Keeping Up with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube Advertising

In order for social media networks to sustain themselves, they continue to look at advertising as a source of revenue. Read on for the latest introductions from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Digital marketing evolves at rapidfire pace, and with all the attention paid to social media these days, it should come as no surprise that its advertising changes seem to lead the pack. Only six months ago, I wrote about Facebook advertising updates, and much has changed since then and within the other popular social media networks. Let me help keep you informed and take you through some of the key updates now.

Facebook Advertising

• In July, Facebook launched Page Post Targeting Enhanced, giving business the opportunity to to target their Page posts by gender, age, Likes, education, interest, relationship status and more.
• Facebook adds a paid-for Sponsored Stories-like component, Pages You May Like, to its mobile platform in August
• Also in August Facebook also rolled out Sponsored Results, ads that appear below Facebook search queries, and a data appending option whereby advertisers could upload lists of email addresses, phone numbers, and user IDs to try to reach those users through ad targeting

• The December launch of Page Like Ads enabled small business owners to more easily create ads for mobile or desktop
• Facebook’s Graph Search, launched in January, is rumored to be the foundation of Facebook’s next major advertising land grab
• Auto-play video ads, confirmed only a few weeks ago, appear to be coming in Facebook’s future

A word of caution: Facebook seems to be locked in a constant battle with privacy advocates - frequently when Facebook rolls out a new advertising opportunity, it draws the ire of privacy advocates whose pressure ultimately forces a change in the advertising. So just evaluate each opportunity with these expectations in mind.

Twitter Advertising

Twitter first started offering its advertising options in 2010 with Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends which later rolled out to Twitter’s mobile platform.

Since then, it has conducted a few custom campaign experiments like teaming with American Express to pay with hashtags, but the biggest news in Twitter advertising came with its announcement this month that it has launched an API to allow brands to multi-manage and target promoted tweets.

LinkedIn Advertising

Back in 2010, I wrote a column on LinkedIn’s booming advertising business, and things really haven’t slowed down since. Including the advertising developments since then, LinkedIn has…

• Rolled out video advertising to its self-serve platform (August 2012)

• Unveiled an API program to manage and test multiple ads and campaigns at once
• Announced its forthcoming Sponsored Posts will launch to all later this year

YouTube Advertising

In June I wrote about YouTube’s four TrueView ad options, but YouTube offers more advertising options like First Watch, Display Ads, Home Page Ads, and custom solutions.

YouTube also now offers a self-serve AdWords for Video solution, first announced last April.

Curious about the most popular YouTube ads? Check out its new Ads Leaderboard, which might help you craft your next video ad.

Regardless of the platform, you can be assured that as each social media network continues to try to monetize itself, more and more advertising options will arise. Trying to keep up with all the changes can be a job unto itself, so stay tuned!

1 Comment »

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     Comment by susanna — April 18, 2013 @ 9:00 pm

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