A look at what all the big platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube are currently doing, what changes they are making and what marketers will be seeing more of in 2015 from the social media space. Authors: Carla Gontier @GrumpyGont Tyrone Nell

2. SOCIAL MEDIA
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2014

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SOCIAL MEDIA
PLATFORM OVERVIEW

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3, 800, 000
7, 200, 000
6 ,600, 000
11, 800, 000
1, 100, 000
840, 000
4, 900, 000
2, 700, 000
4, 700, 000
5, 500, 000
9, 600, 000
680, 000
930, 000
6, 500, 000
2014 2013
• Facebook remains to be the largest social media
platform in South Africa.
• Mxit has moved down two spots from the 2nd to the
4th largest platform.
PLATFORM OVERVIEW
-24%
+53%
+40%
+23%
+65%
+20%
-10%
World Wide Worx Report 2015

5. PLATFORM OVERVIEW
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FACEBOOK TWITTER INSTAGRAM YOUTUBE
ACTIVE USERS • 11.8 Million • 6.6 Million • 1.1 Million • 7.2 Million
USER PROFILE • 50% Male
• 50% Female
• 13 – 17: 880K
• 18 – 25: 4,2 Mil
• 26 – 35: 3,6 Mil
• 36 – 45: 1,2 Mil
• 46 – 65+: 1,6 Mil
• 8.8 Million access
from mobiles.
• 56% Male
• 44% Female
• 16 – 24 Years: 29%
• 25 – 34 Years: 32%
• 34 – 44 Years: 19%
• 46% Employed full time, 18%
Self employed & 11% are
students
• 68% interested in music with
travel, film, science,
technology, food, restaurants
and gadgets also making up
more than 60%
• Avg. age between 20 &
30 years old
• Social individuals that
aspire to lead affluent
lifestyles
• 57% Male
• 43% Female
• 15 – 24: 43%
• 25 – 34: 28%
• 35 – 44: 18%
World Wide Worx Report 2015

6. PLATFORM OVERVIEW
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LINKEDIN VINE SLIDESHARE VIMEO
ACTIVE USERS • 3.8 Million • 13 Million Globally • N/A • 4 Million site
visits per day
with only 0.8%
being from
South Africa
USER PROFILE • Mainly between 24 & 34
Years old
• Middle management
positions held by most
users
• More than 183, 000 are
entrepreneurs
• Predominantly a
teenage user base with
a 639% growth in
teenagers in 2013
• Users access the social
media platform via
smartphone or android
phone
• Generally used by
teachers, students
and researchers
• Across all industries
with a skew towards
Finance, Marketing
and Science
• N/A
World Wide Worx Report 2015

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SOCIAL MEDIA
PLATFORM UPDATES

8. TWITTER: 4 BIG CHANGES
1.Instant Timeline: It will give new users an easy way to follow the accounts most relevant to them and start
seeing messages right away, rather than facing a silent wall.
2.Popular Messages: With Twitter there has always been the risk that you won’t see a message you might
enjoy just because you weren't watching at just the right moment. Now, Twitter will do some curating to
catch you up on what you missed, not unlike how Facebook manages your News Feed with the posts it
thinks you'd most enjoy. Twitter will serve these popular messages on your timeline when you log on.
3.Video: Twitter has its Vine app for users to film six-second clips. However, Twitter is building video
capabilities right into its main app for people to tweet footage.
4.Celebrity: 200 million fans go to Twitter to see a star's profile but they don't actually stick around. Twitter is
tweaking celebrity pages and will start pointing these visitors to other high-profile accounts in an attempt to
get the fly-by users to stick around and maybe even sign up.
PLATFORM UPDATES
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www.adweek.com

9. INSTAGRAM: VIDEOS ARE LIVE FOR ADVERTISERS
• Instagram has been unusually hands-on with brands in regards to its static image ads, which
launched last year. And the same is true with video.
• The platform has deals to show 15-second autoplay spots from Disney, Activision, Lancome,
Banana Republic and CW.
• Disney is promoting its film, Big Hero 6, with a video showing animated characters posing as
if they were taking selfies.
• The company reviews all clips to ensure that they contain mostly fresh content, fit the vibe of
the platform and are not simply repurposed TV/Web commercials.
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PLATFORM UPDATES
www.adweek.com

10. PINTEREST: PITCHES ANALYTICS
•Pinterest has unveiled a stats dashboard designed to help brands understand what kind of
consumer reach and interactions they're achieving on the social-pinning platform.
•The free tools can show such players how many impressions, clicks, repins (equivalent to a
retweet or share in Twitter and Facebook terms) and likes they're compiling. Offered in 31
languages, the dashboard allows them to view how paid pins perform versus organic ones. In
addition, it can be employed to learn if Pinterest's Pin It button is effective on a company's own
website.
•Explore new metrics about the people who engage with your business and what else they’re
into and see your audience’s most common interests and what other businesses they follow,
then tailor what Pins you add based on that.
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PLATFORM UPDATES
www.adweek.com

11. FACEBOOK: VIDEOS GAIN TRACTION
•Budweiser, McDonald's and even Beyoncé are now posting videos directly to the social network and not
just sharing YouTube links.
•In short, YouTube clips, no longer dominate on Facebook's feed, which is siphoning some traffic from
Google's popular video site.
•Now, when a marketer posts content to Facebook, it has the option to use the homegrown video function
which automatically plays and appears most naturally in the News Feed.
•The autoplay feature allows you to increase engagement and exposure with millennials in an undisruptive
way, as your content is integrated into consumers' News Feeds naturally.
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PLATFORM UPDATES
www.adweek.com

12. FACEBOOK: VIDEOS GAIN TRACTION
•Social media tracker Socialbakers offered some evidence of the shift:
o In January, McDonald's posted 27 videos to Facebook, 18 of which were YouTube links and the rest
native Facebook videos.
o In September, it posted 32 videos, of which 19 were Facebook videos.
o In May, Budweiser posted about 60 YouTube videos to Facebook, of which fewer than 10 videos
used Facebook's functionality; in September, those numbers flipped.
•Posting directly to Facebook also increases engagement.
o KLM Royal Dutch Airlines got the message. Its latest video was posted to YouTube and Facebook
separately like many brands are now doing. Fans engaged with KLM's latest YouTube video
300,000 times, with likes and shares, but they engaged 350,000 times on Facebook, even though it
received fewer views.
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PLATFORM UPDATES
www.adweek.com

13. SNAPCHAT: ADS ARE INTRODUCED
•Snapchat said ads will show up in the "recent updates" feed that show users a list of the latest messages.
•The ads will show up as Snapchat messages and be available for users to open for 24 hours, like other
messages.
•Brands like Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Audi, MTV and plenty of others already use the app to message fans.
•The company said the ads would be “fun and informative, the way ads used to be, before they got creepy
and targeted.”
•Targeting will be a challenge for Snapchat as it collects less data on users than say a Facebook, Twitter
and most other social media platforms.
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PLATFORM UPDATES
www.adweek.com

14. SOCIAL MEDIA
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TRENDS 2014

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SOCIAL MEDIA
SOCIAL COMMERCE

16. • Buying via social media sites instead of more traditional eCommerce stores
• In 2010 Mark Zuckerberg said, “If I had to guess, social commerce is next to blow up.”
• About 81% of consumers receive advice from friends and family relating to a product purchase through
a social networking site. And the majority, about 74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide their
purchases.
• Data reveals that social commerce sales are expected to bring in $30 billion each year by 2015, with
half of web sales to occur through social media.
• This is due to multiple factors, including consumers spending more time on social networks, brands
targeting consumers in the news feed (as opposed to fan pages) and advances in technology, such as
mobile geo-location shopping apps and enterprise marketing tools.
• According to the data, Facebook drives 26% of referral traffic to business websites.
• 20% of shoppers already prefer buying products through a brand's Facebook page compared to its
website.
SOCIAL COMMERCE
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www.mashable.com

17. • The following startups are just the tip of the iceberg. As e-commerce becomes increasingly social, we
will see dramatic changes in the way we think about our online shopping.
• Social commerce is all about inspiration and product discovery. Sites like Pinterest, Wanelo, OpenSky,
and others are more like digital catalogues or virtual malls where shoppers can browse and connect
with people interested in the same products and brands. But entrepreneurs and retailers are anxious to
transform that interest into sales.
SOCIAL COMMERCE
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www.mashable.com

18. Hey Pinterest, This Fancy Startup Actually Lets Us Buy
Stuff
•A familiar-looking site called Fancy has beaten Pinterest
to the punch, by monetizing its user-curated collection of
images.
•Fancy, which lets users organize images from around the
web into "lists”, is now conducting transactions directly on
its site.
•Previously, users could click on a link listed with an item to
buy it on a third-party site. Now they can shop directly on
Fancy and the site will take a cut of every purchase.
•Fancy provides an example of one way Pinterest could
eventually monetize its site.
SOCIAL COMMERCE
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www.mashable.com

19. Extole: Extole leverages the power of
advocates at multiple touch points to enhance
social commerce.
• How it Works: The company is a consumer-to-
consumer marketing platform that taps into the
power of customer advocates to foster trusted
word-of-mouth stories about a brand.
• Advocates are targeted at key touch points such
as Facebook fan pages, confirmation pages,
account pages and dedicated emails. Then, the
advocates are invited to participate in a branded
experience and are rewarded for social sharing.
That, in turn, drives awareness and sales.
SOCIAL COMMERCE
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www.mashable.com

20. Chirpify: Taps into Twitter to stream social commerce without devices or cards.
• How it Works: Chirpify takes e-commerce directly to the Twitter stream by turning tweets into
transactions.
• Chirpify enables consumers and businesses to buy, sell and donate on Twitter. For brands the
process is simple. First, create and tweet your offer with a product image. Second, shoppers reply
with the word 'buy.' Third, once the customer registers with Chirpify, the transaction is automatically
processed and the order is fulfilled. Customers can connect their PayPal account so the money is
automatically deducted as they shop.
SOCIAL COMMERCE
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www.mashable.com

21. Twitter’s ‘BUY’ button
• Twitter introduced the buy button in September to a small percentage of U.S. users and are slowing
rolling the feature out to the rest of the platform’s users.
• Some tweets from the test partners feature a “Buy” button which allows users to buy directly from the
tweet.
• Users get access to offers and merchandise that they can’t get anywhere else and can act on them
right in the Twitter app. Sellers will gain a new way to turn the direct relationship they build with their
followers into sales.
• After tapping the “Buy” button, you will get additional product details and be prompted to enter your
shipping and payment information. Once that’s entered and confirmed, your order information is sent
to the merchant for delivery.
SOCIAL COMMERCE
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www.mashable.com

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SOCIAL MEDIA
MOBILE PAYMENTS

23. Twitter introduces mobile peer to peer payments
• Twitter may be much smaller than Facebook, but its ability to innovate in payments is allowing it to
outgun its much larger competitor, at least for the time being.
• Twitter now allows users in France to tweet payments to others in their social network, irrespective of
their bank and without having to enter the beneficiary's bank details.
• Such payment capabilities could prove to be particularly good for consumers without bank accounts and
for wiring money overseas.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
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http://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/twitter-launches-pay-by-tweet-service.html

24. • With the arrival of Apple Pay and Facebook reportedly mulling peer-to-peer payments, the established
system of exchanging currency for goods and services is experiencing disruption.
• In addition to apps and other payment methods, different forms of currency, like bitcoin are being tested.
• By taking a closer look at these trends in the context of the millennial mind-set, JWT offers some insight
to how Millennials are moving away from traditional payment methods and provide suggestions for
brands that want to stay ahead of the curve or begin acting as intermediaries between consumers and
their money.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
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JWT GLOBAL | http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding

26. Insights from the JWT study
1)Brands must prepare for a cash-limited future.
2) Companies need to cater to millennial desires for expediency and ease of use.
3) It’s important to compel consumers to opt in.
4) Personalized marketing channels can increase communication with customers in a meaningful
way.
5) Security and privacy protection are essential considerations.
6) Bartering can reinforce the value of a product as currency.
7) Social currencies such as offering free products or services in exchange for social shares can
drive engagement and It's important for brands to embrace alternative currencies.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
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JWT GLOBAL | http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding

27. Standard Bank brings you Snapscan in South Africa
• The system has been in operation since June 2013. Snapscan allows consumers to pay for their
purchases with their smartphones through a combination of a QR code and a PIN.
• To pay with the app, users have to download it from the relevant app store for their device, register for
an account, and link their Visa or MasterCard credit card.
• Unlike conventional credit card point-of-sale machines, Standard Bank said SnapScan lets both
informal and formal businesses register for its services.
• Informal businesses can withdraw their earnings by requesting a voucher that can be redeemed at any
Spar outlet or Standard Bank ATM. No Standard Bank account is needed to do so, Standard Bank said.
• According to Standard Bank, about 10,000 merchants across South Africa currently support SnapScan,
including Motherland in Johannesburg and The House of Machines in Cape Town.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
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28. FNB’s E-Wallet
•Send Money to anyone with a valid South African Cellphone number.
Any Cellphone model can be used to Send Money or to receive money.
•Get cash at FNB ATMs nationwide.
•Buy prepaid airtime, data and electricity, make payments, purchase
and get cash at selected retailers.
•Make or receive payments into an eWallet using GeoPayments.
GeoPayments is a location-based payment service that allows you to
Pay Someone who is less than 500 metres from you without having to
enter their details into your mobile device. Both the Sender and
Recipient have to register for the service i.e. download the FNB
Banking App.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
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29. ABSA Payment Pebble
•Introducing the Payment Pebble, an easy new way to make and receive card payments; enabling small,
medium and large business owners the ability to accept MasterCard and Visa debit or credit card payments
through a smartphone or tablet – anytime, anywhere.
•The Payment Pebble is a compact, mobile device that simply plugs into the audio jack of your compatible
smartphone or tablet and once set up, allows you to immediately start transacting.
•On the side of the road, at a market, or even in your customer’s home – the Payment Pebble gives the
convenience of accepting card payments in real-time, giving you the business owner, total mobility.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
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30. Snapchat lets you transfer money to friends with Snapcash.
• Snapchat launched mobile payments with service Square called
Snapcash, which lets you transfer money between accounts.
• For now, Snapcash is available to Snapchat users in the United
States who have a debit card and are 18 or older.
• When a Snapchat user signs up for Snapcash, he is also creating a
Square account. Users must add a debit account, which is stored by
Square.
• After that a user can swipe into a chat, type a dollar sign and amount
and hit the green button.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
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31. Facebook Messenger mobile payments
•Facebook’s expansion continues as the company
looks set to introduce a mobile payments system on
its messenger app.
•Screenshots taken by iOS developer Andrew Aude
reveal how Facebook users can add a credit or
debit card to their account and send money via
messages. Transfers appear as though they need
to be verified by a pin.
MOBILE PAYMENTS
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www.independent.co.uk

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SOCIAL MEDIA
SOLOMO ADVERTISING

33. What is SoLoMo advertising?
• SoLoMo, a portmanteau for Social-Local-Mobile, which represents the convergence in social, local, and
mobile media, especially in the context of smartphones, tablets, or other mobile computing devices.
• To a marketer, SoLoMo is a complete paradigm shift. Instead of pushing messages to a user, whether
they be via a TV commercial, radio, or online ad, the message is pulled as a result of the users location
and activity on social networks.
SoLoMo ADVERTISING
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http://www.zideate.com/definition/737/solomo

34. • 34% of mobile internet users go online mostly using their phones, and not using some other device
such as a desktop or laptop computer.
• Total time spend on mobile devices (other than phone calls) has increased from 24 minutes to more than
2 hours in three years.
• MOBILE SOCIAL: in 2012, Facebook accounted for just 5.4% of the global advertising market. In 2013
that share increased to 17.5% and in 2014 to 21.7%.
• MOBILE LOCAL: As the number of visitors to sites via mobile devices continues to grow, local search
plays an even more significant role.
• Consumer’s number one activity on mobile devices is SEARCH. Nearly 86 million people now seek local
business information on their mobile phones in the U.S. alone.
SoLoMo ADVERTISING
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eMarketer March 2014 Mobile Trends

35. • Small, local businesses have found the value of using social media to reach out to their local market.
• With geo-fencing and niche targeting capabilities, mobile and social provide accurate, affordable
inventory.
• Geo-fencing is a system that allows advertisers to pick highly specific points of longitude and latitude to
put a “fence” around, and target.
• Real time insight across hundred of millions of smartphone and tablet devices lets us anticipate and
influence audience behavior.
• The precision that geo-fencing gives advertisers is extremely useful for local and social search.
• A local business can target areas of community congregation such as sporting events, conventions,
malls, concert halls and parking lots.
SoLoMo ADVERTISING
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eMarketer March 2014 Mobile Trends

36. LocalResponse: Responsemines consumers' intent-based social broadcasting (such as check-ins)
and in response provides real-time offers on mobile devices.
• The platform embodies social, local, and mobile. Social by checking-in and broadcasting one’s location,
local by helping a national brand marketer reach someone on a local level, and mobile by converting
people on their mobile device.
• What makes LocalResponse unique is their declarative data set. Targeting data, such as, behavioral,
demographic or contextual is usually approximated. LocalResponse's platform is able to identify where
someone is, when they are there, and what they are saying about it.
• Marketers act on the consumer's real-time intent by converting people with exclusive offers or coupons
via mobile at point-of-sale. Here's a diagram that outlines this process.
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SoLoMo ADVERTISING
www.mashable.com

37. Whole Foods
• Whole Foods needed a local, mobile solution to increase awareness and drive visitors to store grand
openings.
• Working with mobile ad publishers, they created rich media ads targeted at a 5 mile proximity to new
stores.
• Users had the option to “click to call” or to find driving direction in their native map application.
• THE RESULTS:
 1.2 million customers reached
 6,840 customers engaged with the ad unit
 1,845 customers called or looked for directions
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SoLoMo ADVERTISING
www.mashable.com

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SOCIAL MEDIA
OTHER TRENDS

39. • Minkoff partnered with eBay to create these smart dressing rooms that allow shoppers to
intelligently serve themselves, while her brand gathers data to better serve them.
• The smart dressing rooms combine Kinect sensors that record the customers’ motions with
adjustable lighting, touch screens, and a sophisticated tracking system that identifies the
customer, remembers what they try on, and what they eventually end up purchasing and
leaving on the fitting room floor.
• With the touch screens, shoppers can also check the store’s inventory for different sizes and
colors.
• Upon entering the store, the very first thing a customer encounters is a wall-length touch
screen which offers free drinks. Guests have the opportunity to order a gratis water, tea,
coffee, or espresso. They’re asked for a phone number where they will receive a text as
soon as their drink is ready.
SMART RETAIL
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eMarketer March 2014 Mobile Trends

40. • For the time being there is the big three; Whisper, Secret and Yik Yak, however, Facebook recently
introduced “Rooms”, another anonymous social app.
• Where the algorithms of Whisper and YikYak focus mainly on proximity, popularity, and the content of
your own posts to determine what you’ll read in your feed, Secret’s bread and butter is your very own
contacts list.
• The “Rooms” app, from Facebook Creative Labs, also embraces anonymity, allowing users to sign in
with "whatever name makes you feel most comfortable and proud.”
• These apps are still trying to find their place in the social media sphere and face many challenges, but it
is definitely a trend that will keep evolving.
ANONYMITY
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eMarketer March 2014 Mobile Trends

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SOCIAL MEDIA
RECAP

42. • Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are the three largest social media platforms in South Africa with
Instagram experiencing the most growth.
• Social media platforms continue to develop order to keep up with the market. Timelines will change,
video capabilities will improve, ads will be introduced and analytics will be improved.
• Its not only about using social media to spread awareness but also about enabling purchases to be
made directly on social media sites.
• We are moving towards a cashless future with mobile payments.
• SoLoMo will continue to be explored by marketers in order to further engage and target consumers at
exactly the right time at exactly the right place with exactly the right message.
• Retail will continue to adapt to the ever changing social and digital landscape with new and innovative
features to keep customers coming back to the stores.
• Anonymous apps will eventually find their place in the social media sphere.
RECAP
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TRENDS REPORTS
WHAT’S NEXT…

44. CONSUMER TRENDS
We will take a look at some of the trends driving consumers specifically
relating to the consumers our clients target.
WHAT’S NEXT | MARCH 2015
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