Advertisers Shouldn't Bet Too Heavily On Facebook's Ad Exchange

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Don't Bet Too Heavily On Facebook’s Ad Exchange (TechCrunch)
Retargeting company AdRoll has released data intended to suggest that advertisers shouldn’t rush too quickly to embrace Facebook Exchange. At least not at the expense of other forms of retargeting.

What did AdRoll find? Well, some of the costs for advertisers were much lower on Facebook Exchange campaigns — CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) were 82 percent lower, while CPCs (cost per clicks) were 70 percent lower. However, click through rates were 40.18 percent lower on Facebook than on the Web, and Facebook Exchange ads also had an 86 percent higher cost per unique. Click here for the full infographic. Read >>

The Ad Shift That Twitter Ts Trying To Capitalize On (paidContent)
Twitter’s new advertising API is just part of an ongoing seismic shift in the way advertising works online, where algorithms and self-serve networks are taking over from traditional ad buying and further destabilizing the media industry. This is about more than just some tinkering with the machinery that underlies the content we consume. Hubspot, which specializes in inbound marketing, says it is more or less taking over the online world, and the consequences for traditional media companies are fairly obvious:

Virtually every media entity is being forced to reinvent how they generate revenue because digital advertising is not paying the bills. Read >>

Why Businesses Can't Get Enough Of Pinterest (SteamFeed)
Not only are consumers spending their time on the site (upwards of 90 minutes per month), they are also spending more money and at a higher frequency than they do on any of the other top five social media sites. Here are four reasons you should consider expanding your social sphere through a broader and more integrated marketing strategy:

1. Cost effective: Businesses can gain access to the very people they seek
2. Simple and straightforward: today’s online social media generation has provided an endless abundance of marketing possibilities
3. Integration with other social media platforms: promote products in a variety of ways through images and words
4. Research and data mining: pin pictures that will engage and connect with the right consumer

Pinterest has become an addiction for all types of businesses because it works if it is pursued alongside an overall marketing strategy. Read >>

Pros And Cons Of Using Vine For Marketing (Entrepreneur)
What makes Vine different from other video recorders is the ability to stop and start the recording instantly. Lift your finger, the recording stops. Touch and it starts again, right where you left off. This allows you to create frame-by-frame animations or a montage of images on the fly. Here are the biggest pros and cons of using Vine for marketing a business:

• Pro: A popular new format
• Con: Quality control

The other potential problem is saturation. Vine is enticing and easy to use, one might be tempted to upload a dozen videos a day. Read >>

Businesses Need To Join LinkedIn Groups (Content Lead)
Twitter and Facebook house a mix of individuals, companies, interests and even parody accounts, professional intentions can sometimes get lost in the shuffle. LinkedIn, however, commands transparency and accuracy by associating users with their employers. While there are company Pages for featuring businesses, the action begins and ends with the individual. Creating and maintaining your company’s presence is important, but aside from providing users with information and publishing company updates, LinkedIn offers no ability to interact outside of that space as the company. Therefore, employees become the proxies. Groups have become the most important area for networking and demonstrating expertise in your industry. Read >>

Why Social Media Should Be On the University Curriculum (HootSuite)
In the U.S, grads are coming out of school saddled with debt, with training that doesn’t match the demands of a volatile economy. The challenges of rebooting the university system are enormous. But an important part of the solution may well lie in equipping students to function in an increasingly digital and socially savvy environment. That’s exactly what’s happening across the country as a growing number of universities embrace social media education in the classroom. There’s no doubt that social media skills are in growing demand from the planet’s biggest enterprises. 73 percent of Fortune 500 companies now have active corporate Twitter accounts, while 66 percent have Facebook pages. Social media education on university and college curriculums could be one way to start decompressing the higher-ed bubble. Read >>

Here's What Facebook's Graph Search Is Doing Next (VentureBeat)
What Facebook has coming up is much more interesting, complex and useful. Now, it shows off things you’re already connected to, narrowing down by common attributes— what people like, where they work, whom they know, homing in on specific individuals. It’s like taking a metal detector to a haystack to find the one needle you want. Once Facebook dumps all the Open Graph data into the mix — way beyond what pages you like, including what you bought, sites you’ve commented on, your online game scores, etc.— the computations get even more complex, the filters for relevance even more clever. Read >>

The Ultimate History Of Facebook (MyLife via Social Media Today)
Facebook is the largest social network in the world today. We've all seen the movie but how did it all really begin? Read >>