Facebook has impressed analysts and investors in each quarter so far this year by reporting strong growth in mobile ad revenue. The company revealed that mobile ads accounted for 41% of total ad revenue in the second quarter this year, up from 30% in the first quarter and essentially nothing a year earlier. If that growth continues, Facebook could approach or even surpass the 50% mark this quarter.

Facebook has taken steps in recent weeks to make mobile ads more effective, including testing autoplay video ads in the news feed and introducing more calls to action on mobile app install ads to entice users to click, though it’s doubtful either had much impact on the previous quarter results.

Beyond the mobile ad stats, analysts will likely be looking for any updates or hints about the company’s new and as yet unannounced ad products. Instagram is expected to introduce ads this week, perhaps finally justifying the amount Facebook paid for the company. On the other hand, Facebook has repeatedly delayed introducing video ads on the homepage raising questions about when and how the company will choose to go this route.

Overall, Facebook is expected to report earnings per share of $0.19 on revenue of $1.91 billion for the quarter, up from earnings of $0.12 a share on revenue of $1.26 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

Facebook stock has been on a tear this year, rising to as high as $54.83 earlier this month, roughly three times the low of $17.55 a share it hit a year earlier. The stock was hovering just below $50 a share in early trading Wednesday, an increase of 1% on the day.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty

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Facebook has impressed analysts and investors in each quarter so far this year by reporting strong growth in mobile ad revenue. The company revealed that mobile ads accounted for 41% of total ad revenue in the second quarter this year, up from 30% in the first quarter and essentially nothing a year earlier. If that growth continues, Facebook could approach or even surpass the 50% mark this quarter.

Facebook has taken steps in recent weeks to make mobile ads more effective, including testing autoplay video ads in the news feed and introducing more calls to action on mobile app install ads to entice users to click, though it’s doubtful either had much impact on the previous quarter results.

Beyond the mobile ad stats, analysts will likely be looking for any updates or hints about the company’s new and as yet unannounced ad products. Instagram is expected to introduce ads this week, perhaps finally justifying the amount Facebook paid for the company. On the other hand, Facebook has repeatedly delayed introducing video ads on the homepage raising questions about when and how the company will choose to go this route.

Overall, Facebook is expected to report earnings per share of $0.19 on revenue of $1.91 billion for the quarter, up from earnings of $0.12 a share on revenue of $1.26 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

Facebook stock has been on a tear this year, rising to as high as $54.83 earlier this month, roughly three times the low of $17.55 a share it hit a year earlier. The stock was hovering just below $50 a share in early trading Wednesday, an increase of 1% on the day.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty

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A new tool, offered through Twitter’s API, allows marketers to send targeted tweets to specific geographic locations. For example, a brand could send a tweet to followers in the United States and a separate tweet to users in Japan from the same account. The tweets will not show up to followers in the brand’s Twitter timeline unless those followers reside in the country targeted.

This capability makes it possible for brands to consolidate their Twitter accounts, eliminating the need for different accounts for various countries or languages. It also lets brand target messages more directly to consumers by sending offers or promotions to followers in a specific region or create customized content for a specific country.

With roughly 77% of Twitter’s monthly active users located outside of the U.S., the ability for brands to connect with international users will be key to helping Twitter continually grow its advertising revenue moving forward.

The ability to geo-target messages is available to partners with access to Twitter’s Ads API, which was updated a few weeks ago. London-based TBG, a social media ad management company, first rolled out a country-specific tweeting tool on Oct. 4, although its customers aren’t utilizing the feature yet, according to a spokesperson.

Last week, Austin-based Spredfast, which offers tools that allow clients to better manage multiple social media accounts, became the first U.S.-based company to offer geo-targeted tweets.

“We think this is just the start,” said Jim Rudden, CMO of Spredfast. “The whole focus is on, ‘How do we get relevance in the news feed?’ The more targeted you can get, the better.”

For brands, the benefit is minimizing the number of social accounts to manage, creating a more direct funnel for consumer feedback. Brands would no longer need to manage or monitor regional Twitter handles; all messaging would come from the same account, so all feedback, comments or complaints would be directed to the same place.

However, compacting a brand’s Twitter handles also means consolidating a brand’s current followers and convincing users to follow a different Twitter handle (the brand’s main one).

TBG hopes brands will be willing to look past this issue, even if the process of shifting to a single account takes six months to a year.

“[One handle] is more efficient and it makes it easier for users to find you,” said Ian Cassidy, TBG’s executive creative director, in a statement to Mashable. “It also means that brands that have a global Twitter account can test localized, more specific messaging in different countries, which should increase engagement.”

As brands start to test out this new technology in the coming months, we’ll find out exactly how specific those messages can get.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Mashable composite; Flickr, Kevin M. Gill

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While the outage may have been a headache for Facebook and many users, some brands decided to turn it into a marketing opportunity — for better or worse:

#Facebookdown Grab your Venus razor and Embrace your extra "me" time. pic.twitter.com/pUYjLVobBb

— Gillette Venus (@GilletteVenus) October 21, 2013

#facebookdown? Ci pensiamo noi. pic.twitter.com/NLKDR5j47s

— Red Bull Italy (@redbullITA) October 21, 2013

Facebook is down, but don't worry, here’s our status update: thirsty #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/RJXVWkvnur

— Jupiler (@Jupiler) October 21, 2013

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty

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The study, “Big Five Personality Traits Reflected in Job Applicants’ Social Media Postings,” identified links between job applicants’ online behaviors and characteristics that might impact their work performance.

Unfiltered personal communications and photos, comments about others, and references to alcohol and drug use are the key indicators of personality traits that job applicants truly possess — traits that may actually suggest a candidate will be a great hire, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers in North Carolina State University’s department of psychology and published recently in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking.

According to the researchers, a job applicant’s social media activities reflect the following five personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience.

To get a better idea of what social media postings reveal about personality traits, researchers focused on two broad posting types: those that demonstrated badmouthing behavior, and those that referenced drug and alcohol use.

For instance, those who rated highly in agreeableness and conscientiousness were unlikely to badmouth others in social media, the study found. This doesn’t mean, however, that conscientiousness has any bearing on posts that employers often consider red flags.

“Companies often scan a job applicant’s Facebook profile to see whether there is evidence of drug or alcohol use, believing that such behavior means the applicant is not ‘conscientious,’ or responsible and self-disciplined,” Dr. Lori Foster Thompson, co-author of the study and a professor of psychology at NCSU, said in a statement. However, the researchers said there is no significant correlation between conscientiousness and a job applicant’s propensity to post about drug or alcohol use on Facebook.

“This means companies are eliminating some conscientious job applicants based on erroneous assumptions regarding what social media behavior tells us about the applicants,” said Will Stoughton, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student at NCSU.

Extraversion is also a trait that’s often misunderstood. Consider, for instance, sales and marketing positions that require candidates to have extroverted personalities. Based on data presented in the study, extroverts are more likely to post about drugs or alcohol on Facebook; thus, employers will be limiting their sales and marketing pool of candidates if they automatically red flag those who exhibit drug- or alcohol-related behaviors on social media, the study found.

“If employers plan to keep using social media to screen job applicants, this study indicates they may want to focus on eliminating candidates who badmouth others — not necessarily those who post about drinking beer,” Stoughton said.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Jason A. Howie

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Some businesses say otherwise. Wixon Jewelers Online Marketing Director Jayme Pretzloff thinks that social media is going to be more important for sales than any other metric in 2013, as the platform continues to receive user acceptance and integrates into the overall marketing strategy.

70% consumers suggested that social media didn’t have any impact on their purchase decision in 2011, a percentage that was cut in half in 2012. Such statistics provide helpful insights to marketers as they look to make the most out of their time and investment.

Policies of social media companies also had a significant impact on referrals. There was a time when a post on Facebook fan page was seen by every follower/fan of the brand, but after policy changes, any post shared by a brand today is only seen by 10% of the total number of people following the page. Unfortunately, and fortunately for Facebook, you now need to pay for greater outreach.

This also shows that just because a particular social network has a huge user base doesn’t mean it’s an ideal place to get referrals. For example, tech sites usually concentrate a lot on Facebook, but they would be better off with Google+.

Likewise, a DIY jewelry brand may not get any retweets, but drive loads of traffic from Pinterest. Trying and testing the engagement ratio (the percentage of fans responding/number of fans present on the page) on different sites can help your brand to create a better online experience.

It is also important to note at this point that though referrals through social media are crucial for brand awareness, you shouldn’t give a wide berth to other referral resources. Doing so would be a BIG mistake. This is because social media doesn’t have the same level of intimacy as other sources of referrals like face-to-face networking, phone call, live chat etc.

The right approach

Some brands are smart enough to use all sources. For example, Blinds.com, told us “We encourage customers to refer Blinds.com on social media, and we also invite customers to contact us via phone or live video chat if they have any questions about our products. Referrals are important to us, as is customer retention; over 60% of our business comes from referral or repeat customers.” Food for thought.

However, other forms of referral networking can turn out to be inefficient, which is the main reason why social media referrals have a future in business marketing. It’s not a surprise to see businesses, especially new ones, struggle at networking events. The end result can be hours spent at a networking, only to walk away with a couple of business cards (Zoinks).

Social media, when being used as a major referral tool, should be supported by creative and relevant content. Businesses that establish themselves as credible and trustworthy providers of fun, inspiring and highly engaging content will be able to reach thousands of prospects through social channels. It requires a significant amount of time and investment, so it’s time that you take a closer look at your customer preferences and content sharing strategy.

Photo Credit: Social Media Referrals/shutterstock

Source: socialmediatoday.com

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In order to make the most of the available space, we took a look at how you can optimize your avatars and cover photos on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+.

Read our guidelines below, which include the optimum sizes for imagery across all sites, and some handy tips and tricks to bear in mind when choosing the right photographs.

Facebook

Facebook profile photos are cropped square, so we advise you to use an image that is already in this ratio — that way, you can avoid hastily cropping it right after you upload it. Profile pics are displayed at 160 x 160 pixels, but the image you upload must have minimum measurements of 180 x 180 pixels.

Cover photos come in at 851 x 315 pixels. While the minimum size is 399 x 150 pixels, images that are smaller than the optimum dimensions will get stretched and look awful.

Your profile photo is the one that’s seen most around the site (next to posts, comments, etc.), so it’s important that your choice works well as a small, standalone image. However, if you want to get creative by making your profile pic and cover image work together, note that your profile image displays 23 pixels from the left side and 210 pixels from the top of your cover photo.

If you’re all about fast load times, it’s worth noting that Facebook recommends your cover photo be an sRGB JPG file that’s 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and less than 100KB. If your image is logo- or text-based, then Facebook suggests using a PNG file to get higher quality results.

Twitter

Twitter displays profile photos really small, so it’s important to choose an image that works in miniature. Twitter also uses square profile pics, so be sure to scale yours appropriately before you upload it.

While the maximum file size for a Twitter avatar is 2MB, it will show only as 73 x 73 pixels on your profile page and a teeny 48 x 48 pixels in tweets.

However, if people click through to your profile and then click on your avatar, it will show up larger (as it will in some Twitter clients), so it’s worth uploading an image that will display bigger than the small, default sizes.

Twitter header photos can be up to 5MB in size. The recommended dimensions for these images are 1252 x 626 pixels. Bear in mind your Twitter account name, handle, bio, location and URL will all appear over your header image, so you need to consider choosing a photo that will work behind text and will not obscure the text.

Google +

Photos are a bit different on Google+, where the network crops profile photos as circles. You’ll need to consider what kind of image will work in a round format.

Your avatar is displayed 120 x 120 pixels on your profile, but not all of that will show up due to the round crop. With images showing up as small as 48 x 48 pixels in posts and just 28 x 28 in comments and other activity, this is another example of needing to choose a pic that will work well on a small scale.

The Google+ cover, or feature photo, is a tricky one, as it dynamically resizes depending on screen area. As far as measurements go, the minimum size is 480 x 270 pixels, and the recommended size is 960 x 540 pixels, but if you want your image to look good on large or retina displays, you’ll want to upload a photo that’s 2120 x 1192 pixels.

However, keep in mind that unless anyone takes the time to scroll up on the default desktop view, there is only a small area of the cover photo that will be seen on your profile — the very bottom.

YouTube

Since Google linked Google+ page identities with YouTube, your YouTube “channel icon,” or avatar, is linked to your Google+ profile photo.

YouTube offers detailed information on how to optimize your other channel imagery though, including downloadable templates to help.

Similar to Google+, your cover photo, or “channel art” as YouTube calls it, will auto-rescale to fit the size of screen on which you’re viewing a video. In order to get “optimal results on all devices,” YouTube recommends uploading a 2560 x 1440 pixel image (including a “safe area”).

The minimum display size for channel art is 1546 x 423 pixels, so you can be sure nothing within this area, such as text and logos, will be cut off.

LinkedIn

As a professional social networking site, LinkedIn has some official guidelines as to what kind of photo you can use. The site states that “a photo can be removed by LinkedIn if your profile image is not your likeness or a headshot photo,” so it’s best to stick to the basics.

With a max file size of 4MB, you can upload a square JPG, GIF or PNG. The default size for a LinkedIn avatar on your profile page is 200 x 200 pixels, but users can click to enlarge the image up to 450 x 450 pixels.

Company pages are a little different. The standard company logo displayed on LinkedIn pages is 100 x 60 pixels, and the square logo is 50 by 50 pixels. You can also upload a homepage cover photo-style image to a company page. The minimum recommended size is 646 x 220 pixels.

Image: Flickr, baldiri

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But, beyond anecdotal evidence, it can be hard to parse just how many fans use which networks and where the greatest opportunities for marketers are. Catalyst PR, recently acquired by sports marketing titan IMG, is the latest to take a stab at quantifying where sports fans hangout online and how they can be reached.

The results of Catalyst’s survey provide some interesting food for thought.

Released this week, Catalyst’s fourth annual fan engagement study surveyed 2,100 sports fans between the ages of 16 and 64. That group encompasses fans of the NFL, MLB, NBA, college football, college basketball and soccer.

A couple of thousand fans don’t speak for everyone who follows sports, of course. But it’s an interesting starting point for considering trends in the industry. Here are a few of Catalyst’s most interesting findings:

• Nearly twice as many respondents use Facebook compared to Twitter, at 73% to 37%. But on game day, they check Twitter about 1.5 times as often as they do Facebook.

• Google+ and YouTube are on the rise among fans. When fans responded to a question about which platforms they use to “disseminate and acquire sports information,” those two platforms showed the most year-over-year growth, at 94% and 35%, respectively.

• Seven out of 10 sports fans who Like or follow a brand online say they’re open to sharing brand content, buying goods or engaging with social posts.

For more findings, check out the infographic below. Then let us know what you think in the comments.

Image: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images

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