Month: June 2019

Facebook SDK bug crashes apps like Timehop

On By superbsummersIn Marketing, Online Marketing, Social MediaLeave a comment

A malfunction in Facebook’s Software Development Kit that lets apps add Login With Facebook, sharing, and other features is causing apps that integrate it like Timehop to repeatedly crash. TechCrunch received a tip that developers were getting tons of user complaints and crash reports starting around noon pacific today due to a problem with the Facebook for iOS SDK. TechCrunch’s testing verified that products like Timehop, Joytunes’ Simply Piano, Momento GIFs, and more keep breaking when users access Facebook features or in some cases just open the app.

This is a big issue for Facebook because it relies on these apps to drive user lock-in. If people use Facebook to log into or share from other apps, they’re less likely to delete their account. But if the Facebook developer platform screws up like this morning, developers could instead highlight sharing via Twitter or SMS, and divert ad buys to other platforms. Most problematically, the bug could push developers to other login platforms like Google’s or Apple’s new Sign In With Apple.

Facebook SDK Bug

The bug was initially submitted to Facebook’s developer forums by Ryan Layne. These crashes thwart normal usage of other apps, costing their developers ad views and in-app purchases, or leading their users to uninstall or abandon them. TechCrunch contacted Facebook requesting information on the cause of the bug, a timeline for a fix, and what developers should do in the meantime. The company’s PR team is investigating, a representative tells me.

Timehop Facebook SDK Crash

Hitting the Connect Facebook button on Timehop causes the app to crash. Developers in Facebook’s bug reporting forum pile on saying their apps are breaking

The situation highlights the increasing centralization of the web as more and more companies depend on a small number of mobile, hosting, and social platforms. Earlier this month, a Google Cloud outage knocked down Snapchat and Discord. While these tools make it simpler to start a company or launch an app without having to build everything in-house, they introduce platform risk. Beyond technical outages, there’s also the concern that a platform could use its insights to copy its clients, or block them if they compete with the gatekeeper too vigorously as Facebook has done to chat and social media apps in the past.

from Social – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/28/facebook-bug/
via Superb Summers

Apple tries out the ‘choose-your-own adventure’ Twitter thread format that recently went viral

On By superbsummersIn Marketing, Online Marketing, Social MediaLeave a comment

It looks like choose-your-own-adventure Twitter games won’t be a one-hit wonder, now that Apple’s social team has adopted the format. A new tweet from the @AppleTV Twitter account today helps users find a movie to watch by having them click through a series of Twitter threads. However, their effort (so far at least) pales compared with the original viral sensation — a Twitter choose-your-own-adventure style game that blew up earlier this month, where Twitter users try to not get fired as Beyoncé’s new assistant.

If you haven’t seen this masterpiece of Twitter handiwork, give yourself a break this Friday and go try it. It’s great fun.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The game is played by presenting you with a multiple choice question. You then click on your answer from among the Twitter replies presented by the original poster.

For example, you start your day by ordering Queen Bey her breakfast. You’re asked to choose between ordering a five-star breakfast or granola and yogurt. If you choose the former (spoiler alert!), you’re fired. If you click the right answer, you move on to the next task.

Further questions take you to new threads where you choose things like who Beyoncé should FaceTime, what activity you suggest while she waits for hair and makeup, what song to play for her when she asks for music, when she should get dressed for the event and where, whether you should photobomb her on the red carpet to fix her dress, where she sits at an event, and so on.

The game isn’t always simple A/B choices, either. The answers lead you down different paths. Your choice may not immediately result in being fired, but still could later on. For instance, if you send Beyoncé swimming, there’s no way to save your job when the next set of choices comes.

According to a TIME profile, the idea for the thread came from 19-year-old student Landon Rivera, who lives in L.A.

The thread, now which now has over a quarter million Twitter likes, was noticed by celebs like Chrissy Teigen and Questlove, the report also noted

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

After the Beyoncé game blew up into a viral hit, the creator started new threads about being Cardi B’s bodyguard and getting away with murder. These haven’t yet taken off to the extent the original Beyoncé thread did, which today stands at over 250K Likes on the thread placeholder tweet, and 97,300 retweets.

While it’s interesting that Apple’s social media team has now copycatted the idea, their choose-your-own-adventure thread falls short.

Actually, really short.

In fact, it’s not much of an adventure at all.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Instead, the movie suggestion thread doesn’t go much further than letting your pick between two movie watching scenarios, then directs you into a genre of your choosing…then, it dead ends with a movie suggestion.

This misses the reasons the Beyoncé game went viral in the first place: because it was lengthy, complex, multi-branched, and funny. You could get down several threads deep into the thing and then get booted out and lose.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The questions themselves also prompted commentary from those who knew Beyoncé actual habits (or at least, thought they did.)

Social media teams looking to replicate this formula for their own success will need to do more than create a handful of quick-to-end threads with little payoff. Either invest the serious effort in designing a clever branching narrative or just tweet as usual.

 

 

 

from Social – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/28/apple-tries-out-the-choose-your-own-adventure-twitter-thread-format-that-recently-went-viral/
via Superb Summers

How startups can make influencer marketing work on a budget

On By superbsummersIn Marketing, Online Marketing, Social MediaLeave a comment
Ishveen Anand
Contributor

Ishveen is the CEO+Founder of OpenSponsorship.com, a marketplace she founded after her experiences being a successful sports agent, to bring transparency and affordability to the sports marketing industry, namely between brands and athletes.

Influencer Marketing has ballooned into a $25 billion industry, yet many marketing managers are left confused by this, because for them, it’s really not delivering the results to justify the hype.

Here’s the thing. Influencer marketing is not a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy such as Facebook or Adwords advertising. Each company needs to take a closer look at what influencer marketing can achieve, where it falls down, and how you can do a better job with this latest form of marketing that delivers, on average, $6.50 of value for every $1 spent.

The analysis below relies on clients and case studies from our experience at OpenSponsorship.com (my company) which is the largest marketplace connecting brands with over 5500 professional athletes for marketing campaigns.

With over 3500 deals to date across clients as big as Vitamin Shoppe and Anheuser Busch, established players like Jabra and Project Repat, and new startups like Brazyn and Gutzy, we have seen a lot go wrong (who knew you could disable comments on a post!) and a lot go right (an unknown skiier’s $100 Instagram, posted right before the Winter Olympics, going viral after he won the Silver)!!

Thanks to our in-house data experts, integrations with IBM Watson, robust ROI tracking tools and 10 years+ of experience combining the learnings of sports sponsorship with influencer marketing, we have gained extensive insights into campaign strategies.

We will share our learnings about what criteria to consider when choosing the best influencer to work with, figuring out how much to pay the influencer, what rights to ask for in the deal, what terms and conditions are reasonable and how to track ROI for the deal.

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Table of Contents

Who is the right influencer? 

At OpenSponsorship, we match brands with athletes for marketing campaigns, with a view to further expand into other areas of media and entertainment such as music artists, comedians, actors. Even within the athlete world, there is the concept of micro-influencers such as yogis, triathletes, marathon runners, all the way to macro-influencers such as NFL Quarterbacks, starting NBA point guards and everything in between.

Our 3 recommendations for picking the right influencers are:

from Social – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/28/how-startups-can-make-influencer-marketing-work-on-a-budget/
via Superb Summers