Global Marketing News – 27th June 2016
Roland-Garros shows how to do social media in sport
This summer, France will enjoy its fair share of international sporting events, as it hosts the football European Championships in the country.
However, the Roland-Garros tennis tournament held earlier this month, could hold the key as to how organisers of future sporting events around the world should appeal to a social media audience.
Ideal for providing instant reaction to the event, the tournament’s success on social media has shown how brands can increase audience engagement.
During the time period in which the event took place, over a third of Facebook posts related to the event contained video, which then went on to generate 62% of total responses; a disproportionally high amount.
Data also showed that videos performed better when they were relatively short; between 120 and 149 seconds long.
This type of video generated 1.9 million actions across social media, with the most popular video being highlights of the women’s final, which was viewed 225 million times.
Instagram hits half a billion users
Instagram’s Kevin Systrom has announced that Instagram has hit half a billion users, since its launch in 2010.
Whilst being used on a daily basis by 300 million people, Systrom announced that the milestone, and its recent rise in adoption, is in part due to high-profile stars who have started accounts on the app.
However, according to Systrom, with the increase in usership comes concerns regarding Instagram’s identity.
After the service was purchased by Facebook for 1 billion US dollars in 2012, users expressed concerns regarding change and the way adverts would increase on people’s feeds.
Users also complained about the company’s recent logo change.
Systrom responded to these concerns by saying “companies that make transitions like that are successful”, before reassuring users that the changes would only improve user experience.
Baidu to measure China’s economy
Baidu is designing a new gauge to measure China’s economy, using its own vast amounts of data.
Using the information collected from more than 600 million of its users, Baidu’s indications are expected to show the country’s economy in a better light than the government’s official analysis.
Because the search engine handles around 80% of the country’s online searches, Baidu has access to potentially huge amounts of data; something it hopes can help it build an accurate image of China’s economy, including employment rate.
As something of a sticking point, employment data released by the government has been questioned by economists.
Data scientist Wu Haishan is quoted as saying that “the economy is slowing down but the unemployment rate published by the government remains steady about 4%”, which he says people are “suspicious of”.
Baidu is looking to resort to sources like media reports of job losses to counteract this issue.
Game developer Supercell acquired by Tencent
Supercell, the builders of the highly popular app Clash Of Clans, has been acquired by Tencent.
Paying 8.6 billion US dollars to buy an 84% stake in Supercell, Tencent can now add the studio to its already impressive roster of games developers which includes Activision Blizzard and Epic Games.
Described as the world’s worst kept secret by Supercell founder, Ilkka Paananen, the company has decided to sell the majority stake to Tencent in order to finance what he called a transformation strategy.
It was also announced that all current employees of Supercell will remain an equity holder and the headquarters will remain in Helsinki, whilst the deal will not force Supercell into an IPO which it was claimed suited the company’s culture.
Africa predicted to have 1 billion online consumers by 2020
And finally, according to projections, Africa will hold over 1 billion online consumers by 2020, more than Europe and North America put together.
The forecast was announced by The Boston Consulting Group which also reported that the continent will have more affluent consumers than the UK by the same point, due to increasing wages.
With 11,127 people polled across numerous countries, BCG’s Stefano Niavas explained that the research offered an insight as to where new investment would have the greatest impact.
Speaking about the results in different countries, Niavas said that “understanding these differences is critical when trying to make inroads”.
Webcertain’s global marketing news bulletins are daily 5-minute videos, providing marketers with the latest international digital marketing news in an easy-to-digest format.
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