Category: Marketing

Bob the Builder gets a remake. Twitter says “can you fix it?”

Toy maker Mattel yesterday unveiled a makeover of the character Bob the Builder, with a taller, slimmer and younger look. But the new computer generated Bob has not landed well with the social media audience.

New Bob the Builder

On Facebook, Bob the Builder has close to 2 million followers, but the page hasn’t been updated since January. Now would probably be a good time to start engaging with the audience again, since the page is attracting a lot of comments and most of them are negative.

Some comments:

“I like your new look as a deformed, child-faced freak.”

“Bob plz don’t get plastic surgery in 2015 u look fab as u are”

“God! Bob the Builder has been destroyed!”

The sentiment on Twitter is similar. Here are some of the most recent tweets:

Even Curtis Jobling, who once designed the original character, is unconvinced.

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” he said. “I was surprised to see the new design. My original designs captured children all over the world.”

10 really awesome Airbnb places to rent in trendy Stockholm

airbnbstockholmsmall

Stockholm, once named “the most photogenic city in Scandinavia” by CNN, has long been a popular tourist destination. The fact that Vogue recently crowned Södermalm in Stockholm the third coolest neigbourhood in the world shows that Stockholm hasn’t lost it’s cool. With the rise of sites like Airbnb, there are now also a rich selection of cool places to rent in Stockholm.

Also read: “The best time to visit Stockholm”

Here’s a list of a few of the best Airbnb listings in Stockholm, Sweden.

1. Renovated veteran bus (no longer available)

A fully renovated 1976 bus situated in Bromma outside of Stockholm, with forest surroundings and a lake nearby. Pretty cool!

airbnb0

airbnb00

2. Unique residence floating in water

Rather stay next to water? Well, you can’t come much closer than this. A stone’s throw from the center of Stockholm lies this unique accommodation floating in the water. Take a swim or a walk along the water.

airbnb1

3. Luxury apartement in the city centre (no longer available)

Stay in style. This luxurious apartement hosting up to six people is situated in Norrmalm in the Stockholm city centre.

airbnb3

4. Unique, open-plan loft apartment (no longer available)

A stunning 120 m2, 3 bedroom loft apartment in the trendy Södermalm, Stockholm with large open-plan living area and a rooftop terrace.

airb4

5. Tiny house by the sea

Rent your own little house by the sea, just 20 minutes outside of Stockholm. Includes your own jetty, boule court and a stunning view of the sunset and the huge ferries that pass by.

airb5

6. Stockholm Writers Cabin

Sleep in a tent on a trampoline, or just stay in the 15 m2 cabin, located on Lidingö in what is said to be Sweden’s oldest community of summerhouses.

airb6

 

7. Loft apartment at Mariaberget (no longer available)

How about this bedroom view of the rooftops of Södermalm? This open flat at Mariaberget in Stockholm comes with a small terrace to the west.

airb7

 

8. House boat with large terrace

If you would love to stay on a boat but one room is too little, why not rent an entire boat? This 140 m2 boat comes with a large terrace and a great location near the city centre.

airb8

 

9. Exclusive apartment in Östermalm (no longer available)

With only a few minutes walk to the island of Djurgården, the Wasa museum, the Skansen open air museum, shopping and much more, this exclusive apartment has the perfect location in the most fashionable parts of Stockholm.

air9

10. Stunning view in the Old Town (no longer available)

Located in the charming Old Town, you could not ask for a better view than this. This apartment has a roof terrace with a wonderful view of the central parts of Stockholm.

airbn10

 

Get a $35 discount on your next stay with Airbnb

If you want to rent a place on Airbnb you can get a discount by just clicking the image below. The affiliate link will give you a $35 credit on your next stay with Airbnb if you register a new free account.

Click to get a USD 35 credit on Airbnb

Follow my travel blog at hanskullin.se.

travel blog

Facebook pulls the plug on frictionless sharing

share-computer-key-260 In 2011, frictionless sharing was hailed by some as the future for social networks. Facebook launched a feature in which apps like Spotify and Netflix and news organizations like The Guardian could post a user’s activity to their wall, without asking for permission every time. While some criticized the move, others saw potential:

“And soon, the idea that apps are sharing a continuous stream of our activity will seem just as commonplace and uncontroversial as the original news feed.”

But with increasing comptetion in the newsfeed, the feature hasn’t paid off and now Facebook has effectively pulled the plug on automatically shared content. Stories shared via seamless sharing will still be posted to Facebook, but have been downgraded to second tier content, thereby making it more or less invisible to users.

Facebook says that “We’ve found that stories people choose to explicitly share from third party apps are typically more interesting and get more engagement in News Feed than stories shared from third party apps without explicit action.”

This means that stories that users share automatically from third party apps will receive a lower ranking in the news feed.

“In the coming months, we will continue to prioritize explicitly shared stories from apps in News Feed over implicitly shared stories. This means people will see fewer implicit stories from third party apps in the future.” 

The average Facebook user has around 1,500 stories per day that potentially could appear in the news feed. Content shared via frictionless sharing isn’t engaging enough and now Facebook is acting to remove a lot of that content, possibly pushing more engaging stories to users.

Via Inside Facebook.

Using intentional typos in email marketing is a lame trick

Like most people, I get a lot of unsolicited emails in my inbox. This week I noticed an unusual trick from a conference organizer who was hoping to get noticed, a trick that is one of the least classy I’ve seen in a while. This sender intentionally wrote email invitations that included spelling errors, for which they sent a second email in which they apologized for the embarrasing typo.

The first conference invitation included the word “joint” instead of joined.

webit

The apology came almost immediately after in an email titled “Terrible mistake”.

webit

Notice the “PS”. It’s not a marketing trick. But it is. I got the same made up story last year. The first email then misspelled “shores” with the less appealing “whores”.

webit

The follow up email that time had the title “Sincere apoligies”.

webit

My advice, if you are trying to trick people into reading your emails, at least have the decency to reinvent yourself. That way you run less risk of being exposed as a liar.

Cristiano Ronaldo launches his own social network – Viva Ronaldo

Sweden’s world class football striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic changed his relationship with media when he launched his own app, “Zlatan Unplugged“. Instead of just talking directly to journalists, a lot of quotes in articles today are from statements in his app. And now another football icon, Cristiano Ronaldo, ups the ante by launching his own social network Viva Ronaldo (Where my true fans belong…), complete with an app for iPhone and Android devices.

vivaronaldo social network

The community site features a stream of tweets from the official Viva Ronaldo Twitter account alongside tweets from fans who tag their tweets #vivaronaldo. I think it’s a nice feature to include fan tweets live on the site.

viva ronaldo twitter

In the app, you are able to interact with other fans, play games and win prizes and of course read updates and watch images and videos from CR7. And if you’re lucky, Ronaldo may even like your pictures.

Viva Ronaldo app

Ronaldo recently opened up his own museum on Madeira, he is also the most popular athlete on Facebook, Twitter and has more than 11 million followers on Chinese Sina Weibo. So it’s not surprising that he launches his own social network. Or as Yahoo Sports declares:

“This is all a precursor to the inevitable Church of Ronaldo, which will make Scientology look like a flexible neighborhood bookclub.”


What happens when you click like? Ask these 4 million people

It’s easy to trick people to click, like and share the dumbest things on social networks. I have blogged about this topic before, for example regarding how to spot a fake giveaway on Facebook. But I can’t stop being amazed at the number of people who are fooled by these easy hoaxes time and time again. Here’s a fresh example. Whitetail Overload is a Facebook page dedicated to the “pursuit of the Whitetail deer”, and it has half a million followers and a PTA (people talking about) of more than 1.3 million.

4 million likes on one post
How do they get that much engagement? They post often, entertaining and they trick users into interacting with the content in the most deceiving ways. Take this post for example, it uses and old trick, asking users to guess what happens when they click like on the post. Of course, absolutely nothing at all happens. But look at the numbers, 4.1 million people have liked the post and almost 100,000 have shared it. Incredible.

click like on facebook se what happens

Here’s another one, and I must admit that this is as brilliant as it is evil. The last person to comment on the post wins a t-shirt. And of course, the comments never stop coming. As of now, there are 47,000. For a t-shirt!

last person to comment

As long as people are this naive, don’t be surprised when your social networks are filled with spam and scams.