Social media: Why ‘pinning’ is giving ‘poking’ and ‘tweeting’ a run for their money
Interest in social media site Pinterest is growing month on month. An online pin board, Pinterest lets users post (or pin) images from across the web to virtual bulletin boards and now has 11m users, having launched less than two years ago. Instagram, meanwhile is fast establishing itself as the most popular mobile image sharing app and Draw Something, an online drawing game for mobile devices that carries advertising, has attracted 14m users.
Up and coming mobile social network Path, which invites users to share live reports with friends, is already holding its own against Facebook. These new sites aim to bring a fresh take to social networking by focusing primarily on content, transforming users’ everyday actions into cooler, interactive information that they can share with friends.
But what potential do these niche networks hold for brands and how can they tap into their burgeoning user base? Revolution uncovers what these niche social networks have to offer brands, how these platforms can be used for marketing campaigns and whether they really pose a threat to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Special Report: The new era of display: opportunity knocks for real-time bidding
Online display advertising is undergoing major developments, with technology playing a key part in the medium’s evolution. New technologies are redefining how display ads are bought and sold with an increasing number of display budgets deployed through automated platforms, enabling brands and their agencies to buy display ad space in real time.
This feature will look at the latest developments in the online display advertising space and consider the potential of real-time bidding – a way of buying ad space online whereby advertisers can place a specific ad in front of a specific individual at a given site, bid for that impression, and if they win, serve the ad, all in the time it takes for a page to load. RTB been growing in the US over the last two years with brands such as eBay and American Express using the medium within their display advertising, while a recent report from IDC estimates that real-time advertising will grow at a compounded rate of 71 per cent in the US until 2015 and end up being 27 per cent overall online ad spend.
The technique is gaining ground with brands in the UK as marketers seek even more control, transparency and accountability for their investment in onlinespend. Sky has been using real-time bidding over the last year and predicts that 50% of its online ad spend will be directed towards real-time bidding within the next two years. But with the technique still very much it its infancy, Revolution finds out what the challenges involved with real-time bidding are, how brands can successfully overcome these and what potential the medium has – for brands and consumers alike.
Battle of the Brands
Revolution puts two real-time bidding providers to the test to see what they have to offer brands and how they compare.
Measuring social media ROI
This feature will uncover the brands that have cracked social media measurement: how and what they measure; what they don’t measure; do it in-house or outsource? What lessons are they learning along the way? As brands get over their first crush on social media, hard questions are being asked, not least what are we getting back from our investment?
Agencies are falling over themselves to provide solutions, but how can brands navigate through these to find the right one? Are econometric models the answer?
For further information please contact: Kim Benjamin
revolution.magazine@haymarket.com
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