Social Media

Twitter is rolling out the self-serve ad platform it's been testing to 10,000 small and midsize businesses next month through a partnership with American Express, in a bid to broaden its revenue streams.

If you have an iPad app, you need to advertise to make sure people know about it. And, just like the traditional world, the ad opportunities are endless. Effectively determining where and how to advertise your app can be tricky if you don’t stop and consider a few key elements. Effective app advertising requires three key areas of focus: brand, buzz and balanced opportunity.

Advertisers have long based TV-buying decisions on who's watching. Starcom Mediavest Group is adding another wrinkle: targeting shows based on what those TV viewers are talking about in social media.

In a new global research report released today by IDG Research Services, two-thirds of the technology marketers surveyed said they expect their budgets to rise on average 3.5% next year compared to this year. Digital programs will capture half the spend with 58% on demand generation and 42% on branding. Events is second at almost 24%.

“For more than two years, we’ve seen a surge in demand by clients looking for a range of services and products to meet their content marketing and social marketing needs and mobile is on the same track as social.”

Businesses are wasting time and money trying to reach people online without realizing many resent big brands invading their social networks – according to findings from a global study launched by TNS, a Kantar company and part of WPP.

The race online has seen businesses across the world develop profiles on social networks, such as Facebook or YouTube, to speak to customers quickly and cheaply – but TNS’s research reveals that if these efforts are not carefully targeted, they are wasted on half of them.

With the prospect of an IPO looming late next year, Facebook is determined to prove it can be as profitable as it is popular, looking to land more seven- and eight-figure tentpole ad deals with major marketers.

That's why it spent last week cozying up to big spenders -- even piping in CEO Mark Zuckerberg via live video feed to its New York office -- for the first meeting of Facebook's "client council," which consists of representatives from six big brands, including Coca-Cola and Walmart, along with a half-dozen major agency-holding groups.

EMarketer is projecting that Twitter's global ad revenue will reach $139.5 million in 2011, up 210% from $45 million in 2010, the first full year the company sold advertising. Ad revenues are forecasted to reach $260 million in 2012 and $400 million in 2013.

Yahoo is betting the farm on Facebook with the launch of a completely new and social way to consume news.

The new Yahoo News feature, whose release coincides with the launch of the new Facebook Open Graph, is an attempt to infuse social into the news curation and discovery process.

“Yahoo has always had amazing content and amazing editorial ability,” Yahoo Director of Product Management Jonathan Katzman says. “Now users can discover the content through their friends.”

Walmart Labs Senior VP-Global E-Commerce Anand Rajaraman took the stage at Ad Age Digital today in San Francisco to explain why exactly the world's largest retailer would buy a social media startup.

Mr. Rajaraman joined Walmart early this year when the retailer acquired his company, Kosmix. Just this month, Walmart acquired key assets of mobile-ad-targeting company OneRiot. Mr. Rajaraman says that's primarily a talent acquisition and that Walmart has no plans to continue with OneRiot's existing business.

So how'd Walmart even get interested in Kosmix?

(Mashable) - Facebook is finally launching local Deals — a feature that will compete with Groupon‘s core product, not Foursquare’s — in five cities starting Tuesday.