Score Vice's playbook on engagement, get the latest (surprising) news on messaging app Yo, learn about the top 10 most influential content producers on LinkedIn, and find out what reading level most tweets are written in. Ready to jump in? Skim for stability.
The day Germany trounced Brazil. Following a stunning 7-1 win on July 8 by the German soccer team in the World Cup semifinals, German radio station Radio Bayern 3 posted a 10-second ad that illustrates what happened that night (a game so shattering that it generated a record 66 million Facebook interactions and 35.6 million tweets.) The world collectively winced for Brazil (and its cocktails). At 6.2 million views, the ad's trending in third place on the Viral Video Charts, behind Always' #LikeAGirl (No. 2) and Shakira's "La La La" (No. 1), the official 2014 World Cup song.
Barbie wants to add you as a contact. Barbie's joined LinkedIn to share her 150-career (!) legacy while helping female entrepreneurs with inspiring tips. Her on-site iteration is Entrepreneur Barbie, whose official job title is "Dream Incubator": "I act as a consultant, helping girls around the world play out their imagination, try on different careers, and explore the world around them." Why couldn't Barbie have told us about that career sooner? If you're interested in her resume, BuzzFeed's got it. It's more than two pages, and she's been a Presidential candidate at least three times.
Why say more when you can Yo? In the category of unlikely phenomena, meet Yo , an app that (literally) does nothing more than let you select one person, or a group, and send them a single message: Yo. (Some see it as the future of push notification.) Last month it appeared in the App Store Top 10 in over a dozen countries, and it has raised $1.5 million in funding. Despite its constraints, people are inventing surprising uses for it that may inspire you: IFTTT created a dedicated Yo channel to link the app to other gadgets and services, whereby people have already enabled Yo to control home lighting, provide server downtime notifications, or bookmark songs for listening later.
More recently, Yo's been adapted to work with Red Alert, an app that warns users about rocket, mortar, and missile attacks in Israel. Now Yo provides these same notifications to a wider user base—just in time for rising Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (No word on whether the other side in that asymmetrical conflict is also making use of Yo.)
Yep"@mdavep: Another one of those days... pic.twitter.com/ZfMQEiLpcu"
— Ari Sprung (@AriSprung) July 9, 2014
Mercedes wants you—on Instagram. In a charming attempt at a coup to crack the Millennial generation, Mercedes is partnering with Instagram influencers—all of whom boast follower-counts larger than its own—to plug its GLA. Each influencer, plus brand ambassadors Rickie Fowler (golfer) and Pei Ketron (travel photographer), was given a GLA for a road trip, documented on Instagram. The resulting photos are original and in line with the Mercedes identity—an uneasy balance that works well here. A good example is how each Instagrammer kicked off his/her trip with a photo of the items each planned to bring along, lovingly arranged on a Mercedes floormat. Way to win the Instagrammers. More on the campaign at Digiday.
Reading user sentiment: still a human game. Research from Synapsify finds that 89% of marketers still rely on manual analysis to gauge consumer sentiment based on content written online, such as comments, reviews, emails, and social media posts. Over half (59%) conduct manual analysis because they feel software programs are incomplete, 21% because they can't afford the technology tools, and 11% because they don't trust the accuracy of current tools. Their biggest challenges? Too much to read, plus signal-to-noise issues. Ayaz Nanji has the breakdown.
