Category Archives: social media

Facebook new compelling advertisement formats.

Away from the traditional advertisement formats developed in the beginning, Facebook has created new compelling ad formats that are changing the social media marketing landscape and its impact in brands, customers and advertisers.

Facebook Instant Articles ads

When a brand is looking to promote different kinds of content using mobile as an ad placement, the Instant Article ads enables publishers to create fast-loading and interactive content through Facebook’s app.

Moreover, advertisers can choose to place different ads within articles that communicate relevant information about the different products or services they offer.

The two available formats for Instant Articles are video and image in can be placed both in Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook Instant Article ads Format

Banners and interstitial ads on Audience Network.

Audience Network is a way to extend publishers ads beyond Facebook and Instagram social media to website and mobile apps.

The banners, interstitial and native ads of Audience Network, allow advertisers to use relevant ad spaces in other digital media outside of the Facebook network.

Also, this ad format, helps Facebook publishers to increase their reach, lower their cost per result and use multiple platforms and devices.

Moreover, it allows publishers to exclude some digital spaces that can damage their brand reputation such as websites related to Gambling, Dating, Debatable social issues or where mature content is promoted.

Facebook Audience Network, works similar to Google Ads Display. The two advertisement formats used in Facebook Audience Network, are images and video.

Facebook Audience Network

Facebook Collection ads.

Collection ads are an immersive format that allows customers to explore and discovery different products in a unique visual browsing feature all in one ad placement.

Similarly, Collection Ads are available in Facebook and Instagram and they feature a main video or image together with four smaller images below in a grid-like arrangement.

If a customer taps on any of the images or the video of the collection ad to learn more about a product, he/she will immediately go to a visual post-click experience triggered by an Instant Experience or Canvas.

Facebook collection ads format

Facebook Marketplace ads.

Facebook Marketplace is a space similar to Kijiji or Craigslist where customers can browse and buy different products.

However, listing an item for sale does not necessary means it will sell immediately. As a result, Facebook has created a business tool to help businesses reach more customers through paid ads.

Facebook Marketplace ads promote relevant products and services on Facebook Marketplace.

Thus, customers interested a certain product or service can click to an app, a website, or view details of the product for more information.

Marketplace is available as a placement option only for certain campaign objectives such as Traffic, Reach, Catalog Sales, Conversions, and Video Views objectives.

Facebook marketplace ads

4 Twitter best segmentation strategies.

When it comes to marketing segmentation, social media allows marketers to take a more detailed control of different audiences. Twitter segmentation strategies, give brands the mechanisms to target marketing budgets more efficiently while improving return on investment.

Moreover, Twitter user segmentation helps to convey ads to consumers in a broader context using multi-screen strategies in real time. Some of the unique Twitter segmentation tools are:

Twitter Segmentation by interests

This Twitter market segmentation feature allows brands to connect with people based on their preferences. For instance, brands can segment person’s interests in Twitter in a comprehensive range of topics from sports and beauty to subtopics such as college basketball or skin care.

Twitter Segmentation by followers

Brands can use Twitter to direct their marketing campaigns to users who follow particular brands @usernames or others similar to those @username followers. For example, brands can target @usernames of influencers who lead the voice of companies in Twitter and target specific messages to them.

Twitter Segmentation by keywords

Twitter keyword segmentation in chronology help to link brands with customers based on the keywords of their latest Tweets or those with whom they have interacted. Hence, search keyword segmentation allows brands to reach consumers who search for a certain phrase or term.

For instance, someone tweets that he/she needs caffeine: @CoffeeBarista, a famous coffee brand segmentation strategy use words like “caffeine”, “latte” and “pick me up”. Therefore, the user who tweeted that he/she needed caffeine could have that Promoted Tweet by @CoffeeBarista in his/her chronology.

Twitter television segmentation

Twitter is the digital mirror of television audiences’ favorite shows. For example, 85% of Twitter users go to the social network during primetime television shows and interact about their favorite programs.

Thus, with Twitter television segmentation, brands can lead certain audiences in relation to specific channels, or programs that fit the brand communications and marketing goals.

If a brand cannot buy advertising within a specific television program, they can reach the same audience on Twitter by creating detailed program content.

Moreover, television segmentation combined with Twitter segmentation strategies help to amplify the brand impact and to connect with viewers in real times. Similarly, brands can develop strategic integrations in relation to major sports events or sponsorships.

Twitter segmentation strategies support the creation and delivery of dynamic personalized content, such features can help Twitter to improve its financial performance and help the company to become a profitable enterprise.

Twitter Segmentation

Is Twitter a viable business?

Since its foundation in 2006, Twitter became one of the most useful tools companies have to communicate with their customers. By the year 2014, Twitter was the second most used social network service by companies in several markets.

However, different technology analysts have expressed their concerns about Twitter business viability due to current financial issues that are undermining investors’ trust in the future of the company.

In the year 2012, Twitter had 500 million subscribers who wrote an average of 340 million “tweets” per day. Most of the traffic is generated in highly globalized markets such as the United States (40%), Japan (23%), Spain (7%), England (6%) etc. That same year, Twitter search engine made 1.6 billion searches each day.

Yet, in the year 2015, eight years after its foundation, Twitter Inc. had not yet reached a break-even point (BEP) or the point at which cost or expenses and revenue are equal, even though for the same year the opportunity costs had been paid and capital has received the risk-adjusted expected return.

Twitter financial uncertainty

Although, Twitter financial statements show annual profits, the uncertainty about its future as profitable business is still unclear. For instance, in the fiscal year 2013, Twitter’s net revenue were US $400 million, its shareholders investments during the same period was US $ 1.16 billion and its brand value was about US$ 8 trillion. Such numbers have made many financial analysts to believe that the company is highly overvalued.

It is important to remember that Twitter’s main source of income is the sale of advertisement spaces within their site platform and the sale of the so-called “promoted tweets”. Therefore investors might be asking:

Should Twitter Inc. implement a business model that can help to increase the company’s profits? What alternatives can Twitter Inc. explore in order to improve its business efficiency from a financial point?

Which managerial strategies that have been used by other internet social networking service companies’ and that have proved to be successful, could Twitter Inc. undertake as an opportunity to redirect their financial statements?

Are Twitter Inc. future financial goals unattainable in the highly competed market of internet social networking services? Should Twitter Inc. consider the possibility of a business “take over” by other technology companies such as Facebook Inc. or Google Inc. in order to survive?

Twitter Business Model