Will ads powered by Facebook user data be more effective than Google’s cookie-based ones?

Gigaom

Marketing agencies, and the brands who use them, now have another distribution option to choose from: Atlas has relaunched its ad server, which serves up display ads on websites and mobile apps. Now, it’s powered by Facebook’s user gender, location, and age information. The buzzword-laden post announcing the news calls it “people-based marketing.”

What that really means is that users will see ads targeted at them based on their official Facebook profile information, instead of from user-profile deductions drawn from a history of all the websites they’ve visited. For example: A 55-year-old man in Kentucky who just happens to really like Jezebel and the SFist will see ads meant for 55-year-old Midwestern men when he peruses the web, instead of ads meant for 16-year-old girls from the Bay Area. Or at least, he’ll see the Midwestern ads when said ad has been served by Facebook’s Atlas ad server, instead of, say, Google’s DoubleClick.

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Does it matter that some New York Times editors and writers don’t tweet? Yes and no

Gigaom

BuzzFeed recently ran a post on what it called the New York Times‘ “Twitter graveyard,” which turned out to be a list of accounts set up by the newspaper’s editorial staff that are either dormant or unused, including some that still have the default egg avatar given to Twitter newbies. But does that mean some staffers just haven’t taken to a particular platform, or does it mean the paper’s writers and editors aren’t doing enough to engage with readers?

That was the underlying question behind a discussion I had with a number of senior NYT staffers on Monday — including the paper’s deputy digital editor and co-author of the recent internal “innovation report” — after one (a senior member of the paper’s development team, Jacob Harris) referred to the BuzzFeed piece somewhat dismissively, implying that using Twitter accounts as a proxy for whether journalists are doing their jobs is…

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6 Qualities of Content That Gets Socially Shared and Goes Viral

Planning A Blog

Live to Write - Write to Live

           I’ve been thinking about starting a blog of my own for some time. Now that the current draft of Ellen is on my agent’s desk for review, I’m finally ready to turn my attention to this task.

I have two goals for a blog.

The first is to write about place, a concept that has been fundamental to my life, a tug that pulled me to Vermont thirty years ago, and continues to inform my daily activities (chickens, garden, town politics) and most of my writing. My commentaries for Vermont Public Radio are all about life in Vermont, as are my editorials for the local papers. And all of my novels are set in Vermont. Into the Wilderness, published in 2010, earned a Gold Medal for Regional Fiction as well as recognition from the Vermont Library Association for its sense of place.

The second goal is to stay…

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eBay and PayPal to part ways in 2015

Gigaom

Score one for activist investor Carl Icahn: eBay is divesting itself of PayPal, its online payment entity after 12 years together. The separation, in which PayPal will become an independent publicly-traded company, should be completed next year, according to a statement that said the eBay board approved the move following a strategic review of the companies’ options. eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002.

Icahn started motivating for a breakup last year and settled with eBay on the issue in April of this year when eBay added David Dorman, of CenterView Capital Technology, an Icahn pick, to its board. At about that time, [company]eBay[/company] CEO John Donahoe reiterated that the two companies were better together. 

As for the logistics, Devin Wenig, president of eBay Marketplaces, will become CEO of the new eBay post separation. Dan Schulman, of American Express, joins [company]PayPal[/company] as of now as president and designated CEO of the new…

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14 Tools to Streamline Your Social Media Marketing

Kamal Bennani Photography

Do you want to manage social media more efficiently?

Do you have the right tools?

To streamline your approach, you’ll need resources that work well with your business.

In this article I’ll share the best tools to manage and optimize your social media marketing.

Find 14 tools to streamline your social media marketing.

#1: Find Your Audience

Once you define your target audience(s), find the social media platforms they frequent online.

Here are tools you can use to find your audience across the web.

Followerwonk

My favorite (and free) hidden gem is Followerwonk. Specific to Twitter, this tool allows users to search Twitter bios (or Twitter profiles) by keywords. It helps build influencer lists for engagement at a later time. So if you search “technology editor,” the tool will pick up any profiles mentioning this phrase in an easy-to-consume list for simple identification.

Traackr

View original post 106 more words

14 Tools to Streamline Your Social Media Marketing

Kamal Bennani Photography

Do you want to manage social media more efficiently?

Do you have the right tools?

To streamline your approach, you’ll need resources that work well with your business.

In this article I’ll share the best tools to manage and optimize your social media marketing.

Find 14 tools to streamline your social media marketing.

#1: Find Your Audience

Once you define your target audience(s), find the social media platforms they frequent online.

Here are tools you can use to find your audience across the web.

Followerwonk

My favorite (and free) hidden gem is Followerwonk. Specific to Twitter, this tool allows users to search Twitter bios (or Twitter profiles) by keywords. It helps build influencer lists for engagement at a later time. So if you search “technology editor,” the tool will pick up any profiles mentioning this phrase in an easy-to-consume list for simple identification.

Traackr

View original post 106 more words

14 Tools to Streamline Your Social Media Marketing

Kamal Bennani Photography

Do you want to manage social media more efficiently?

Do you have the right tools?

To streamline your approach, you’ll need resources that work well with your business.

In this article I’ll share the best tools to manage and optimize your social media marketing.

Find 14 tools to streamline your social media marketing.

#1: Find Your Audience

Once you define your target audience(s), find the social media platforms they frequent online.

Here are tools you can use to find your audience across the web.

Followerwonk

My favorite (and free) hidden gem is Followerwonk. Specific to Twitter, this tool allows users to search Twitter bios (or Twitter profiles) by keywords. It helps build influencer lists for engagement at a later time. So if you search “technology editor,” the tool will pick up any profiles mentioning this phrase in an easy-to-consume list for simple identification.

Traackr

View original post 106 more words

5 Ways to Boost Your Twitter Engagement

Kamal Bennani Photography

Is your Twitter engagement lagging?

Are you looking for tips to get your numbers back up?

A few simple tweaks can get you more attention and interaction on Twitter.

In this article you’ll discover five ways to improve your tweets and up your engagement.

Find 5 ways to boost Twitter engagement.

#1: Refine Your Twitter Bio

The most important thing you can do on Twitter is optimize your bio.

Even if people never read a single tweet, they’ll see your bio. And when they do, they’ll make a snap decision about whether to follow you.

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