23 Jun Facebook Goes Local; Twitter Goes Long; Smart Cars Go Funny
Social media marketers: Did you catch these three stories last week? Here’s a recap in case you missed any:
Facebook Testing Location-Based Ads
After some new research came out showing that Facebook marketing leads to sales, and that their new news feed based (mobile) ads are highly effective, Facebook announced they are experimenting with location-based ads. If they can sniff out where you are using Facebook (and they easily can), they should be able to serve you ads for nearby stores, movie theaters, events and more. It’s an interesting mix of Facebook with a touch of foursquare mixed in.
Tweets are Getting Longer, More Detailed
140 character Twitter limit? That’s so May 2012… Well, not quite, but Twitter is adding Expanded Tweets, which currently lets only select publishers (like the NY Times) have the ability for a user to expand a tweet to see the headline of a linked article, some initial text and a thumbnail photo. This is important for two reasons: (1) users don’t have to blindly click links without knowing what they are and (2) it’s widely expected that Twitter will soon let everyone do this, not just these publishers. So we may all be embedding more content in Twitter soon.
Humor, While Rarely Used, Can Help Brands a Lot
A self-styled “concept cowboy” in the ad business thought he was showing up Smart Car when he tweeted, “Saw a bird had crapped on a Smart Car. Totaled it.”
Not all that funny, but the folks at Smart Car saw it and developed a very funny infographic showing that it would take 4,500,000 bird craps to total “smart’s tridion safety cell.” On brand (the message that the car is safe) and the Internet loved it, earning them big play on Reddit.
Last month, Samsung Canada also got over 550,000 views of this hilarious response.
Humor from brands is so unexpected that people love it.
Bonus
Here’s a bonus blog post for extra credit: Are you reaching your fans’ friends?
