Social Networks

Snap snap. Snapchat gets newsy with Discover

Have you updated Snapchat? For the snap happy ones of us in the office that did, we were confronted with the most interesting feature yet – Discover.

For the uninitiated, Snapchat is an iOS and Android app that lets users take photos or record videos and add text and drawings, before sending them to a list of recipients. These Snaps can be viewed for between one and 10 seconds, then they’re hidden from the receiver’s device and deleted from Snapchat’s servers.

Developed by Stanford University’s Bobby Murphy, Reggie Brown and Evan Spiegel, Snapchat has come a very long way since its release in September 2011:

Snapchat is reportedly now worth $10 billion
100 million people actively use the app each month
400 million Snaps are sent every day
1 billion Snapchat Stories are viewed every day
Snapchat is the third most popular social app among millennials
Facebook offered $3 billion to buy Snapchat in 2013. In cash

Not so bad for an app that was initially dismissed as a novelty act.

In Discover, media companies can publish content to the app for users to view. At launch, these included MTV, Cosmopolitan, Yahoo! News, National Geographic and The Daily Mail just to name a few.

According to Snapchat’s latest blog post, Discover is different because it’s been built for creatives, but keeps Stories – apologies if we don’t watch the entire narrative of your night out, we’ve got better things to do at 3am – at its core.

There’s a beginning, middle and end so editors can put everything in order and every edition is refreshed after 24 hours. Simply tap to open, swipe left to browse, or swipe up on a Snap for more.

With promises of fresh and unique content from each channel every day, Discover has certainly grabbed our attention.

Rule 5 Crafts Blu Tack Digital Comms

We’re delighted to have won a brief from Bostik, the leading global adhesive specialist, to develop a social media presence for the Blu Tack brand.

Work is already underway with a Facebook page focussing on arts and craft applications in development. Bostik Communications Manager, Matt Hicks, said: “Social is a great fit for the Blu Tack brand. Driving engagement through Facebook will help to increase awareness and advocacy for our products in the stationery and craft categories.

“Rule 5 has an excellent understanding of digital and how it relates to our target audience, so we’re delighted to have the team on board.”

With a wealth of experience in building and engaging online communities in this sector under our belt, we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Bostik to launch this social media platform. It’s a fun and highly engaging campaign and we’re looking forward to inspiring a new generation of families to get creative with Bostik stationery and craft products.

The Blu Tack Facebook page will provide a community focus for young parents and offer a wealth of hints, tips and ideas on how to keep children entertained whilst inspiring their creative development. Running alongside the Facebook activity is a blogger outreach programme, engaging over 20 of the UK’s top parenting bloggers.

The sweet ingredient to viral success…

Viral content – the holy grail of web curios – is a digital communicator’s dream. So, you can imagine the resounding Rule 5 glee when a puppy cake picture we shared on our client’s Facebook page hit the sharing sweet-spot this week.

With a collective 48,525 shares and a staggering 147,194 likes (and counting) – this innocent sleeping Dalmatian pup added an overwhelming 3,000+ fans to the Renshaw Baking Facebook page over the course of the May bank holiday.

As a part of the wider communications strategy for the brand, one of the key objectives of R5’s social media programme is to encourage the Renshaw social community to share with us their cake decorating projects and photos.

As you’d expect, the user generated content we typically share generates higher levels of engagement than straight, brand-owned content – ‘Dimples’ the Dalmatian however, set a new record for what gets our fans talking.

A quick peep at the brand’s Facebook insights shows that sharing the picture made a significant impact on the page with the total reach rocketing up over 11,000% on the previous week’s communications. Added to that was an increase of almost 60,000% in the number of people talking about the page and a 50% rise in the number of friends of fans the page now has links to.

Timed well to hit the mood of the nation ready to pack their desks up for the long weekend, the domino effect of this shareable pup (lemon flavoured and covered with Renshaw Ready to Roll Icing) also inundated cake-decorator Trish Clarke with orders for bespoke doggie cakes.

Proof is in the pudding (sorry!) that when it comes to the internet – animals and food really are the key ingredients to viral success.

BBC Future Media Event Part 2: The first ‘safe’ social network?

The first installment of our two-part blog on last week’s BBC Future Media Event looked at the developing technology of Perceptive Media and what this might hold for the communications industry. In this second follow-up blog, we look at two key areas of interest arising from discussions with the CBBC and Digital Sport teams, starting with the launch of what the Beeb is calling the first ‘safe, real-world’ social network…

CBBC launches the first ‘safe’ social network for children

Children under the age of five have never known a world without the iPhone and so naturally demand that their technology is slick, quick and ahead of the times. The CBBC website hosts around 1,700 games and is available on a host of different devices. In a move that breaks ground in the online social space, it is soon to launch what it is calling the first ‘real world’, safe social network for kids. Allowing children to connect with their friends online in a space named ‘Vs’, the new CBBC hosted network ensures that children trade user names in the playground rather than digitally, so it’s completely transparent as to whom they are connecting with. The development has not only benefited children and their parents; investing locally, the Beeb has awarded independent developer contracts for a number of its upcoming digital projects in pitch processes that include over 300 agencies. An example of which is Manchester-based Young , responsible for developing the new Cbeebies ‘Music Mash-Up’ game-app.

BBC Sport: Mobile browsers first

The success story of the night came from the digital sport team. Ten million people per day watched the 2012 Olympics on the BBC Sport website, which typically receives 6 million hits per day. Seven-hundred thousand people watched Bradley Wiggins race for gold on their mobile and athletes and journalists utilised the ground-breaking live stream technology to watch team mates compete while keeping abreast of all events.

Head of the sports team, Chris Condron, explained the importance of first optimising the site’s mobile browser, which receives more traffic than the Apple and Android sport apps combined. A device’s market share is the key factor in building the critical mass that warrants a bespoke app development, bringing to light the need for a fully optimised mobile browser on all devices. This is especially significant when you consider 2014’s packed sporting calendar, including World Cup, Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games.