Friday Social: WeBuyAnyToyCar, Spotify, Snapchat & More

  • Social Media

1. WeBuyAnyCar.com is winning at social media this week following a hoax letter storm on Twitter. A Twitter user tweeted an image of a letter that he claimed was from WeBuyAnyCar.com, stating that the company wouldn’t buy his child’s toy car and to stop wasting its time. The tweet was retweeted over 31,000 times when it was picked up by the vehicle site – which responded brilliantly.

A WeBuyAnyCar.com spokesperson said: “We loved the hoax letter thought up by @JamieDMJ. It gave us a giggle and the engagement on Twitter has been great fun. However it highlighted the demand for us to buy ANY car. So we are offering an amnesty for all Little Tikes covered in cobwebs and gathering dust in garages up and down the country. We will buy the first 100 brought to us in full working condition, for the flat fee of £10 – with the money all going straight to charity.”

The new division is also searching for a Junior Vehicle Purchaser. The job ad states: “This is a perfect job for someone who knows their way around the playground and is experienced in playing with or riding toy cars. Hours: Monday – Wednesday (after school)”.

Result.

2. Online music service Spotify has launched a ‘Follow’ button to help artists and musicians connect with their fans online. Artists, labels and promoters will be able to add the button to their site or blog in order to promote a specific profile, and Spotify users will be able to click directly through to follow the artist immediately. By following an artist, users will receive updates when new tracks are added to the artist’s profile and a link to the artist will be added to the user’s ‘Follow’ tab.

3. What does your Facebook profile say about you? An awful lot, according to a study published by the University of Pennsylvania. Scientists analysed 75,000 Facebook profiles to find that certain traits can identify age, gender and personality traits – allowing them to achieve a 92% accuracy rate when predicting a user’s gender.

Some of the study’s findings aren’t too surprising – apparently extroverts are more likely to use words such as ‘party’ while neurotic people are more likely to use the word ‘depressed’. However it was also discovered that introverts are typically more into Japanese media such as anime and less neurotic people mention social events more often.

4. In other Facebook-related news, the social platform is changing its Newsfeed ad algorithm to take in user feedback on what is reported or hidden. According to Facebook, this should improve the relevancy and the quality of the ads that people – which is good for both users – who will see ads that may interest them – and marketers, whose ads will now target those who are most likely to click-through.

5. Foursquare has announced a handy change in its app this week – you can now search restaurant menus directly from the app. Users can now type in the dish they’re looking for and Foursquare will search a database of over 43 million menu items to return results. Clever – I’m a fan of anything that will help me get to food quicker.

6. Snapchat has just released an update that features a Snapchat Stories option, allowing users to create chains of shared content that can be viewed an unlimited number of times over 24 hours. Stories are automatically shared to all of your friends, in the style of a Facebook status update or a tweet. Snapchat is also rolling out an advertising campaign partnering with musicians to promote the new feature. As TechCrunch points out, this feature could be appealing to businesses already using the platform to roll out coupons and offers as the 24-hour time period offers a more lasting option.