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Facebook Ads More About Awareness Than Leads

posted on July 9, 2012

There is plenty being said about Facebook ads these days.

A recent study conducted by AdAge along with Citigroup may have given the answers that advertisers know to be true but it is not likely the type of information that Facebook may want to hear about its advertising platform.

The study revealed that most marketers are doing Facebook ads for brand awareness and building sentiment for their brand. So is this a bad thing? Well, not if you are a major brand with deep pockets and can afford to give the fall back position of “We are branding” as why you advertise on Facebook. When it is being found that lead gen and other hard performance indicators aren’t so great you say “We need to be in front of these people even if they are not clicking through”.

Trouble is that smaller advertisers they usually don’t have that luxury. So what did this survey actually say?

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Could Facebook Be the Real Difference in Election 2012?

posted on July 9, 2012

It’s getting closer and closer to November in the US and the that means only one thing this year: the presidential election is nearly upon us. Of course, the political ads, rhetoric and mudslinging are in full force already and if you are like me you are already sick of it. That won’t stop it from escalating as election day draws near and it looks like one of the biggest potential influencers could be none other than Facebook.

The social network and CNN have announced a partnership that could prove interesting for the party that has most of their constituency on the network. You can probably take a wild guess at that one. All Facebook reports

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Google Lets Web Surfers ‘Mute This Ad’

posted on July 6, 2012

Recently, I read a productivity article that said that control is an illusion. We think we have control over parts of our day, but the truth is, the universe will do as it wants and all we can do is hang on for the ride.

Depressing, but kind of freeing, don’t you think?

I thought about that article when I read Google’s blog post on their new “Mute This Ad” option.

The concept is pretty simple. A web surfer comes across a Google Display Network ad that they don’t like. They click the X in the corner and voila, the ad is “muted.” Going forward, Google will try its hardest not to serve that ad to that person ever again.

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Twitter Search Gets a Makeover

posted on July 6, 2012

Aren’t makeovers fun? They are meant to make something that needed a little work that much better. It takes something that is a little lacking and makes it special.

Well, many would agree that one of the areas that Twitter needs a little help is search. Today, following the rather exuberant tweet of one of the company’s key employees, Pankaj Gupta yesterday, Twitter unveiled the search changes that led him to urge his fellow Twitter folks on with “congrats and enjoy the enormity of ur impact few understand today!”

OK, based on what was announced today count me amongst the many. The Twitter blog says

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The Rise of Couch Commerce (Infographic)

posted on July 6, 2012

Online sales by way of a tablet has been dubbed Couch Commerce, but could as easily be called Bed Commerce since nearly equal numbers of people do it from either location. Then again, I suppose people could easily misconstrue “Bed Commerce” so it’s probably best that we stick with the couch.

The furniture in this equation is important because it represents a shift in how we shop online. There’s a psychological difference between sitting down at a desk and firing up the PC to shop, and sitting on the couch shopping while you watch TV in the evening. The size of the tablet and the touch screen makes it more engaging and since you’re sitting there watching a Storage Wars marathon anyway, there’s no need to rush. In other words, tablets turn shopping into entertainment and we humans do love to be entertained. (As evidenced by the fact that we’re watching Storage Wars.)

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Social Media Farmer Style

posted on July 6, 2012

Whenever I learn about things that have ‘gone viral’ I wonder how people learn about about the ‘sensations’ then figure that I am simply not one of the cool kids. I can live with that.

Imagine, though, being a band of farming brothers from Kansas (along with an 11 year old sister) in the age of technology, social media and all things cool coming from coding and VC money (at least that’s what the Valley thinks so we’ll play along). Decidedly uncool by comparison but even the Silicon Valley would crumble if there weren’t people growing food to make sure there is always food within 100 ft. of a Googler at all times.

Enter the Peterson brothers; Greg, 21, Nathan, 18 and Kendal, 15 along with 11 year old Laura behind the camera and you get a video called “I’m Farming and I Grow It” which cleverly uses LMFAO’s hit “I’m Sexy and I Know It” to educate us regular food eaters about the life of a farmer.

With over 3.2 million views the video is a hit. It has resulted in trips to New York to be on TV. So how did they do it? Business Insider tells us.

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Twitter Gets Transparent, Detaling Law Enforcement and Takedown Requests

posted on July 5, 2012

We’re all familiar with the Miranda, the legal warning given to everyone who runs a foul of the law. But it might be time to add a few lines to that warning, including, “anything you Tweet can and will be used against you.”

Twitter just released their first Transparency Report and it includes 849 data requests from law enforcement in the first half of this year. Twitter granted 63% of those requests and those numbers on are on the rise. Twitter says they received more government requests in the first half of 2012, than they received in all of 2011.