Twitter Struggling

Nicole Perlroth writes that Twitter is struggling to convince Wall Street that it is still a company with plenty of potential to grow.

In its second earnings announcement as a public company, Twitter said on Tuesday that it had more than doubled revenues, beating its own forecasts and the expectations of investment analysts. But the social network’s stock fell more than 11 percent in after-hours trading because the number of people who joined it did not increase as fast as many had hoped.

Wall Street, it appears, is more worried about Twitter’s ability to add users and keep them engaged than about its ability to increase revenues.

In the last two quarters, that has been a problem. Twitter said it had 255 million monthly users globally in March, up 5 percent from 241 million at the end of December, which ended a quarter in which monthly active users rose less than 4 percent.

“They need to prove that they can be a very large-sized platform,” said Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Sterne Agee, an investment firm. “Can they get to 500, 600 million users worldwide? That’s what they have yet to prove.”Continue reading the main story

Twitter’s share price has dropped by nearly a third since its earnings announcement last quarter.


And engagement, a measure of user activity on the site, looked lackluster. On average, users refreshed their Twitter feeds 614 times a month during the recent quarter, up only slightly from 613 times a month in the fourth quarter. Twitter users, especially those overseas, were refreshing their feeds less frequently than they were in the year-ago quarter.

But most disconcerting for shareholders is that Twitter made $1.44 in advertising revenue for every 1,000 timeline views, down from $1.49 in its previous quarter. That may be the best marker of Twitter’s ability to make money from its platform, and in the first quarter it was trending down. In a call with analysts, Twitter’s executives attributed some of that to seasonality because the fourth quarter tends to be the most profitable.

Twitter’s revenue in the first quarter, which ended March 31, was up 119 percent to $250 million from $114 million in the first quarter of 2013. Wall Street had expected Twitter to report revenue of $241 million, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters, while Twitter had forecast slightly lower first-quarter revenues in the range of $230 million to $240 million.

Twitter posted a net loss of $132 million, compared with a loss of $27 million a year ago. Adjusted earnings, however — which exclude stock-based compensation and other expenses — were $183,000, or about break-even per share, compared with a $10.5 million loss a year ago.

In an interview, Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive, tried to reassure skeptics.

“We’re focused on driving up the value of each timeline,” Mr. Costolo said, using a term to refer to users’ Twitter feeds. He noted that “favorites” and “retweets” — two actions users take on Twitter’s site which require an extra click — were up 26 percent in the first quarter and said new users were as engaged as older ones, an indication that the site is not as confusing to newbies as critics contend.

Facebook Is Dominating Social Logins

Frederic Lardinois from Techcrunch states that social logins are a convenient way to sign in to services without having to go through lengthy sign-up procedures and setting up yet another password. According to the latest data from social login service Gigya, Facebook remains the absolute market leader here and now powers more than 51 percent of all social logins in North America. Google+ is the second most popular service, but at 31 percent in North America, it remains far behind Facebook.

The third most popular service in North America is Yahoo with 15 percent, but it’s actually losing share in every vertical tracked by the service while Facebook is dominant across platforms and verticals.

Twitter, it’s worth noting, is a very minor player in the social login world. Both on the desktop and on mobile, it accounts for about 4 percent of social logins through Gigya’s services.

The one area where Google has made significant inroads is media, where it powers 32 percent of logins, but even there, Facebook gained 2 percent compared to Q4 2013.

On Mobile, Facebook’s lead is even more pronounced. There, it powers 62 percent of logins, followed by Google+ with 26 percent and Twitter with 6 percent. Yahoo is a distant fourth at 4 percent.

Overall, the North American market mirrors Gigya’s worldwide stats, where in aggregate, Facebook leads with 53 percent, followed by Google at 28 percent and Yahoo at 13 percent.

Outside of North America, Facebook’s lead is even more pronounced. In Europe, it powers 59 percent of social logins, while Google is at 19 percent and Russia’s VK powers 9 percent. In South America, Facebook now leads with an 80 percent market share compared to Google+’s 13 percent. The numbers in other regions are similar, with the exception of the Asia-Pacific market, where Google is far behind numerous local services, including QQ and Sina.

Some Google Plus Users Can Now Use +Post Ads

At the end of last year, Google started testing the concept of +Post ads. The ads enable those with an account to turn any of their Google Plus content into an interactive ad, and have it run across the Google Display Ad network. Now Google has moved +Post ads out of their limited testing phase. The ads are now available to any Google Plus member with more than 1,000 followers.

+Post ads can be used to get other users engaging. People can comment on your ad, share the ad with a friend, or join a live Hangout On Air. Brands can also reply to any comments, giving them a one-on-one engagement with their customers. Another advantage with these types of ads is that once your ad campaign is over, the posts will remain in our archive (and become searchable on Google Search). So you can continue advertising your product.

With the Hangout option, the advertiser can show their products live. Google Plus users logging on can watch the Hangout and perhaps talk directly to the company representative and ask questions. Once the Hangout is finished, people who missed it will be able to watch a recording of it.

As Wordstream reminds us, social media advertising is going to be “the next big thing.” As we’ve seen, Facebook is ramping up the pressure on companies to buy Facebook advertising if they want their Page content to be seen. The company is also making its ads bigger. So Google has probably decided to go after a bigger chunk of this advertising revenue pie, too. There is certainly a lot of positive buzz about it.

Besides the 1,000 plus follower requirement, other criteria to be met are that your +post ads must contain content that’s relevant to your Google Plus audience. You must also have opted in to shared endorsements for Google Plus pages.

Facebook Business Manager Update

Facebook has updated their business manager. 

Here is the press release.

Today we’re expanding the availability of Business Manager, a tool that lets large advertisers manage all of their ad accounts, Pages, apps and permissions in one place — business.facebook.com.

Easier access

Business Manager integrates all your Facebook advertising campaign management efforts into one tool. It’s designed to simplify your marketing efforts.

If you’re advertising for yourself — say, you’re on the in-house marketing team for a national brand — Business Manager shows you:

1. The Pages, ad accounts and apps linked to your brand

2. The people on your team who can access these assets to do their job

3. External partners, like agencies or Preferred Marketing Developers (PMDs), with access to your Pages, ad accounts and apps

If you’re advertising for someone else — for instance, you work at an agency or PMD — Business Manager shows all the Pages, ad accounts and apps that your clients have allowed you to access, as well as the people on your teams who have access to them.

Increased control

Through Business Manager, you can control all aspects of your business on Facebook. You can add or delete ad accounts linked to your company.

And you can grant/revoke permission to employees and external partners for your ad accounts, apps and Pages.

Easier workflows

Business Manager is built to help advertisers work better and faster. With one click, admins can add new people to ad accounts and Pages, greatly reducing the time it takes to set up and manage marketing efforts. For employees and external partners, Business Manager makes it easy to find the things they’re working on.

Business Manager also makes it easier for people to keep their personal and business experiences on Facebook separate. People can use their Facebook login to access all the ad accounts and Pages they work on, without having to be friends with other people from work to gain access.

Facebook Launches Newswire

Today, Facebook Launched FB Newswire, a resource that will make it easier for journalists and newsrooms to find, share and embed newsworthy content from Facebook in the media they produce. Here is the press release.

Powered by Storyful, the leader in social content discovery and verification for newsrooms, FB Newswire aggregates newsworthy content shared publicly on Facebook by individuals and organizations across the world for journalists to use in their reporting. This will include original photos, videos and status updates posted by people on the front lines of major events like protests, elections and sporting events. FB Newswire is accessible on Facebook at Facebook.com/FBNewswire and on Twitter at @FBNewswire, and will be updated in real-time with content related to top news stories.

In Storyful, we’re excited to have found a partner with a track record of understanding both the potential of the social web as a key resource for media as well as the tools that newsrooms need to utilize it. We’re confident that their news expertise and best-in-class editorial team will help make it even easier for journalists to use compelling social content from Facebook in their newsgathering and reporting.

News is finding a bigger audience on Facebook than ever before. Journalists and media organizations have become an integral part of Facebook, which is visible in features like Trending Topics, improvements to Pages, and recent changes to News Feed. Publishers are seeing the results of our commitment, with referral traffic from Facebook to media sites growing more than 4x in 2013, and we’re excited to deepen our relationship with media organizations and journalists in the days to come.

Pinterest Gaining Momentum

CEO Ben Silbermann announced that users had contributed more than 30 billion Pins since the service was founded, a number that has grown by nearly 50 percent in the past six months alone. Users have also created more than 750 million boards in that time.

That growth has stemmed, in part, from the introduction of Related Pins, something the company released about a year ago. Nowadays more than 90 percent of Pins have Related Pins connected to them, and the number of people who repin Related Pins has grown by 20 percent.

Silbermann compared Pinterest to curation that already exists elsewhere in the world. Specifically, how collections on Pinterest are like curated art in museums, articles and photos in magazines, and collections of clothing at a retail location.

As Pinterest has grown up, it’s sought to provide a lot more information about the things its users are Pinning. For food,it introduced the ability to add full recipes. And just a few months ago, Pinterest released Place Pins.

“Boards themselves aren’t just containing images, they’re containing objects,” Silbermann said. “When you see a movie on Pinterest, it’s likely to have the actor and the director.”

In March, Pinterest said that 75% of its traffic was coming from its native mobile apps. And previously it announced that mobile traffic grew 50% in 2013. eMarketer now pegs Pinterest at 40 million monthly users in the U.S., an audience big enough to drive serious ad revenue, and that doesn’t seem to include mobile.

Google Ramping Up For Advertising Dollars

Mark Bergen says Google on Tuesday plans to introduce its latest updates to AdWords, its core search product, and allow app developers to buy ads promoting installed apps in paid mobile search and YouTube. In 2011, Google introduced app-install ads in mobile search. Consumers have been able to open pages within apps via organic search results on mobile since November, but now the company is offering the capability to paid search advertisers.

The news comes a weeks after Twitter started selling app install ads, following Facebook's lead. Yahoo is floating the idea as well.

YouTube's app install ads will run with TrueView, the in-stream service that allows users to skip through videos, the company said. It was added to mobile in August of 2012.

While TrueView videos are priced on the high end, brand advertisers are generally fans of the offering, which charges advertisers only when viewers opt to watch the ad. Mobile videos are more time-intensive and expensive to create than display ads, but the quantity of video ads on mobile is expected to expand dramatically. According toeMarketer, around $660 million in digital video spending went to mobile in 2013, about 16% of the total. In 2018, 44% of digital video spending is set to go to mobile, with $5.4 billion in spending.

YouTube's slice of Google's ad dollars is growing rapidly, too. In 2013, YouTube brought in nearly $2 billion in net revenue, accounting for 5.6% of Google's overall net ad revenue, according to eMarketer. By the end of this year, eMarketer predicts YouTube will represent 7.2% of its parent company's ad intake.

"It's clear in mobile, the future for Google is with YouTube, not search," said Simon Khalaf, president and CEO of mobile analytics firm Flurry.

Mobile video advertisers end up paying roughly $2.50 per install and $5 per user engaged with the app after a week, according to Mr. Khalaf. Display ads can be cheaper, but rarely see such solid returns for engagement, he said.

In addition to the YouTube units, Google is introducing the ability to link directly within an app on search for AdWords. If a user has a particular restaurant's app installed, for example, the restaurant can buy mobile search ads with Google that bring consumers to a particular page in the app.

This capability -- referred to as "deep-linking" -- was offered with organic search earlier. Under the tweaks, AdWords clients will be able buy it as an ad unit as well.

The company has been gradually integrating its mobile network, AdMob, with its other products, including AdWords and Google Analytics, as its core search business becomes more focused on mobile apps.

"We'll enable you to reach people who are your most likely customers, based on the apps they use, the frequency of use and the types of in-app purchases they make," Jerry Dischler, VP-product management at AdWords, said about the new offerings for clients.

The adjustments to AdWords are expected to come into the effect in the coming months. Google will offer additional details at its search marketing forum today.