Citing recent feedback from marketers on its mobile and news feed ads, as well as its “ability to leverage third-party data” through the Facebook Exchange and its custom audiences platform, J.P. Morgan this morning raised its price target for Facebook 21% to $35 per share from $29 previously. “We believe Facebook's advertising revenue will accelerate at least through [the first quarter] and we are raising our advertising estimates 6% to 7% for 2013 and 2014,” Merrill Lynch analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a report to investors this morning. The report reiterates Merrill Lynch’s “overweight” rating for Facebook shares, and is especially positive on Facebook’s progress in developing a mobile advertising infrastructure, as well as the momentum of its ad exchange. “Our checks suggest positive advertiser feedback around news feed and FBX ads,” reads the analyst’s report, noting that Samsung utilized Facebook ads as part of its launch campaign for its Galaxy S3 smartphone, which generated “$129 million in sales attributable to Facebook, delivering an ROI of 13 times on Samsung’s $10 million of Facebook ad spend.” The report also singles out Pepsi’s use of Facebook advertising, including “measurement of in-store purchasing activity showing strong correlation for those users exposed to Pepsi ads on Facebook. “We believe Facebook played a bigger role in e-commerce this holiday season, and Wal-Mart appeared to have significantly increased its ad spending on Facebook,” the report continues. “We are raising our mobile news feed estimates in our bottom-up ad model to $2.37 billion in 2013 and $4.0 billion in 2014, up from $2.0 billion and $3.3 billion previously, and we expect mobile to surpass desktop ad revenue in 2014.” While showing some positive uptake among advertisers, the Merrill Lynch analysts estimated that the Facebook Exchange still currently accounts for less than 10% of all of Facebook’s “right rail” display ad impressions, “suggesting significant headroom going forward. We believe FBX ads could also appear in the News Feed over time based on their high click-through and conversion rates.”
Citing recent feedback from marketers on its mobile and news feed ads, as well as its “ability to leverage third-party data” through the Facebook Exchange and its custom audiences platform, J.P. Morgan this morning raised its price target for Facebook 21% to $35 per share from $29 previously. “We believe Facebook's advertising revenue will accelerate at least through [the first quarter] and we are raising our advertising estimates 6% to 7% for 2013 and 2014,” Merrill Lynch analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a report to investors this morning. The report reiterates Merrill Lynch’s “overweight” rating for Facebook shares, and is especially positive on Facebook’s progress in developing a mobile advertising infrastructure, as well as the momentum of its ad exchange. “Our checks suggest positive advertiser feedback around news feed and FBX ads,” reads the analyst’s report, noting that Samsung utilized Facebook ads as part of its launch campaign for its Galaxy S3 smartphone, which generated “$129 million in sales attributable to Facebook, delivering an ROI of 13 times on Samsung’s $10 million of Facebook ad spend.” The report also singles out Pepsi’s use of Facebook advertising, including “measurement of in-store purchasing activity showing strong correlation for those users exposed to Pepsi ads on Facebook. “We believe Facebook played a bigger role in e-commerce this holiday season, and Wal-Mart appeared to have significantly increased its ad spending on Facebook,” the report continues. “We are raising our mobile news feed estimates in our bottom-up ad model to $2.37 billion in 2013 and $4.0 billion in 2014, up from $2.0 billion and $3.3 billion previously, and we expect mobile to surpass desktop ad revenue in 2014.” While showing some positive uptake among advertisers, the Merrill Lynch analysts estimated that the Facebook Exchange still currently accounts for less than 10% of all of Facebook’s “right rail” display ad impressions, “suggesting significant headroom going forward. We believe FBX ads could also appear in the News Feed over time based on their high click-through and conversion rates.”
In 2013, we’ll see the next wave of social bring brands to a new level of consumer engagement. Our five predictions are designed to help marketers navigate this environment and profit from it. 1. Building Transparency And Loyalty Brand transparency has been a topic of discussion since 2009, but many brands have been reactive and slow to adopt the type of naked exposure the market demands. Due to the access we now have through social channels, consumers demand will increase. Brands willing to take risks and create social programs that offer inherent value to users while remaining open, will forge stronger relationships with consumers and build trust. According to a Nielsen Global Online Survey, “90% of online consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trust consumer opinions posted online.” By understanding the social consumer’s purchase decisions, brands can begin to proactively create marketing programs that invite feedback and—potentially—offer rewards. This loyalty model iwill not only directly impact sales, but may even lead to new products based on feedback. 2. From Campaigns And Microsites To Long-term Solutions In 2012 and earlier, campaigns and microsites were the go-to solutions for forward-thinking digital marketers. But there is one major problem with those solutions—unless they’re built on scalable frameworks, they have expiration dates. Many brands are still planning on a campaign-by-campaign basis, driving media to landing pages that will eventually be torn down. While there are instances this makes senses, it can be costly for the brand and risks losing followers. In 2013, brands and agencies will leverage technology partners and consider more long-term evergreen frameworks that give lasting value to the consumer. With more flexible partners, creative teams can develop and innovate at scale, driving cost of building and rebuilding down and gaining more lasting insights, such as data points on consumers. One brand is leading the way here with the My Starwood Travel Wish application. Starwood is allowing users to curate their own travel wish through a mobile device or the web. The application syncs users’ social accounts and incentivizes participation by offering significant hotel discounts. 3. Continued Acquisitions And Technology Innovations In 2012, several social media platforms were the target of multimillion dollar acquisitions: Oracle (Vitrue and Involver), Salesforce.com (Radian6 and Buddy Media) and Google (Wildfire). In addition to the software giants, companies like Ford, American Express and Priceline have created innovation structures and venture arms close to the heart of Silicon Valley. Perhaps companies with consumer application solutions will be attractive to American Express and Ford, which can make an investment that not only nets returns financially but gives can broaden the horizon of industry solutions. In 2013, companies building profitable social and mobile platforms will fall under the umbrella of three categories for acquisition targets: software giants, large companies with tech funds and agencies. 4. Data And Retargeting Everyone’s talking about big data. And who has all that data? Facebook, Google and now Amazon, which is getting into the game with a real-time bidding ad exchange. Even Twitter is rumored to launch a self-service ad platform in 2013. This could get challenging for brands. They will need to quickly understand the landscape of partners that can help them leverage data for targeted marketing programs. There is a huge opportunity to integrate directly into the everyday social worlds of consumers. Benefits include viral referral programs, custom targeted audience segments, behavioral marketing, historical purchase profiles, and most importantly ROI. 5. ROI from Social in 2013 As social becomes a validated marketing tool, we’ll see a greater focus on data and analytics to demonstrate ROI. In 2013, creative, account, strategy and media teams will need to collaborate on the vision of social programs, not only their execution with publishers, partners and platforms, but how they will tie into analytics. Social commerce solutions will pave the way for industry-leading brands that can invest in applications that incentivize users in exchange for data. Gartner predicts 50% of all Web sales will come from social and mobile within the next few years. As such, brands need to position themselves to monetize each social experience and tie it back to metrics.
According to a recent Ragan/NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions survey, 65% of respondents do social media on top of their other duties. Of the 27% who handle social media exclusively, nearly 83% work on teams of three or fewer. Social Media Job Responsibilities (% Share; November 2012) Responsibilities% of Respondents Team for social Media 27% No team; tasks on top of current responsibilities 65 No team; outsource social media efforts 3 Both team and outside agency/planner 5 Source: Ragan/NASDAQ, November 2012 Additional major findings in key areas are summarized in the report:
As mobile social network Foursquare shifts its model away from check-ins and toward local discovery, it is tweaking the way it surfaces and shares information about members. Several news outlets report that Foursquare alerted users over the weekend that searches for friends on the social network will now show full names in the results instead of the abbreviations used previously. Engadget quotes the notice sent to users (hey, we never got ours!) claiming: “We get emails every day saying that it's now confusing” and that the new system will clarify the search results. The change in how Foursquare reveals full names will take effect Jan. 28. Users can change their names in the account settings to prevent their profiles having their actual name. But at the same time the company also changed its privacy policy to allow greater sharing of customer check-in information with the related merchant. Previously, a local business could only access the user information for check-ins made there in the last three hours. The new policy allows sharing over a longer period for businesses that only have time to check information daily. Foursquare reminds its users that they can opt out of location sharing in their own privacy settings. Clearly aware of Instagram’s recent missteps when it came to unclear privacy policy changes, Foursquare’s letter (ya know we still didn’t get ours, Dennis) tries to be as explicit and transparent as the company can be. Foursquare claims over 25 million users worldwide and over 3 billion check-ins. While the check-in activity is what made the social network famous first, its more recent app updates emphasize instead local resource discovery and user reviews, apparently aiming to compete with the likes of Yelp. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Foursquare and Apple were in discussions about integrating some of the social network's local data into Apple’s controversial iOS maps. Apple already incorporates Yelp data in its maps, which in our use still lags behind the richness and breadth of Google’s local business reviews.