Ginny Marvin says, “App developers spent 293 percent more on Facebook ads in Q2 2015 than in Q2 the prior year, and mobile app installs from Facebook ads grew by 346 percent year-over-year. That’s according to Kenshoo’s latest quarterly report on mobile app advertising. Spend is being catapulted by rising budgets and more competition. Kenshoo says it is now tracking twice as many mobile app titles compared to a year ago. While click-through rates have fallen 15 percent year-over-year, click-to-install rates increased by 32 percent, and the cost per install (CPI) fell by 12 percent... [...]

Rainmaker team says, “There’s a new article every day claiming that this or that tool “doesn’t work” to market your product. Sometimes it’s a fair statement … and sometimes it isn’t. In this ranty little episode of Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer, host Sonia Simone talks about how to use Facebook (or any other tool or platform) in a smarter way and how different communication tools work together to attract an audience and get your message across“. But Facebook Doesn’t Work for … (waily waily) ‘Copyblogger’ Blog  [...]

Karissa Bell says, “Facebook is making it a lot easier for companies to run their business through Facebook. The social network will open up two new sections: Shopping and services, which allows businesses to feature their products and services directly from their Facebook pages. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg introduced the update during a press event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Tuesday. Facebook is now home to more than 45 million Facebook pages, Sandberg revealed. With the changes, page owners will be able to take advantage of two new sections for their... [...]

Martin Beck says, “After teasing the concept to creatives as Cannes Lions in June, Facebook today started testing a new immersive mobile advertising format. The ads look like normal sponsored posts in the News Feed, but when tapped, they open full screen and allow the viewer to flip and scroll through text, photos, videos and other content. It’s like an alternate version of a brand’s website but will load more quickly and be more interactive because the content is native to Facebook. The idea is very similar to the Instant Article format Facebook offering to publishers, except instead... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Facebook’s meteoric growth in video — from afterthought to more than 4 billion daily views in less than a year — has come with some controversy. There’s been grousing that a three-second glimpse of autoplay video in the News Feed isn’t enough time to register a significant view. More damningly, there have been accusations that much of Facebook’s video surge has been built by people stealing content and uploading it on Facebook, one study finding that pirated video accounted for more than 70 percent of Facebook’s 1,000 most popular videos. As Recode noted... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Were you one in a billion? More than one billion people used Facebook on Monday, surpassing the 10-figure mark for the first time, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reported in a Facebook post today. “On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family,” Zuckerberg wrote. “When we talk about our financials, we use average numbers, but this is different. This was the first time we reached this milestone, and it’s just the beginning of connecting the whole world.” In Facebook’s latest financial statement, the company reported... [...]

JP Mangalindan says, “Google is still the most-viewed website in the world. But when it comes to driving traffic to media sites, Facebook is now the clear winner, according to analytics firm Parse.ly. Facebook accounted for nearly 43% of traffic to its network of media sites — a network that includes over 400 outlets such as Mashable, Reuters and The Atlantic — according to new numbers from Parse.ly. It sends 6 billion page views and over 1 billion unique visitors their way. Google, meanwhile, drove a mere 38% of traffic to media sites. To be clear, Google is still the top referral source... [...]

Josh Constine says, “Facebook basically locked Notes in the basement for the past half-decade. Its bare-bones blogging feature launched in 2006 as a place for writing missives that wouldn’t fit in a status update. After a few tweaks like the ability to insert photos, Facebook left Notes to languish. The launch of Timeline in 2011 buried the feature so deep in the interface that one could conclude Facebook didn’t want to deal with Notes any more. It seemed like people were satisfied with short-form social media posts, and few needed a place for long-form blogging. But then there was Medium.... [...]

Karissa Bell says, “Facebook Notes may soon be getting a major facelift. The company is testing a refreshed design for its long-ignored Notes feature that makes the stories look more like blog posts than standard Facebook updates. See also: LOL is so over: Facebook study reveals ‘haha’ is how we laugh online “We’re testing an update to Notes to make it easier for people to create and read longer-form stories on Facebook,” a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable. The new design, first spotted by Facebook user John Biesenecker, is cleaner and makes Notes look much more... [...]

Josh Constine says, “Facebook plans to open up its Periscope livestreaming competitor to more than just celebrities. In replies to requests from Verified Pages about when they’d get access to the VIP-only Facebook app Mentions that houses Facebook Live, the company wrote “In the future, Mentions will be available to verified Profiles”. When I asked if that would include Facebook Live, it told me it plans to roll Mentions out to verified Profiles soon, which includes access to Live. Given Facebook changed its tune from just a week ago when it was cagey about when more people would get... [...]