SCOTTISH COMMUNICATOR’S NETWORK WORKSHOPAPRIL 2016

THE SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE – REFLECTIONS ON A WEST COAST

MISSION

You don’t need me to tell you that social media companies are a big deal, but just how big is still pretty staggering. Facebook is worth more than Proctor & Gamble and is far bigger than any company on the FTSE 100. Snapchat is now valued at $20BN which is significantly higher than British Airways/IAG. While both Twitter and Pinterest are worth more than $10bn and dwarf the Royal Mail. Whether this is all a big bubble is worthy of debate, but for now let’s focus on what these megabrands are up to.

So when we went to see Twitter they had just launched Twitter moments. I already turn to twitter first when something like the Belgian airport attack happens, because I know it takes Sky and BBC news a while to verify things so they’re maybe not as quick as Twitter, if at least they’re more accurate. So curating what’s happening into a moments tab seemed to make a lot of sense (it’s first place I looked when Prince died!).But what Twitter weren’t able to tell us was how they would move beyond their current 300million users – and that stagnant growth in users is the reason why Twitter’s share price has dropped 50% in the last few months. The answer may have come recently when Twitter outbid Facebook and other web giants for rights to stream Thursday night NFL games on the platform next season. Live sport is pretty much the only appointment to view left in an on-demand world, so Twitter are gambling that live sports rights could draw in new users and satisfy their shareholders. And live sport means live video advertising opportunities. People already watch a lot of sport on mobile so as long as Twitter get the delivery right there’s no reason why live streaming won’t work for them.

Watch the Twitter

Moments TV ad at https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR73YnYa0e0

One of Facebook’s big focus areas right now is Virtual Reality. We’re at the start of a very exciting time for Virtual and Alternative Reality and Facebook see interactive social video as the biggest near-term opportunity Bu they also have a bold 10 year plan to evolve that in to immersive VR experiences. We got to see the Oculus Touch in action and they tell us that after 10 or 15 minutes playing table tennis with Oculus touch people have lost the sense that it isn’t actually happening in real life.Even with a basic horror game on a Samsung Gear which runs on a smartphone, the experience can clearly be pretty intense.

Watch someone react to a VR Horror

game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHniB_6a774

Check out Facebook’s plans for VR from F8 conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqspyrTkR9w

Aside from VR, the next big thing for Facebook is probably Facebook Live – this is essentially live streaming like periscope but on a scale that no one else has been able to do so far. It’s very early days but last week 800,000 people watched a live feed of Buzzfeed putting elastic bands on a watermelon until it burst!So what are the implications of Facebook Live? Well put simply it could disrupt the broadcast TV model. If you’re a band, or celebrity or comedian, why would you bother with the complicated and expensive world of TV when you can put your product out for free on Facebook Live and reach millions of people. Netflix was seen as the end for TV, Facebook Live might just be the end.This is one of many reasons Facebook’s share keep climbing in no proportion to the money it makes from ad sales!An interesting fact: Facebook has over 8,000 employees. More then a quarter of them have been there less than 3 months. Can you imagine managing and integrating that kind of growth?Watch a watermelon explode

live on Facebook here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFENeI8JA7Q

So now on to the social netowrk that probably scares the over 30s the most - Snapchat. Snapchat is still a small company in terms of number of employees but far from small in user growth.Snapchat is now estimated to do around 8bn video views every day. Which is more than YouTube. Snapchat claim they have 60% of 16-34 year old smartphone users on the platform. So Snapchat as a photo sharing platform and a way to tell your own story is really snapchat 1.0 – it was great because the built in ephemerality meant people weren’t filtering themselves like they did with Instagram or Facebook. Snapchat live stories are really interesting and worth checking out – curated content of things of interest around the world. So on Monday there was a live story about the Leciester v West Ham football match, edited together with videos taken by people within the crowd –and it is an amazing way to really experience a live event. Check it out as intro to SnapchatSnapchat 2.0 which is a recently released update, sees the company attempt to become the only communication method people, or at least digital natives, need. It wants to BE your phone. Check out this great video to find out morehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6eMkqhusak

Pinterest is probably the network I was least comfortable with. I just didn’t really get it. As you’d expect Pinterest had a very cool office full of very cool people eating very healthy free food.But they also understood their platform; it’s different from other social networks in that it’s not a very social network – it’s the unsocial network. People go on to Pinterest to do things for themselves, it’s about looking for ideas and inspiration, shopping for things you want to buy, and finding things you want to do. Apparently 1/3rd of all Pinterest boards are hidden wedding boards where people go to just store images for their wedding one day.

How people spend time on

Pinterest in relation to other Social Networks

So Pinterest is well set up for retail, which is exactly what they’re doing. Now when you see something you like on Pinterest you can tap twice and you’ve bought it – with all details stored within the app. This functionality works beautifully and seems the perfect way for Pinterest to monetise their platform – but yet they have decided they won’t take any margin on it!! I was staggered. It seems like revenue is a dirty word in some parts of silicon valley – because they can never make enough money to justify their huge valuations.Another thing that works really well on Pinterest is their visual search feature, if you see a scarf on a pub table that you like, snap a photo of it and Pinterest will find it or something very similar on the platform. It worked really well when we tried it and could be a great tool for someone like ASOS who’s rumoured to be trialling buy it now buttons on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. ASOS is a brand that get’s more than 50% of it’s sales from people on mobile devices so clearly it’s a big area for them.

Check out a quick demo of Pinterest Visual Search here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Uh0OpzxhU

and remember…“We don’t have enough perspective to understand where we’ve come from in the last 10 years, let alone where we’re going in the next 10!”Damon Berger, Full Screen

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