This week’s news on all things social, digital and web
We love social media, digital marketing, and the online world. After all, that’s why we do what we do. Through our online travels, we come across a variety of information that can be helpful, amusing, or even shocking. We didn’t want you to miss out on this so here’s a roundup of what’s been happening lately.
The Twitter popularity contest: separating the real from the fake
So, last week, we shared the 10 most popular accounts on Twitter but since then we’ve been playing with TwitterAuditwhich shows you how many of these millions of followers are real. We thought it’d be interesting to re-look at the same top 10 and give you the run-down on how genuine their multi-million follower base actually is.
| Rank | Who | Twitter handle | Followers | % real |
| 1 | Katy Perry | @katyperry | 87,078,571 | 39 |
| 2 | Justin Bieber | @justinbieber | 79,883,755 | 42 |
| 3 | Taylor Swift | @taylorswift13 | 75,681,012 | 33 |
| 4 | Barack Obama | @BarackObama | 73,511,545 | 37 |
| 5 | YouTube | @YouTube | 61,511,871 | 72 |
| 6 | Rihanna | @rihanna | 59,363,596 | 38 |
| 7 | Lady Gaga | @ladygaga | 58,469,565 | 45 |
| 8 | Ellen DeGeneres | @TheEllenShow | 58,184,051 | 74 |
| 9 | 54,393,731 | 52 | ||
| 10 | Justin Timberlake | @jtimberlake | 54,221,824 | 39 |
Fascinating stuff, isn’t it? Have a play for yourself and find out where you (or anyone else) ranks on the scale of genuine vs fake followers.
Revelations that blew our minds this week
Coachella has been blowing up on everyone’s Instagram but the #BTS scoop is that most of the celebs posting pics from Coachella aren’t actually there. They’re at super-exclusive, super-secret pool parties nearby. Also, did you know that if you want to drink at the festival you have to go into a special pen which has a 2 drink maximum? Now, we obviously aren’t promoting reckless OTT drinking but, really, booze-shaming at a festival? It’s a step too far.
Kim Kardashian is 4 pounds away from her pre-baby weight. Do we care? No. Do you care? No. What it does show is the growing power of Snapchat in engaging different audiences online. Brands are harnessing the power of Snapchat to connect in new ways with different content and, most importantly, showing pretty impressive stats in doing so. It won’t be for everyone but could it work for you?
There are now 1.65 billion active users each month on Facebook. We tried to do the maths on how many times the size of the UK’s population (63,843,856) this was but there weren’t enough decimal places on the calculator. If you’re better than us at numbers, perhaps you can do the sum and let us know the answer – we’d appreciate it.
Is Apple’s shine starting to wear off?
The headlines are stark - Decline in iPhone sales leads to first revenue decline in 13 years for Apple - supported by all manner of troubling statistics:
- Their share price dropped 7% in response to the news
- Sales had decreased by 13%
- iPhone sales, which make up the lion’s share of their revenue, dropped by 16%
Apple is now predicting that sales will decrease further in Q2 – from the current $50.6bn to $41bn – $43bn. Given that their sales are still safely in the tens of billions of dollars, it’s unlikely that they’ll be following in the footsteps of BHS (it’s been like the Woolworths trauma all over again!) anytime soon.
Is it a reflection on Apple? Not really, it’s down to the slowing economy in China which is the company’s second-biggest market. Tim Cook is promising us some ‘amazing innovations’ which are in the pipeline. Given Apple’s history, we’re tempted to believe him.
Our insider recommendation
Hashtags – which ones are the most effective to use? There are two really great tools you can use to figure this out:
Hashtagify.me – it’s not the slickest looking User Interface you’re likely to find on the web but it is easy to use, FREE and really helpful.
Find related hashtags to a topic, how popular they are and who the key influencers are in two clicks. It must be a good tool if it can make us overlook the design element.
RiteTag – what’s great about RiteTag is that it integrates with other tools (like TweetDeck, Hootsuite & Buffer) and has a browser extension so you can use it as you’re scheduling your posts which is really convenient. It’ll tell you if you’re chosen hashtag is popular (ie you should use it), too popular (ie little point using it as you won’t be found), not popular enough (ie it’s not something people are really searching for). It suggests related alternatives to make sure your social media is as effective as it needs to be to achieve your objectives.
Interested in getting personalised advice on how to make the online world work for you? Get in touch. We’ll be happy to answer.