Weekly Comms News Round Up 25/07/2013

The royal baby has dominated the news this week so you may have missed Twitter faking tweets and iTunes reaching 1 billion podcast subscriptions. Here’s my weekly pick of top comms stories curated via @CisionUK.

Twitter apologises for fake tweets to push new advertising service via The Guardian

Twitter has apologised after it sent a string of fake tweets from the accounts of real users to champion one of its products. The tech firm promoted a new advertising service on its blog earlier this week and accompanied the spiel with bogus tweets attributed to three social networkers.

The micro-blogging site has now said sorry for the “mistake” and updated its site to attribute the endorsements to its own staff. A note on its marketing webpage now reads: “An earlier version of this blog post included an image with mock tweets from real users of our platform. “This was not OK. “Once we became aware of this mistake, we took it down immediately. “We deeply apologise to the three users included in the earlier images.”

Facebook shares soar 18% on strong mobile ad earnings  via The BBC News

Shares in Facebook have leapt 18% as it beats earnings expectations with stronger than expected mobile ad sales. The company reported profits of $333m (£217m) in the second quarter.

“The work we’ve done to make mobile the best Facebook experience is showing good results and provides us with a solid foundation for the future,” said founder Mark Zuckerberg in a statement.

How brands celebrated the birth of the RoyalBaby by @StephenLepitak  via The Drum

And so the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge William and Kate announced the birth of their first son, as the whole world waited to hear the news. With months to prepare, a number of brands seized the moment to release adverts through Twitter to celebrate and congratulate the couple.

More than eight years after it first added podcasts to iTunes, Apple announced that it has passed 1 billion podcast subscriptions, as first noted by Macworld. The company noted the milestone in the Podcast section of iTunes with the following statement:

From comedy to hard news to sports to innovative educational content and so much more, podcasting has transformed the global media landscape. Podcasts on iTunes launched in the summer of 2005 and since then, we’ve seen countless episodes downloaded and streamed. But the heart of podcasting is finding your favorite voices in this exciting field and subscribing to the best ones. To celebrate reaching 1 billion podcast subscriptions, we’re highlighting some of the most popular podcasts of all time, as well as a collection of captivating new shows.

Featured shows included This American Life, TEDTalks and the Alton Browncast. Apple also told Macworld that iTunes now houses over 250,000 unique podcasts and 8 million episodes across over 100 languages.

Infographic: The fake-follow industry, where $11 buys 1000 Twitter followers by Jennifer Faull  via The Drum

With many brands looking at the number Twitter followers it has as a key performance indicator, the business of selling followers is booming. Judith Ohikuare, a reporter from Inc., created this infograph detailing the Fake-Follower trade; from the wholesalers selling in bulk to the buyers and major signs that show a brand has sold out and bought a couple of thousand fans.