Friday Social – Snapchat Police, Mingle with Vingle and Man City get Bubbly

Friday Social

Our #FridaySocial is a weekly round-up of the key social media news stories from the previous seven days. Let us know your thoughts in the comments or via Twitter – @Umpf 

1. West Midlands Police on Snapchat

West Midlands Police has become the first police force in the world to use Snapchat to help them fight crime. Set up under the account name WestMidsPolice, the account will use the my story function to help inform the community of important news and gather information on crimes in the area.

“Part of this work is about connecting with younger people and helping them to feel they have a close connection with their local police force, what we want is for them to have the confidence to give us a call or speak to their neighbourhood bobby when they really need our help – and social media is a great tool for us to do that.” Keiley Gartland, corporate communications department West Midlands Police

It should be noted that reporting a crime via Snapchat is not advised, self-destructing evidence doesn’t hold up well in court.

2. Facebook lets you save stuff

In between all of the baby, wedding and food photos, occasionally Facebook can throw up some interesting content that requires a bit more time for you to consume it. You might want to come back to it later, but what if you can’t find it again? You need not worry as Facebook has got you covered with a new save function. The best way to describe it is… it’s exactly the same as the bookmark function on your browser. Content will be saved in a list, but will only be viewable when you are logged in to Facebook and on the internet. If you want to save and read offline, you still need to look to a third party app such as Evernote or Rocket.

3. Facebook lets you buy stuff

Whilst you are busy saving stuff using the above new feature, Facebook will now let you buy stuff, which presumably you can save to buy later. By the looks of the advert in this link, the buy feature will closely resemble Twitter cards, with just a simple ‘buy’ button. There is also a hide feature on Facebook, but I’ll just leave that there for you to think about.

On a separate, but similar note, Mark Zuckerberg announced during a recent earnings report that payments will soon cross over to their standalone messenger application. Facebook recently hired PayPal President David Marcus sparking rumours that he would work towards monetizing the new messaging app. It is expected that if Facebook could integrate peer-to-peer payments or payments to a business via messenger that it could take a cut and boost its earning significantly. Zuckerberg did warn however that this is still some time away.

4. Get ready to mingle with Vingle

There is a new social media site and it is called Vingle, the aim is to bring together users with similar interests. It has been developed by the creators of Viki a site which crowd-sources translations for subtitles and dialogue for film and TV shows. The app is available on iOS and Android, it operates in a very similar way to Pinterest where users can add articles, photos and videos to themed boards for other users to comment on and share. The more you use the site the more it learns about your interests and therefore which users will be sharing content you will enjoy.

“The structure of the service (Vingle) is really different than other social networks because if someone likes a product, like Chanel, you can find what else they love, what they like to eat, or what kind of cars they like. So right now our content system has that potential,” says Sanghoon Kim, the site’s director of marketing and communications, adding that Vingle may eventually monetize by showing sponsored content relevant to each group.” Mark Tetto, Vingle’s chief strategy officer

5. Foursquare finally goes solo

The day has finally arrived as of yesterday (24^th July), Foursquare can now only be used as a discovery tool, if you want to check-in you’re going to have to do it on Swarm. The Foursquare app will be getting an update in the coming weeks, with a completely new look, interface and logo. The two apps should work seamlessly together, when searching for places on Foursquare there will be a check-in button this will redirect you to swarm. The idea behind the split is to take the focus away from check-ins and utilise Foursquare as primarily a discovery tool, something which founder Dennis Crowley always intended the app to be used for.

6. Man City on Bubbly

Bubbly the voice messaging social network has welcomed its first Premier League club in the shape of Manchester City. The site allows users to produce 90 second audio clips, the Premier League champions will be using it to record player interviews in their native languages. It is hoped that by doing so they will engage with their fans across the globe by producing content which is tailored specifically to them.

“We’re ecstatic that Manchester City has chosen to connect with their fans using their real voices on Bubbly.  With the new season just around the corner, it’s a fun time to check out what these guys have to say about what’s ahead,” added Bubbly CEO, Thomas Clayton.

And finally…

Our client East Coast Trains are creating a crowd sourced map of the best visitor attractions, pubs , restaurants and services across their route. The campaign, named #MapMyCity has kicked off by looking for the best pubs, head to East Coast Facebook page to cast your vote for the nominated pubs. Keep an eye out for the next theme!