Facebook Tests Offsite Advertising

Business is really looking up for advertisers and app developers.  The past few weeks, Facebook has focused on obtaining advertisement revenues. Within two months, the network has introduced two mobile ad units and now comes a third. This one is however, is not inside Facebook, as most would expect.

The way it works, the user has to be logged into Facebook on mobile. By clicking a banner or full screen advertisements will take the user to either an app store, such as Android’s Google Play or iOS third party application, which the user can then download. Or, the user may also be directed to the advertiser’s own website that displays their products/ services.
The payment by advertisers depends on the type and audience size. The ads are mobile-specific that will appear off the network’s site, thereby reducing ad clutter on the platform itself to a large extent. Instead, the ad will be distributed across multiple platforms on mobile devices.
Maintaining user privacy had not been one of Facebook’s strength. However, lately, the network has prioritized identity and data. With this new ad initiative, the user’s identity remains anonymous. The target user data extracts their demographic information and is based on ‘likes’ and common apps shared by their user’s friends.’
This is the second round of offsite Facebook ads, the first ones having run on Zynga.com. If the test proves successful, then it would mean it benefits all concerned parties. Which is the user, who will be exposed to new way of app discovery, while Facebook and the advertisers share the profits. And the app developers will have found a more secure marketing strategy that will help expand their own user base.
At this point, Facebook is depending on other networks to monetize. Most reviewers predict how Facebook will eventually become independent and form their own advertising network. The advertising format is also being compared with Google’s Adwords. Difference being, while Google extracts keywords based on content, Facebook uses personal data for targeting of relevant ads.
Information regarding Facebook’s current partners who are in on the deal has been well concealed from media. Nevertheless, the wait may not be long for the rest when advertising bids are open to all.

Seemi Munir Originally Found this Post on Avenuesocial

Seemi Munir was born as a Leader,inspires others to work to their highest potential.She is an Expert in Business Development, Financial Strategic Planning, and Profit Growth.

Brilliant Business Acumen Show at Tech Event

For all the tech geeks out there, it’s time to come out from behind your tablets, mobiles and PC screens and into the real world.  Because neither emoticons nor chat messages can substitute the real you. Whatever you have to sell, it will be have to be through your physical appearance. And Mark Zuckerberg will vouch for that.

TechCrunch is a media platform that covers all things technology. TechCrunch Disrupt SF is an annual global event. It serves as an introductory platform for startup ventures. (Yammer started off here). The event concludes with a grand trophy, which is a cash prize of USD 50,000 to the most innovative startup of the year.

This year, Disrupt SF 2012 attracted scores of startups (estimated at 300) and angel investors from all over the world. For instance, the all-women run Forerunner Ventures. Another business initiative was presented by Hacker Rank as “The Olympics of Programming” for “building the largest   collection of the world’s most interesting problems for hackers to solve.

The presentation of each has been aggressive on the Battlefield. Microsoft GM Rahul Sood criticized p (k) Prior Knowledge, a cloud-based predictive database startup for application developers. Sood suggested a balance of business with creativity and for p (k) to include marketing professionals in their all-engineer team.

With tough competition, the judges’ panel, which includes CEO, Yahoo! Marissa Mayer, had a hard time deciding this year’s trophy winner.

The Facebook legacy

The highlight of this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt was the Fireside Chat with Facebook’s CEO. With 950 million users, there’s no looking back for Facebook’s CEO. This was his first appearance following the IPO plummet, which seems to have cleared the air a bit. It wasn’t just about what he spoke, which he could have sent on an e-mail.

Zuckerberg presence seems to have reassured investors that the social network has a viable future worth considering seriously. No sooner had his conversation ended with Michael Arrington of CrunchFund when Facebook shares rose by 4.6%.

Zuckerberg spoke of deeper mobile integration and monetization, work on “long term projects and build good stuff,” and plenty of opportunities in gaming and search conduction. He added how Facebook applications drive morale, such as on Instagram.

The interview also dispelled rumors regarding a Facebook mobile. Facebook is keener on integration on “all devices” than invest in hardware, Zuckerberg confirmed.

Referring to his own codes, Zuckerberg said “Everything we do breaks, but we fix it quickly.” It emitted laughter from the audience, but Facebook users still criticize the cost of such ‘mistakes’ that resulted in irreversible privacy loss.  However, Zuckerberg admitted to “betting too much on HTML5 than native” being their “biggest strategic mistake” in mobile development, now rectified on iOS with Objective C as programming language.

With all said and done, all startups and seasoned businesses should learn from this: there is no room for mistakes in the tech world, whether it’s one user or 950 million of them.

Seemi Munir Originally Found this Post on Avenuesocial

Seemi Munir was born as a Leader,inspires others to work to their highest potential.She is an Expert in Business Development, Financial Strategic Planning, and Profit Growth.

Of Music, Sports and Social Media

The closing ceremony of Olympics 2012 was all glitz and glamour, showcasing the music and fashion culture of Britain in its prime. The event appeared more a rock concert than sport-oriented. But the audience looked thoroughly entertained and even the participants didn’t seem to mind being sidelined for the show. But what this Olympics event apart was how it outclassed all other sport events in history as far as duration and artists was concerned.

The main reason for the exaggerated attention to music can be attributed to the amount of social activity that revolved around the event. Olympics 2012 has been considered most technologically advanced and social-centered event in the history of the Olympiads and frequently referred to as ‘social games’ or social Olympics ‘The organizing committee was aware of the discussions that poured in by the minute on various social networks. Facebook was the most active network, followed by Twitter. So much so that Facebook apps and games were especially created with the Olympics as their central theme.

Olympics is not the only sports event to provide music-rich entertainment. Soccer too has seen a flurry of music activity, featuring some of the most distinguished artists. ‘Waka Waka’ was the official song for FIFA 2010 performed by Shakira. The song caught the world’s attention for it colorful mix of Afro-English performance.  Ricky Martin’s ‘Cup of Life’ for FIFA 1998 became an instant hit. Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Let’s Get Loud’ was dedicated to spur up the US soccer team in 1994.  The list goes on. The commercial interests of such partnerships are great for both: the event attracts a larger crowd because of the added entertainment while musicians receive instant worldwide publicity and high sales record.

Perform, a sports media group survey revealed that1 in 4 American citizens ‘follow sports via social media.’ Certainly encouraging news for those planning future sports events. Social media provides quick updates through posts and news rather than watching entire lengths of programs. This works out especially for those who are not as passionate about sports. Not only do the fans benefit, but so do the participants. By creating Facebook fan page, participants have the opportunity to interact with players. This is also a fair means for achieving recognition especially for the newcomers and amateurs.

With these three very powerful influences future sports events are likely to be even more exciting. The culturally rich and vibrant Brazil, the next Olympic venue is definitely going to make the most it all.

Seemi Munir Originally Found this Post on Avenuesocial

Seemi Munir was born as a Leader,inspires others to work to their highest potential.She is an Expert in Business Development, Financial Strategic Planning, and Profit Growth.

Facebook’s Messenger 1.9 is all Smiles

Facebook’s attempts are not just to go mobile, but partner with the most successful feature services. However, making apps for Facebook for mobile platform is not just challenging for third-party developers. Facebook’s own in-house team feels just as challenged.

This need for external support was also strongly felt for their messenger service as well. Which led to their acquisition of Beluga, a popular group messaging service. Facebook Messenger that became a standalone Facebook app for the PC and smartphones. But to compete against other social networks such as Google’s Chat as well mobile devices in house text services proved that something more than just words was needed. So now we have their updated Facebook Messenger version 1.9 for iOS and Android, which allows users to add emoticons such as smileys and hearts.

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The change may not sound like a big deal, but will definitely thrill the teenagers. Apparently, Facebook has been pretty thorough in their research and the reason for this latest development: Renowned research company Pew’s recent report shows a rising trend of teenagers prefers using social network’s messaging services to interact with their each other on a daily basis. The percentage exceeds those using IM, phones or e-mails. Use of emoticons complements text in a quick and easy way. Some even go as far as to say they give ‘life’ to a message.

But why Emoji? The use of emoticons to complement the text changes the appearance and meaning of the Apparently, this Japanese artwork seems to have gained more popularity around the world more than any other emoticons. This led to the alternative keyboard on the iPhone dedicated exclusively to Emoji.

What next? With every update comes another new challenge, which is how to improve it further. Some comment suggest how adding video to messages will be another plus point for Facebook Messenger. Google on the other hand has the video chat, but not emoticons yet. So it’s highly likely they will borrow the idea from each other.

Unless of course Facebook decides they would much rather go for another acquisition. The first one that comes to mind is Skype whose users have exceeded 40 million. And they have a great set of emoticons too. Earlier both Google and Facebook had considered buying the company on more than one occasion. That is until Microsoft purchased it. If Skype is reconsidered, it will involve incentivizing the partnership with Microsoft. Except for one drawback: Skype is just as weak in their mobile strategy as Facebook and right now, Facebook is in a state of panic in going mobile.

The best and, as was mentioned at the beginning, the most difficult choice would be to make a Facebook application which would be combination of all of the above.

Seemi Munir Originally Found this Post on Avenuesocial

Seemi Munir was born as a Leader,inspires others to work to their highest potential.She is an Expert in Business Development, Financial Strategic Planning, and Profit Growth.

Facebook’s Need For Speed-y Action

“We’ve rebuilt the app so it’s faster and easier to use.” With this latest statement issued at the iTunes store, Facebook has gained several points with its mobile users.

When in Rome…Facebook may have understood the need but seemed to have avoided the eventual: which was to go native on the iOS. Finally, they recently hauled their mobile app on iPhone and iPad by switching from the web-friendly HTML5 to i-friendly Objective C. The 5.0 version update contains more than double the speed than its predecessor.

We can only guess the reason for delay. Could be because HTML5 allows direct access to content and updates, whereas using Objective C means rerouting through the app store. By the time the app opened to Newsfeed, it would be time for the user on the go (Facebook needs to be reminded of this), to get on with whatever is on their busy agenda. Another reason could be HTML5’s cross-platform compatibility.

This delay proved costly as users deleted the app because of its snail-paced speed. Goes to show the company needs to speed up its decision-making and action process too. But what they have made it clear that mobile is the way to go. And hopefully they’re reading up on feedback too.

Users do understand the trouble that goes into making technological changes. One little feedback among a torrent of spam can prove to be most useful for companies like Facebook, who attempt to balance their monetary success, which is not happening as well as expected, but also to fulfill user demands that are just as fast paced.

So time is most crucial here, because of the growing competition among social networks like Foursquare that are completely mobile. And no sooner have they improved on speed come a another hail of comments about how they need to work on other features such as sharing and to pay equal attention to other mobile devices such as Android and Blackberry.

On the other hand there are Facebook developers who have to contend with the changes too. They have been content since the introduction of Facebook App Center on iPhone, because that meant they did not have to make create two separate apps for the web plus iOS. It may be that they would have to do a little more learning. Right now Facebook apps on require a blend of PHP and HTML5, but it’s likely that it will soon become mandatory for all programming languages to be device-specific. It’s now a question of how cross platform compatibility will be possible when and if the change does happen.

Seemi Munir Originally Found this Post on Avenuesocial

Seemi Munir was born as a Leader,inspires others to work to their highest potential.She is an Expert in Business Development, Financial Strategic Planning, and Profit Growth.

10 Tips For Better Business on Social Media

1. Stay updated. Did you know Facebook may be adding a ‘want’ button very soon to encourage e-commerce? If this is news, then you aren’t ready for marketing your business. To succeed, you have to know what’s going on within your domain and what your competitors are up to.
2. Keep it simply specific. Don’t add in all the features available. Clutter free pages not only look attractive, but should offer users a quick check-in to see what your products and services offer, rather than spending time scrutinizing to figure.
3. You’re marketing, not selling. One article pointed this out clearly, citing General Motors as example of how their lack in sales on Facebook led to their withdrawal of their paid advertisement on the social site. The main purpose should serve to build and increase customer loyalty.
4. Don’t expect quick results. If it were that easy, everybody would be successful. The wait is long and the work is hard. SME’s, for whom sustenance can be challenging without monetary returns, must bear in mind that social media is an ROI model with financial and non-financial gains, with the latter referring to customer satisfaction that can prove highly beneficial in the long run.
5. Don’t be yourself but do be honest. I remember reading a business guide that tells businesses to ‘be themselves’ on social media. Despite the informal environment of social media, comments that seem offhand can tend to backfire because you are dealing with millions of people with different perspectives. Anyone is bound to misinterpret it. Maintain a business tone without sounding too stiff.
6. Keep them interested. Using Facebook applications are a great way to add life to your profile. They are available on site or you may hire third party Facebook developers to create them. Game and video applications will bolster interest and encourage others to ‘share’ applications, thereby increasing customer engagement.
7. Rewards and incentives. Tempting is an age-old tactic and still works. Create a Facebook Fan page to offer prizes for contests and challenges and it will increase the number of visitors to your pages.
8. Be consistent and flexible. Contradictory as it sounds, seek a balance between posting too much and neglecting to post for long intervals. Schedule and monitor your actions through metrics and if they are working, stick to the plan, otherwise shuffle around until you find one strategy that produces successful results.
9. Learn from criticism as much as praise. The greatest advantage on social media is instant and direct customer feedback. Don’t let negative feedback discourage your efforts and don’t delete comments unless they’re spam. Interact openly with the ‘upset’ customer to make sure the complaint is valid. Sometimes someone’s just having a bad day and your page chanced to be there to serve as an outlet for his or her frustration.
10. Remember its ‘media,’ not ‘medium.’ Don’t confine your presence to Facebook and Twitter. There are tags that cross connect social media. Select without going overboard. If you are doing the marketing single handedly, a maximum of five should suffice.

Seemi Munir Originally Found this Post on Avenuesocial

Seemi Munir was born as a Leader,inspires others to work to their highest potential.She is an Expert in Business Development, Financial Strategic Planning, and Profit Growth.

Social Marketing and Advertising on Overdrive?

Is Facebook’s dream finally being realized through ads? Various sources confirm mobile ads are far more profitable than desktop ads. It has also been observed that the number of ‘social clicks’ are significantly higher on mobile than desktop.

With the way social media introduces changes, advertisers must feel like yo-yos as the network pulls the strings: one day they are up, the next, down. Either way, they are certainly expecting to rope in mobile advertisers through some of their recent announcements:

• Following the success of Sponsored Stories on News Feed as well as the success of the beta version, Facebook SDK 3.0 for iOS is now available for download. This comes packed with a detailed ‘Ads Manger Guide’ that helps understand track and make the best use of advertising campaigns through the Response graph.

• App developers can now sign-up for the beta partners to advertise on mobile. By clicking the ad sends users are sent to the iOS App Store and Google Play to download apps in case they do not already have them installed. The ‘promote’ option allows advertiser to select the budget, app store, region and target audience for the ad. The ad’s budget and clicks can be tracked by the advertiser. However, clicking the ad does not ensure download. Where the number of clicks exceeds downloads, the ad is more successful in marketing (impression) than revenue generation (CTR).

• Facebook is also getting bolder, directly asking users about the kind of ads they prefer on their page. Clicking ‘tell us what you like’ users can remove ads that automatically appear on their page and select their preference.

But despite all efforts, there are still several grounds yet to be covered by the network. For instance, CRM and cloud marketing that have already made heady by many organizations. Salesforce seems to have beaten them in the race to acquire Buddy Media, which has “nearly 1,000 of the world’s largest companies” to their portfolio. Or maybe Facebook is in no hurry. The network is probably waiting to see how advertisers manage these changes before they begin bouncing them around again.

Seemi Munir Originally Found this Post on Avenuesocial.Com