HOW people use social media is more important than the time they spend using it. Let’s stop the moral panic.
By MediaStreet Staff Writers
There has so far been no evidence supporting the view that the amount of time spent on social media affects mental health in young people, says Chloe Berryman of the University of Central Florida. In fact, she says that there are very few links between different aspects of social media use among young adults and possible mental health problems such as loneliness, decreased empathy and social anxiety.
“We do not deny the potential for some online behaviours to be associated with mental health problems, rather we propose that research focus on the behaviour of individuals rather than assume media is the root cause of all socio-personal problems,” says Berryman, who compared the response that some people have to social media to a form of ‘moral panic’ such as that surrounding video games, comic books and rock music.
Berryman and her colleagues analysed the responses of 467 young adults to a variety of questionnaires. They were questioned about the amount of time per day they spent using social media, the importance it has in their lives, and the way they used social media. Their current mental health state, levels of social anxiety, the quality of their relationship with their parents and the amount of social support that they could count on were also assessed. Aspects such as general mental health symptoms, suicidal ideation, loneliness, social anxiety and decreased empathy were also considered.
The only worrying trend found had to do with ‘vaguebooking,’ which refers to a person’s tendency to write social media posts that contain little actual and clear information, but are worded in such a way as to solicit attention and concern from potential readers. Young people who tended to often write such posts were found to be lonelier, and to have more suicidal thoughts than others.
“Vaguebooking was slightly predictive of suicidal ideation, suggesting this particular behaviour could be a warning sign for serious issues,” says Berryman. “It is therefore possible that some forms of social media use may function as a ‘cry for help’ among individuals with pre-existing mental health problems.”
“Overall, results from this study suggest that, with the exception of vaguebooking, concerns regarding social media use may be misplaced,” she adds. “Our results are generally consistent with other studies which suggests that how people use social media is more critical than the actual time they spend online with regards to their mental health.”
There you go, readers. Go forth and Facebook obsessively… it’s all good.
The application to the advertising industry is so obvious it is like a slap in the face with a wet fish.
By MediaStreet Staff Writers
Lately, social media has been all about heated exchanges and distribution of fake news. And right in the thick of these skirmishes are Twitter bots. They have certainly earned themselves a bad reputation, tweeting on behalf of politicians and driving troll trains through the media landscape with abandon.
But, not all bots are bad, according to a boffins at USC’s Information Sciences Institute. Computer scientist Emilio Ferrara undertook a large-scale experiment designed to analyse the spread of information on social networks. Ferrara teamed up with some Danish boffins from the Technical University of Denmark to deploy a network of “social bots,” programmed to spread positive messages on Twitter.
“We found that bots can be used to run interventions on social media that trigger or foster good behaviours,” says Ferrara, whose previous research focused on the proliferation of bots in the U.S. election campaign.
But it also revealed another intriguing pattern: information is much more likely to become viral when people are exposed to the same piece of information multiple times through multiple DIFERENT sources. Says Ferrara, “This milestone shatters a long-held belief that ideas spread like an infectious disease, or contagion, with each exposure resulting in the same probability of infection. Now we have seen empirically that when you are exposed to a given piece of information multiple times, your chances of adopting this information increase every time.”
To reach these conclusions, the researchers first developed a dozen positive hashtags, ranging from health tips to fun activities, such as encouraging users to get the flu shot, high-five a stranger and even Photoshop a celebrity’s face onto a turkey at Thanksgiving. Then, they designed a network of 39 bots to deploy these hashtags in a synchronised manner to 25,000 real followers during a four-month period from October to December 2016.
Each bot automatically recorded when a target user retweeted intervention-related content and also each exposure that had taken place prior to retweeting. Several hashtags received more than one hundred retweets and likes. “We also saw that every exposure increased the probability of adoption – there is a cumulative reinforcement effect,” says Ferrara. “It seems there are some cognitive mechanisms that reinforce your likelihood to believe in or adopt a piece of information when it is validated by multiple sources in your social network.”
This mechanism could explain, for example, why you might take one friend’s movie recommendation with a grain of salt. But the probability that you will also see that movie increases cumulatively as each additional friend makes the same recommendation.
This discovery could improve how positive intervention strategies are deployed in social networks in many scenarios, including public health announcements for disease control or emergency management in the wake of a crisis. The common approach is to have one broadcasting entity with many followers. But this study implies that it would be more effective to have multiple, decentralised bots share synchronised content.
Advertisers, mull this over. Bots can be your very best friend.
You may love or hate the idea of a 280-character limit on Twitter, but you can’t escape it. That’s because advertisers won’t let you.
Twitter announced Tuesday that for the first time in its 11-year history, it will lift the 140-character limit for tweets — letting some people test a new limit of 280 characters for all languages except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
And as always, it wasn’t long before brands including Burger King, Durex and Charmin glommed on the news with their takes:
Sharing a beer is one of America’s favorite pastimes: it’s how we watch the game, celebrate the end of a long work week, and relax on the porch with friends. Anheuser-Busch InBev understands that these moments matter to people, and want their beers to be top of mind when it’s time to celebrate.
To connect with consumers when they’re getting ready to kick back, ABI turned to Twitter to become part of the everyday conversation around these occasions as they happen.
“Beer is social and it’s fun. We want to be a part of people’s lives and their happy moments. Twitter is about all those live conversations,” says Victoria Vaynberg, head of digital, U.S., Anheuser-Busch InBev. “The platform really bridges that gap for us because we’re able to reach out and message those people at those right moments in their lives.”
Tapping into conversation
The brewing industry has seen tremendous growth in recent decades, according to Gallup reports. In 2017, Americans have thousands of breweries to choose from, compared with fewer than 100 in the early 1980s.
Many of ABI’s brands—like Budweiser, Michelob, and Stella Artois—are household names. But the beer market has gotten a lot more competitive as local and smaller microbrew brands continue to enter the space. Staying top-of-mind is an ongoing challenge.
To help defend their leadership position and grow brand loyalty, ABI used a variety of creative assets to spotlight the inherently social nature of its beer brands. Partnering with Twitter to develop GIFs, videos, branded emojis, and in-stream video, ABI highlighted and celebrated their audience’s happy moments and special occasions through live conversation.
“Anheuser Busch has always been the first in line to jump in and push the boundaries of what’s possible on Twitter from a brand and content standpoint,” says Alex Josephson, head of global brand strategy, Twitter.
Three of ABI’s brand hashtags – #Budweiser, #StellaArtois and #Michelob – often show up in Tweets that are also tagged #happyhour, #weekend and #Friday. Through Twitter, the beer brands are successfully tapping into these weekly celebrations.
As ABI brands became part of the conversation happening on the platform, they found that return on investment in ad spend improved dramatically, with a 360% year over year ROI for Budweiser, 260% ROI for Stella Artois, 15% ROI for Michelob Ultra, and 10% ROI for Bud Light. (See full case study here.)
Engagement Labs ranked Bud Light the No. 1 beer brand on Twitter in 2016, with Budweiser earning No. 2, Stella Artois hitting No. 6, and Michelob Ultra with No. 7. Budweiser also had the highest likes and retweets per 1,000 fans of the top ten beer brands and scored the highest for responsiveness.
“The brilliance of Anheuser Busch InBev’s strategy was in their ability to connect with consumers in the everyday moments that bring people together, like celebrations, game time, and happy hour,” said Christine Cuoco, senior director of Global Business Marketing at Twitter. “When a brand focuses on becoming a part of what’s happening in people’s lives, their message is more than just an ad; it’s part of the conversation.”
About
Twitter is what’s happening in the world and what people are talking about right now. From breaking news and entertainment to sports, politics, and everyday interests, see every side of the story. Join the open conversation. Watch live streaming events. Available in more than 40 languages around the world, the service can be accessed via twitter.com, an array of mobile devices, and SMS. For more information, please visit about.twitter.com, follow @Twitter, and download both the Twitter and Periscope apps at twitter.com/download and periscope.tv.
Mitali Hobbs is a business marketing and strategy lead at Twitter. She recently led strategic planning for Twitter’s presence at CES and Cannes Lions 2017. Follower her on Twitter @mitalihobbs
Elizabeth Mansfield is a marketing strategist at Twitter and specializes in creative strategy and content. Follow her on Twitter @elmlive
Over the last few days, a slew of reporting, inspired by ProPublica, has revealed that it’s actually quite easy, through the programmatic structure of most online advertising, to create ads meant to target those who have espoused racist, antisemitic, or other hateful ideas.
Here’s a quick rundown of the major internet companies, and what has been discovered about their advertising platforms:
Facebook
On Sept. 14, ProPublica reported that Facebook allowed advertisers to target categories and ideas such as “Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” and “History of ‘why jews ruin the world,’” based on interest Facebook users had expressed on the social network and terms with which they had used to describe themselves.
While Facebook removed those categories after ProPublica’s investigation, Slate then discovered that there are dozens of other racist, sexist, and xenophobic categories which advertisers could potentially target. It took Facebook less than a minute to approve ads against phrases like “Kill Muslimic Radicals”and “Ku-Klux-Klan,” and Slate found myriad other options, like “Killing Bitches,” “Killing Hajis,” and “Nazi Party (Canada).”
Facebook released a statement yesterday after ProPublica’s report, saying in part:
Keeping our community safe is critical to our mission. And to help ensure that targeting is not used for discriminatory purposes, we are removing these self-reported targeting fields until we have the right processes in place to help prevent this issue. We want Facebook to be a safe place for people and businesses, and we’ll continue to do everything we can to keep hate off Facebook.
Google
BuzzFeed discovered similar targeting issues on Google’s AdWords platform, which runs the advertisements you see on Google search results pages. Typing in keyword suggestions (which advertisers use to build their ads and figure out who to target) like “why do jews ruin everything” led to the system generating more keyword suggestions like “jews ruin the world” and “jewish parasites.” Buzzfeed was also able to build and launch a campaign around the phrase “black people ruin neighborhoods.”
When Quartz attempted to recreate BuzzFeed’s efforts using similar terms, or terms like those used by ProPublica and Slate, no keyword suggestions were returned. Google has since disabled many of the keywords that BuzzFeed tested.
Sridhar Ramaswamy, Google’s senior vice president in charge of ads, told Quartz in a statement:
Our goal is to prevent our keyword suggestions tool from making offensive suggestions, and to stop any offensive ads appearing. We have language that informs advertisers when their ads are offensive and therefore rejected. In this instance, ads didn’t run against the vast majority of these keywords, but we didn’t catch all these offensive suggestions. That’s not good enough and we’re not making excuses. We’ve already turned off these suggestions, and any ads that made it through, and will work harder to stop this from happening again.
Twitter
The Daily Beast was able to target similarly derogatory demographics on Twitter. It reported:
Twitter’s advertising platform tells prospective marketers it has 26.3 million users interested in the derogatory term “wetback,” 18.6 million accounts that are likely to engage with the word “Nazi,” and 14.5 million users who might be drawn to “n**ger.”
A Twitter representative told Quartz about the Daily Beast’s report:
The terms cited in this story have been blacklisted for several years and we are looking into why the campaign cited in this story were able to run for a very short period of time. Twitter actively prohibits and prevents any offensive ads from appearing on our platform, and we are committed to understanding 1) why this happened, and 2) how to keep it from happening again.
Snapchat
Quartz checked on Snapchat’s advertising platform to see if we were able to target using similar terms used on the other platforms. We were not able to: It seems that Snapchat’s demography isn’t quite as granular as the other platforms, which are far more text-based than Snapchat, and so it’s likely easier for them to glean what sorts of things its users are sharing than through all the videos and images posted to Snapchat.
Bing
Microsoft’s second-placed search network seems to have a similar problem to its other platforms. When Quartz created a test advertising campaign on Bing Ads, we weren’t able to directly target specifically loaded terms, but searching for just about any phrase in Bing’s “keyword suggestions” generator will generate specific keywords that you might want to try to target instead. Here’s one example, using “Hitler” as the search term:
(Screenshot/Bing Ads)
A representative for Bing told Quartz:
We take steps to ensure our Bing Ads always meet reasonable standards. We are committed to working with partners who share our vision for relevant, impactful brand interaction and respect the integrity of consumer choice.
Yahoo
Quartz attempted to create an ad campaign on Yahoo, but it seems there’s no simple way to create one online without speaking to a representative from Oath (Yahoo’s parent company) first. And presumably fewer people would feel comfortable telling a sales rep the sorts of things they’re targeting than they would inputting them into a computer system. Hopefully.
LinkedIn
Microsoft’s professional social network doesn’t seem to let users target based on arbitrary phrases or demographics. Other than geography, these are the only things you can target against on LinkedIn:
(Screenshot/LinkedIn)
The only section that might have the potential for hateful terms would be in “Member groups”—but a cursory search of terms like those used above didn’t reveal many professional hate groups to target on the platform. We did, however, come across this group:
(Screenshot/LinkedIn)
Upon further inspection, however, it seems that this group was set up by a LinkedIn employee trying to see whether they could set up a group with a title like this. Obviously, it worked:
(Screenshot/LinkedIn)
LinkedIn sent Quartz the following statement:
Hate has no place on LinkedIn and will not be tolerated. When we are made aware of such content, we act swiftly to enforce our policy and remove said content. On Friday, a member of our team created a group solely for internal testing purposes and after a brief testing period, we took the group down.
Add Twitter to the list of companies that have had to respond to questions around the ability to target ad campaigns against derogatory keywords in their advertising platform, though Twitter says this was a result of a bug.
“We determined these few campaigns were able to go through because of a bug that we have now fixed,” a Twitter spokespersons aid. “Twitter prohibits and prevents ad campaigns involving offensive or inappropriate content, and we will continue to strongly enforce our policies.”
Reports came out this week that advertisers were able to target ads based on a collection of derogatory keywords on Facebook. Facebook yesterday told TechCrunch that it is now working to prevent such offensive entries in demographic traits from appearing as addressable categories. Google, too, seemed to face a similar problem.
The Daily Beast yesterday reported that Twitter ads targeted to offensive keywords were able to reach millions of users. Twitter told The Daily Beast yesterday that the keywords “have been blacklisted for several years.”
Twitter, for example, allows advertisers to search for keywords from Tweets, though its policies explicitly ban offensive content on the platform. Twitter has a blacklist for offensive words and phrases to try to ensure that this doesn’t happen, though when you have an audience as large as, say, Facebook or Twitter, it’s possible that things can slip through the cracks.
Part of this pertains to the nature of self-service advertising platforms, which allows advertisers to build their campaigns around customized audiences that can at times be highly targeted, as well as the how people describe themselves on those platforms. Those platforms will lean on their strengths — like search terms for Google or how people identify themselves on Facebook — which at scale can lead to a number of incidents like this potentially falling through the cracks.
Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter want a piece of the digital video advertising pie
Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are embarking on a massive land grab for video content, hoping to drive increased usage and capture a greater portion of digital video ad revenues with familiar ad formats such as pre-roll and mid-roll.
“Consumers—particularly young people—are viewing video programming on more devices and in more destinations than ever before, and social platforms want to capture their attention,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer principal analyst and author of the new report, “Video Advertising in Social Media 2017: Showtime for Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter.” (Subscribers to eMarketer PRO can access the report here. Nonsubscribers can purchase the report here.)
Video advertising has become an important revenue stream for social media properties. But they want more.
Being pigeonholed in the “social” bucket has stymied growth. The broader digital video ad business is something that all social properties have been lusting after.
eMarketer forecasts US digital video ad spending outside of social platforms will reach $13.23 billion this year, up 23.7% from 2016. By 2021, spending will reach $22.18 billion.
eMarketer does not include video outlays on social platforms in its digital video ad spending forecast, instead counting them in the rich media forecast. Rich media, which will be a $10.33 billion market in the US this year, includes such ad types as flash, JavaScript and video that does not appear as part of a video player.
Companies like Facebook “know their users have an increasing appetite for video content and are actively making a play for brand marketing dollars that would traditionally go to online video or broadcast TV buys,” said Todd Silverstein, US head of performance marketing at Edelman.
Although Facebook has deep pockets and an enormous audience, its success is by no means assured. Consumers today don’t go there to watch shows, so Facebook must change their behavior by offering great programming and a winning video platform.
Meanwhile, Snapchat’s “Shows” are quite short, benefiting its position as a place for creative, quick-hit content for young people. TV networks are the primary programming partners, and the ads use Snapchat’s familiar vertical video format.
However, many marketers have yet to get comfortable with creating video ads on Snapchat. As the company continues to roll out programming, the challenge will be to convince them to develop for its unique format.
Twitter is relying on its real-time roots, emphasizing live and event-driven video content. Like Snapchat, Twitter has turned to a familiar format—its Amplify video publisher partner program—for delivering ads in its new shows. The company has a lot riding on its video initiatives, given its slumping user growth and resulting falloff in ad revenues.
Twitter has commissioned data from Nielsen and Foursquare to evaluate its impact on offline sales and store visits. The results:
Promoted campaigns on Twitter generate a 23% lift in visits to mobile carrier storefronts
Buyers spend 6.8% more with mobile wireless carriers after seeing ads on Twitter
Offer-based tech and telco campaigns on Twitter generate a $21.84 average return on advertising sales investment
Twitter users are 2.4X more influenced by manufacturer and mobile carrier ads
Why it matters: Facebook, Google and Snapchat have all released similar data that demonstrate their ability to help marketers drive offline sales through ads on their platform. The expectation has been set with marketers that if you are a platform that can reach an audience at scale, you should be able to track how mass marketing drives actual sales in stores, as well as sales from the platform directly.
If you are marketing a travel destination, you only need one mantra: Deliver an ‘Instagrammable holiday’ or go home.
This conclusion is based on the findings from Travelzoo’s Autumn Travel Trends Survey* issued today. (Never heard of Travelzoo? Neither have we, but the organisation has 28 million members! What?)
The survey reveals that how a holiday photo will look on social media platforms is an important consideration for 55% of those born after 1996 (Generation Z). The appeal of social bragging declines going back each generation. Millennials (those born between 1987 and 1995) are highly focused on the photogenic appeal of their holiday choice (42%), but just 10% of both late and early Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1965) consider this when booking a holiday.
Joel Brandon-Bravo, Travelzoo’s General Manager in the UK said, “It’s mid-August now and peak ‘posting season.’ Most people’s social media feeds are full of images of friends and family enjoying the sunshine. Let’s face it, when you’re stuck in the office on a rainy day those feeds can become irritating. But there is a holiday show-off in most of us and many hoteliers are getting wise to the power of making their properties as ‘Instagram-ready’ as possible.
“Some restaurants and hotels Travelzoo works with tell us they are starting to train staff in how to take great photos for social media as they are seeing how guests love to share their experience in real-time and want to be part of that process. Our research shows this focus is not misplaced and the importance of how photogenic a hotel, restaurant or destination is should not be underestimated. The tourist of today sees where they travel as a way of expressing themselves and this will only increase with future generations. Being seen in aspirational destinations that photograph well will become one of the most significant considerations a person will make before booking.”
In terms of the power of social media to influence holiday bookings, the generational split is vast. Almost two thirds of Generation Z use social media for inspiration on what to book, but only 10% of older Boomers (those born from 1946–1954) say social media has an influence on their decision making. For Millennials and Gen Z, Facebook and Instagram are the most powerful channels, with Facebook marginally more influential for Millennials.
Savvy hotels, restaurants and resorts are realising how important it is to enable customers to create the best visual impression of their experience. Thomas Cook recently opened a new line of resorts called Casa Cook, which have been designed with features that will photograph well and appeal to a younger demographic.
Travelzoo works with London restaurant Galvin at Windows, whose General Manager Fred Sirieix says, “Our image online is very important. We take great care in the imagery we post and how we appear.” Staff at Galvin receive training in how to take photos that are suitable for Instagram and other platforms because they understand how important it is for their restaurant. Sirieix stresses that while the online image is managed carefully it is important to be authentic. He believes in the importance of not appearing too “manufactured” in your online imagery and explains how “our Instagram is loaded with fun videos in order to show our personality.”
Generation X (those born from 1966–1986) is the most concerned of all generations about privacy online and limit posting on holiday because of this. Millennials are the least concerned about their privacy being compromised through social media but this group are the most aware (34%) of the pressure to project the image of the ‘perfect holiday’ while they are on a trip. Authenticity is a trend most noted by Generation Z, with one in four saying they think people are doing less obviously touristy activities on holiday.
While the appetite to share the holiday experience on social media shows no sign of abating, the survey also reveals an awareness of the benefits of switching off digitally – and this is true across all generations polled. Despite their love of social media 53% of Millennials and 45% of those born after 1996 say the idea of totally disconnecting digitally on holiday is appealing to them and over 60% of Generation Z say switching off from social media and emails would help them recharge more on holiday.
About the Research *Travelzoo’s Autumn 2017 Travel Trends Survey was conducted among 1000 consumers in the United Kingdom, who completed an online questionnaire sent out by third-party research agency One Poll. The questionnaires were completed between 21–24 July, 2017.
Love him or hate him, he seems to have a personality perfectly suited to the White House.
By MediaStreet Staff Writers
Researchers have analysed the tweets of Donald J. Trump. They compared his personality traits with other influential business leaders.
The Twitter messages of Donald J. Trump, the entrepreneurial businessman turned US president, show that he is creative, competitive and a rule-breaker. But no one is perfect (especially not Trump!). He also has neurotic tendencies. (But who doesn’t?)
Since joining the social media platform Twitter in 2009 to May 2017, Trump has issued more than 35,000 messages. This amounts to about twelve tweets a day. With 30 million followers, he is the second-most followed politician on Twitter after his predecessor, Barack Obama, who on average tweeted about four times a day.
The researchers, Martin Obschonka from QUT in Australia, and Christian Fisch from Trier University in Germany analysed how aspects of Trump’s personality are revealed in the language he used in 3200 tweets issued by October 2016 (before he became president). They used established software for assessment of language and text for psychological purposes.
Trump’s language use and online personality were also compared with that of 105 other influential and famous business managers (including Google’s Eric Schmidt, HP’s Meg Whitman, and Apple’s Tim Cook) and entrepreneurs (including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Dell’s Michael Dell, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos) who are not on the political stage.
Their results indicate that Trump is indeed a distinct type of person who shows strong features of a so-called Schumpeterian personality that is said to be typical of successful entrepreneurs. This personality was described by Joseph Schumpeter in the 1930s as being very creative, change-orientated, competitive and rule-breaking. The analysis further indicates that Trump has neurotic tendencies, and experiences underlying low well-being.
“These traits are rather untypical for entrepreneurs,” explains Obschonka. But he adds that neuroticism isn’t necessarily all bad, for it can also stimulate competitiveness.
“Maybe this high neuroticism is a major motivator to succeed in Trump’s entrepreneurial projects in his business life, but also in his role as political leader,” speculates Fisch.
“If social distinction is a core principle of the entrepreneurial personality, then we clearly see this principle reflected in his unusual personality profile,” says Fisch. “Many experts agree that really successful entrepreneurs not only dare to be different – they are different.”
The researchers speculate that having entrepreneurial personality traits could be advantageous in leading and governing an entrepreneurial society as a top-down process. But they stress that leading a company is very different from leading a country and it is unclear whether political leaders with an extremely entrepreneurial personality can indeed act strictly entrepreneurially in their highly responsible role.
Time will tell if an entrepreneurial person can indeed make a country’s overall success more likely. And if so, everyone, everywhere in the world, needs to think about who we will vote for in the future.
