Friday Social: Facebook Autoplay, Social Self-Censoring and Roar’s Home for Christmas

  • Social Media

Our #FridaySocial is a weekly round-up of the key social media news stories from the previous seven days. Tweet us your thoughts – @Umpf / @Allllliiiii.

1. Most discussed adverts on social

Research by We Are Social has revealed that the John Lewis ‘Bear and Hare’ Christmas advert has been the most socially discussed so far this year (receiving 212,000 mentions), but supermarket Sainsbury’s advert made the most emotional impact on social media – with 21% of viewers mentioning crying in their tweets about the ad.

Sainsbury’s has gained a whopping 16,000 followers on Twitter and 43,000 new fans on Facebook since the beginning of the campaign. Tesco’s Christmas ads had the widest appeal with 52% males discussing the advert online – unusual, as social discussion surrounding all Christmas ads was found to be mostly female. Marks and Spencer has also done well socially this festive season thanks to its #MagicOrSparkle campaign, gaining 264,000 fans on Facebook and 18,000 Twitter followers.

 

2. Facebook unveils video ads

Facebook announced on Tuesday that it is unveiling a new advertising tactic – autoplay video ads. In testing since September, Facebook says that the new format has led to a 10% increase in video views and increased engagement. Here’s how Facebook says it will work:

– Rather than having to click or tap on the content, videos will begin to play as they appear on screen — without sound — similar to how they behave when shared by friends now. If you don’t want to watch the video, you can simply scroll past it.

– If the video is clicked or tapped and played in full screen, the sound for that video will play as well

– At the end of the video, a carousel featuring two additional videos will appear, making it easy to discover more content from the same marketer

– On mobile devices, all videos that begin playing as they appear on the screen will have been downloaded in advance when the device was connected to WiFi — meaning this content will not consume data plans, even if you’re not connected to WiFi at the time of playback

Facebook also notes that this new autoplay format isn’t intended for every piece of video content shared on the site, but that it meets certain needs to fulfil certain objectives. TechCrunch notes that while some users may complain about the new ads, it could have been a lot worse: they don’t pop up and they don’t shout at you – if you don’t like them, you can just keep scrolling. And similarly to when Facebook first launched advertising, it’s looking for a slightly different format than we’re used to – videos will have to be created to make a statement with and without sound.

3. Facebook addiction causes woman to fall off pier

Taking social media addiction to a new and dangerous extreme – a Taiwanese tourist has walked straight off of a pier in Australia while checking Facebook.

The woman, who reportedly cannot swim, spent 20 minutes in the water before being rescued by a police boat. She apparently managed to keep hold of her phone throughout the ordeal – no news on how many Instagram photos or tweets were posted from the bay below.

4. Social media users delete one third of messages before posting

Facebook has this week revealed how we self-censor ourselves when posting on the social media site. According to the network, one in three Facebook status updates are never actually posted due to fear of irritating or offending friends or family.

Facebook conducted research by monitoring all status updates that are drafted, but never posted, finding that we often start writing such posts in haste, but think better of it and delete halfway through. Deleted content ranges from controversial opinions that could cause argument, to updates which could just be perceived as unnecessary and ‘spammy’. It was revealed that men seem to tread more lightly than women when posting, and older users are also more cautious than younger Facebookers.

A total of 3.9 million US and UK accounts were looked at as part of the study, with 71% of these censoring themselves at least once and 51% deleting at least one post after submitting.

5. Social media reunites lost teddy with its owner

A perfect story for the festive season – the power of Twitter and Facebook have reunited a little girl with her lost toy lion.rs_560x420-131216134747-1024.phoebe-simpson-lion-roar-facebook

Twitter user Lauren Bishop Vranch spotted the teddy on an East Coast train headed to King’s Cross, and snapped a photo of it with a message asking if the internet could help to find its lost family. Lauren’s initial tweet was retweeted thousands of times and the message made its way to a Facebook page, Spotted on the Train. There, the father of the owner of the stuffed lion – named Roar – spotted the image and got in touch to make plans for Roar to head home in time for Christmas.

And finally… Merry Christmas from all of us at Umpf!