and hold to glide while in the air. Players can collect coins as they run, which can be spent on new playable characters. Players are given additional coins as free prizes over time, and can earn more coins by watching video ads.
Hate Your Job (Free on iOS, Android) – From developer Thomas Sennett, Hate Your Job is a platformer starring Dom, a man who hates his job and wants to throw himself from the top of his office building. Players must help Dom climb to the top of the building while avoiding coworkers and office supplies. Each level includes a different arrangement of floors to climb and obstacles to avoid, and ends with Dom diving off of the top of the building. Gamers control Dom by swiping their finger on the screen to move and jump.
Adventure Cube (Free on iOS, Android) – This endless survival game from Ketchapp and Applava challenges players to help a cube survive by tapping on the left and right sides of the screen to move the cube forward on the path. The path is filled with obstacles, like spikes and pits, and the floor falls away behind the cube, challenging players to move quickly to survive as long as possible. Players can collect golden cubes as they play, and spend these on new playable characters. Gamers also receive free golden cubes as prizes over time, and can earn additional golden cubes by watching video ads when these are available.
Merged (Free on iOS, Android) – This puzzle game from Gram Games asks players to drag numbered blocks to the game board so three blocks containing the same number touch and merge. For instance, when three ‘one’ blocks touch, they merge into a ‘two’ block. When three ‘two’ blocks touch, they merge into a ‘three’ block, and so on, until players merge three ‘six’ blocks into an ‘M’ block. When players merge three ‘M’ blocks, they explode and clear nine other blocks from the grid. Games end when players fill the board and run out of moves.
In addition to these new releases, here are some of the previously released games which have come to new platforms.
Looking for the next big thing in social advertising? Programmatic, or automated, advertising is where the money is going.
According to a recent AdRoll report, 66 percent of advertisers polled said they plan to increase their programmatic ad spend in 2016.
Why? The report notes that 87 percent of marketers are seeing greater return through programmatic adversing compared to traditional media buying.
Adam Berke, AdRoll’s president and CMO, commented on the findings in AdRoll’s State of the Industry report:
Marketing is becoming an increasingly technology driven discipline, and practitioners are being held to higher standards of measurement and accountability than ever before. It therefore makes sense that marketers and business managers want their advertising efforts to be driven by the same innovations in data science, AI, and automation that have driven advancements in other parts of the modern enterprise. The results from this survey make it clear that 2016 is staged to be a massive year for digital advertising, and programmatic technologies will be the driving force.
Other findings from the report:
32 percent of marketers spent more than 50 percent of their budgets on programmatic in 2015
Programmatic social ad buying is now 50 percent more popular than programmatic display for B2C marketers (75 percent of all B2C marketers polled are using programmatic)
1/3 of marketers are now using programmatic ad buying on mobile
Retargeting jumped from 54 percent to 82 percent this year; 87 percent of marketers said they will spend more on mobile retargeting in 2016
While most advertisers polled really want to see retargeting come to eBay, social networks such as Pinterest and Snapchat are also where they’re looking:
Readers: What are your thoughts on programmatic advertising?
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Parse co-founder Kevin Lacker made the announcement in a blog post, also revealing two tools to help developers migrate their apps to other platforms.
Lacker wrote:
We have a difficult announcement to make. Beginning today, we’re winding down the Parse service, and Parse will be fully retired after a year-long period ending Jan. 28, 2017. We’re proud that we’ve been able to help so many of you build great mobile apps, but we need to focus our resources elsewhere.
We understand that this won’t be an easy transition, and we’re working hard to make this process as easy as possible. We are committed to maintaining the back-end service during the sunset period, and we are providing several tools to help migrate applications to other services.
First, we’re releasing a database migration tool that lets you migrate data from your Parse app to any MongoDB database. During this migration, the Parse application-programming interface will continue to operate as usual based on your new database, so this can happen without downtime. Second, we’re releasing the open source Parse Server, which lets you run most of the Parse API from your own Node.js server. Once you have your data in your own database, Parse Server lets you keep your application running without major changes in the client-side code. For more details, check out our migration guide here.
We know that many of you have come to rely on Parse, and we are striving to make this transition as straightforward as possible. We enjoyed working with each of you, and we have deep admiration for the things you’ve built. Thank you for using Parse.
Moving forward, we want to dedicate more resources to high-impact products and services in areas like analytics, monetization, discovery and authentication. As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to wind down support for Parse. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished together with the Parse community, and we thank them for their support.
Readers: Are you as surprised as we were?
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Facebook’s recently introduced 360-degree videos and sports are a perfect match.
Partner product lead Paul Beddoe-Stephens provided several examples of 360 videos from the sports world and said in a Facebook Media blog post:
Whether it’s seeing a soccer field up close, flying down a ski slope or getting in the boxing ring, 360 video enables athletes, teams and leagues to give their fans an intimate and exciting viewing experience.
You can watch these 360 videos right on Facebook, on Web or mobile devices, choosing the angle you’d like to watch from by dragging around the video with your cursor or your finger. On mobile, you can even just move your device in any direction to explore the video.
People using a Samsung Gear VR and supported Samsung smartphone can also easily play Facebook 360 videos in their Gear VR—simply click “watch in VR” in the top-left corner of the video, place the Samsung phone in the Gear VR headset and experience the video in a more immersive VR environment.
Helpshift, a customer support platform for mobile, polled 1.3 billion mobile devices over a six-month period, and discovered during that time, 20 percent of consumers actively sought help in an app they were using.
Helpshift determined 284 million users searched for in-app support during the six-month time period, but only seven percent of these users actually filed a support ticket after using a ‘specific self-service FAQ’ available within an app.
In total, Helpshift estimated 95 percent of mobile apps lack an in-app channel for customers to receive support when they need it.
In a statement, Abinash Tripathy, CEO and co-founder at Helpshift, commented:
This data proves the value of in-app customer support. Just as other technology is evolving, so too is CRM and customer support. We must tailor our support to our customers’ needs and meet them in the channel they prefer which is in-app, so that brands can engage and retain mobile customers.
Readers: Do you wish more apps offered in-app support?
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