Are social networks losing their appeal?

For many, a day isn’t a day without a status update or a new hair cut truly appreciated without an uploaded photo. Facebook is almost universal and the majority of people only know one or two people who don’t have an account.

So the news that Facebook lost 600,000 users in Britain certainly came as a shock – to Facebook at least.

I personally have found my interest in the social network waning. I have come to wonder whether those friends I have on Facebook really are genuine friends. I certainly don’t have them all in my phone book and as for paying a fee to promote a specific post to select friends- I think not.

This month Facebook has added a new search engine to its facilities and enabled calls to be made at the touch of a button – all services that have been around before Facebook came on the scene.

It seems to me that since the social giant became public its appeal has suffered. Maybe fans of the site feel shafted. When Mark Zuckerberg launched his venture it was a simple, no adverts website where people could stay in touch with friends and family. Now, it’s trying to be something it’s not – the Tesco of the social media world - trying to offer everything in one place.

Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo sharing app, has also suffered some fall-out from its users. Panic spread after the app that has 90 million users revised its privacy policy, stating it would be selling users photos to advertisers. Following an unprecedented backlash – a 25% decrease in one week among users - it decided to remove this amendment to its policy.  

Have social websites started to lose their appeal? Or have users become wise to the lack of privacy provided by some of these sites? It’s clear that a business needs to keep up with demands from customers, especially in a fast moving environment where there’s no time for the weak. Either way, Facebook looks to be fighting a losing battle.

By Stephanie Rock

Twitter Reinvents Itself

Twitter got itself a makeover last week- including a brand new logo - and all apparently for the benefit of advertisers.

Two years ago Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage at the Cannes Advertising Festival. Last week Jack Dorsey, creator of Twitter, stood in exactly the same position, pitching his vision for the future to the marketing industry. The event has always attracted executives, but the social media boom has widened its audience, and last week the world’s media had their cameras firmly trained on the stage. Consequently Dorsey won Media Person of the Year and dominated the press. 

Twitter’s plan is to improve its technology, allowing multi-national brands to manage conservations and campaigns in different countries from the same accounts.

The Californian-based company has high aspirations and plans to roll out its advertising products – promoted tweets, promoted trends and promoted accounts - to 50 territories by the end of the year.

It seems the six-year-old tech company has a lot on its plate for the next six months. Un-phased by the amount of work to do, Chief Executive Dick Costolo says ‘we are still growing quite fast month on month in the UK, Mexico, Spain, Italy, France.’

It seems Twitter – for now at least - has escaped the backlash Facebook has had to endure with regards to advertising on the site. Since the Twitter London office opened last year, more than 140 advertisers have signed up.

Plans for office openings in Latin America, particularly Brazil, are next on the agenda. Activity in Western Europe is also set to increase, with Spain and Germany the first countries to get their hands on the new product.

Many brands have been supportive of the opportunities Twitter has been offering. Absolute Radio said they wouldn’t have had the ‘immediacy at a massive scale’ from a YouTube, MSN or Yahoo! Homepage takeover.

The station gave away £250 every hour for 24 hours to winners tweeting what was playing using the promoted hashtag,  #nowplaying.  And the results – there was a 7% increase of listeners on the day of competition, 76,000 mentions and cost per engagement calculated at 4p.

For now at least, it looks as though Twitter has reason to be chirpy.

By Stephanie Rock