social

Salesforce.com launches self-serve social ad app

Salesforce.com is turning things up a notch for its Marketing Cloud platform with a new product styled similarly to its other cloud-based products: Social.com.

Social.com stems from Salesforce's acquisition of Buddy Media and its subsidiary, the London-based Brighter Option.

Thus, the Marketing Cloud now boils down to three core areas: social media listening (Radian6), publishing content (Buddy Media), and branding (Social.com). The new service is described as a self-serve application for use by agencies, brands, developers, retailers and advertisers in developing, automating, and managing social ad campaigns.

Touting it as the first platform that connects … Read more

Securities regulators balk at employee social-media privacy

Securities regulators are advocating for special exemptions to new and pending state laws that prevent employers from snooping on employee Twitter or Facebook accounts.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an independent U.S. securities regulator that seeks to protect investors, is asking lawmakers in around 10 states to amend their legislation to allow financial firms to peak at social media accounts when employee misuse is suspected, a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

The fear seems to be that brokers could use their social media accounts to spread information that would influence stocks, and that misdeeds would go unchecked without … Read more

Authorities in Boston bombing helped, hindered by social media

Authorities pursuing a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing have a love-hate relationship with social media. After initially asking for help via Twitter, law enforcement later requested that social-media users be a little more conscientious about the kind of information shared (or fabricated) on social networks.

In the immediate aftermath of the dual blasts that killed three and injured dozens near the marathon finish line on Monday, law enforcement turned to the public via Twitter and other platforms for help crowdsourcing leads. On Thursday, the FBI released video footage of two young men carrying backpacks near the finish line of … Read more

With #Music, Twitter speeds its media domination march

When Twitter opened up its #Music app to everyone on Thursday, it was the strongest sign yet that the social-networking giant is aiming to become a media machine that dominates popular entertainment channels.

There's no doubt that many of Twitter's vast user base already have a deep interest in music, but until now there's been no structured way for artists or fans to leverage that. With the public launch of the company's new discovery service, Twitter has seemingly taken the next step to becoming an indispensable destination both for people to find new music to listen … Read more

Finally, Twitter Music is available to all

You don't have to be the host of "American Idol" to use Twitter Music anymore.

A little more than a month after CNET broke the news that Twitter was working on a stand-alone music discovery app and a week after that app was rolled out to an invite-only group of celebrities and others -- including Ryan Seacrest -- the general public can now get its hands on the music discovery app.

Twitter officially unveiled #music on Thursday during "Good Morning America." The company later provided more details about the service in a blog post, saying … Read more

Twitter adds tweet keyword targeting for advertisers

Twitter said today that it has added the ability for advertisers to target ads at people based on keywords from those users' recent tweets.

In a blog post this morning, Twitter characterized the new feature as "an important new capability -- especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent -- because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context."

To be sure, millions of people are letting the world know what they're thinking in real time by sending out tweets about what they're doing, links they've noticed, news they'… Read more

Social networking on desktops may have peaked in 2012, Experian finds

Perhaps there is such a thing as too much Facebook.

In 2012, U.S. consumers on personal computers spent about 27 percent of their Internet time with social networking sites and forums, or 16 minutes for every hour, according to data from Experian Marketing Services.

Though that's an alarming finding for some, the figure, which doesn't reflect mobile browsing, is actually down 3 percentage points from the previous year. In 2011, social networking in the U.S. peaked at 30 percent of all time spent online, according to Experian.

U.S. consumers are not alone in their adjusted … Read more

Twitter puts the kibosh on Flattr

Twitter has pulled the rug out from under Flattr, a service that let users send a digital thank you to anyone favoriting one of their tweets.

In a blog post today, Flattr noted that it will no longer be able to offer its service because Twitter felt it was a violation of the social networking giant's API terms.

"Recently Twitter contacted us and told us that we are violating their API terms citing [a] clause saying 'Your advertisements cannot resemble or reasonably be confused by users as a tweet. For example, ads cannot have tweet actions like follow, … Read more

Facebook reportedly wants $1 million for each video ad

Would you spend $1 million for a video ad on Facebook?

That's allegedly what the popular network is aiming to squeeze out of advertisers when it starts rolling out video ads sometime this summer, says a story today in Ad Age.

Citing information from one "executive briefed on the product," Ad Age reported that the video ads would carry a price tag upwards of $1 million, run for no longer than 15 seconds, and be scheduled so that no Facebook user sees more than three such ads per day.

Facebook has been chatting up ad agencies to … Read more