Another Twitter executive has moved on , as senior director of developer and platform relations Prashant Sridharan has joined Segment . Sridharan will serve as vice president of marketing at the customer data platform, overseeing marketing operations including enterprise growth, developer…

Predictive marketing may sound like a new thing, but if you ask any retail buyer, they’ll tell you they’ve been doing it since fashion became a thing. The definition of a fashion buyer’s job is to figure out what customers will want next season–and in what quantity. So what’s new? Big data changes…

Facebook announced at its @Scale Conference 2016 in San Jose, Calif., Wednesday that it developed a custom-designed stabilization technology for 360-degree videos . Other announcements by the social network at @Scale included the open-sourcing of its Zstandard compression algorithm and the…

User-generated content relating to your brand is an excellent way to engage a community . An interesting test case for this approach is the retail sector, which seems quite happy to adopt new ways to reach and cater to customers. An infographic from Bazaarvoice examines the interplay between mobile,…

Continue watching. These two words are infamous in the world of video streaming. When consumers are hooked, they want more to watch. “Content marketers should consider the binging trend a sort of case study. All of the elements that make us binge are lessons,” says Kari Matthews , a content writer…

Cash-back shopping platform Ibotta announced the release of its app-to-app marketplace, which allows shoppers to earn cash-back rewards by making purchases within supported mobile applications. The launch partners for Ibotta’s app-to-app marketplace include Boxed , Caviar, delivery.com , DoorDash ,…

Facebook announced Wednesday that it will begin prefetching, or preloading advertiser sites, in order to boost its mobile performance and ease users’ frustration with slow load times. The social network also revealed in a Facebook for Business post that website landing page speed will become a…

Netmarble Games announced the launch of Final Shot on iOS and Android. The first-person shooter allows users to compete in real-time five-on-five multiplayer matches. Final Shot features three normal gameplay modes: team deathmatch, elimination and demolition. In addition, users can play in “hyper”…

Japanese social networking service mixi announced the launch of Marvel Tsum Tsum on iOS and Android. Developed by NHN PlayArt and published by XFLAG , a mixi game development studio, the line-drawing puzzle game allows players to complete levels by creating matches with characters from the Marvel…

Pinterest followed the ad-targeting features it introduced in June with new retargeting additions and improvements, announced Wednesday. The social network announced the debut of engagement retargeting, improvements to visitor retargeting and the renaming of lookalikes to actalikes. Product manager…

YouTube wants its creators to feel presidential. YouTube Spaces director of production and programming Chris D’Angelo said in a blog post that the Google-owned video-sharing site unveiled election-themed sets at its YouTube Space LA (Los Angeles) and YouTube Space New York for creators to take…

Nothing causes a hair-pulling tantrum quite like a 30-second spot for Swiffer WetJet that interrupts site visitors from the central focus of their visit: the news video. It’s no wonder ad blocking and ad skipping have become so pervasive, rendering intrusive advertising methods obsolete. According…

Blogging with a purpose increases market share, consumer engagement, revenue growth, and ROI. Of course, you want to do that. I mean, just look at this: But a lot of people I know are still stuck on the fundamental question: What do we blog about? For brands, the question is easy enough to answer.…

Google has announced a new way to locate content within apps on Android phones. “In Apps” is a search tab that allows this, a new addition to the Google app for Android. Google shared the news on its Inside Search blog today, along with an illustration of how it works: Currently, Google says the…

You’ve invested a lot of time and effort into perfecting your website and you want to get the maximum return from that investment. To achieve that goal, you’ve studied dozens of blogs on conversion optimization techniques. You’ve poured over countless CRO case studies, and you have a few tools to…

Social Media By on Aug. 30, 2016 - 6:00 PM Nielsen revealed its Social Content Ratings for the week of Aug. 22, and they were dominated by the VMAs and the NFL . MTV’s Video Music Awards Sunday night dominated among series and specials for the week, with 13.34 million total interactions across…

Creating on-demand geofilters on Snapchat just got a lot easier, and with a host of new features, too. Snapchat rolled out customizable templates for users looking to purchase and create on-demand geofilters, eliminating the need for the use of image-editing software. Text and colors in the…

Google launched its Crowdsource application on Android. According to multiple published reports, the app allows users to complete short tasks to help improve the quality of Google’s services, like Google Translate and Google Maps . With Crowdsource, users can complete tasks related to handwriting…

Gatorade released a playable video game ad on Snapchat celebrating the career of tennis star Serena Williams . The game is called Serena Williams’ Match Point, and it can be played within the ESPN Discover channel on Snapchat. The game includes 22 levels of tennis, with each level representing one…

Marketers are all too aware of the increase in ad blockers ’ popularity over the last two years, and many have turned to social media as an alternative channel for getting in front of their target customers. As marketers begin preparing for the last and often most important quarter of their…

Full funnel attribution is the dream. A pipe dream. In most cases. Because a majority of the time, you’re nowhere close. Campaigns are tagged. Sometimes. You track incoming calls. Like 5% of the time. You’ve got lead reports. Which go up-and-to-the-right at least. It ain’t your fault. Our tools are…

There’s an awkward moment at the outset of every new technology when marketers and agencies begin spasmodically craving it. This craving is often blind to whether the investment would solve a business challenge or if that money would be better spent by letting junior staffers roast marshmallows on a…

You’ve probably faced this before. I know I have. You’ve run out of ideas. Maybe you’ve been blogging along for, I don’t know, maybe three or four years. Maybe it’s only three or four months. And now you’re done. Why? Because you’ve written everything there is to write about the subject. You’ve…

Square Enix announced Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia for iOS and Android. The role-playing game will feature characters from past games in the Final Fantasy franchise. In Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, players will compete in battles that incorporate the brave system from other Dissidia…

According to Internet Retailer’s Social Media 500 report, the top 500 retailers in the U.S. earned $3.3 billion from social shopping in 2014, a 26 percent increase from the previous year. Furthermore, data from Statista show that social selling influences more than $30 billion in worldwide sales…

Social networks were designed as a way for people to connect with friends and family. Despite this origin, publishers have gotten awfully dependent on using social networks to distribute content. At the end of the day, publishers shouldn’t put all of their eggs in this basket, since these networks…

Microsoft and Mojang released details about a new update coming to Minecraft: Pocket Edition , Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta and Minecraft Gear VR Edition. The update is called the Boss Update, and it will add two new boss characters to the game, as well as new building materials and slash…

The honor of the first Twitter Promoted Stickers campaign for a feature film went to Warner Bros. and its Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Twitter said in an email to SocialTimes that users in the U.S., U.K., France, Japan, Brazil and Spain will see four custom stickers in their libraries…

Facebook has begun displaying vertical videos in News Feed in its flagship mobile application . Tim Peterson of Marketing Land reported on the update, and a spokesperson for the social network told him via email that its tests found that users watched vertical videos for longer time periods and with…

It’s the question on every marketer’s mind – “How do we turn these impressions, clicks and conversions into something that drives results for our company?” The fact is, you have a lot on your plate. From new product launches to generating interest to reaching new markets and paying attention to…

Players of Blizzard Entertainment games can now livestream their gameplay directly to Facebook. The social network and the game developer announced in June that Blizzard would integrate Facebook Login and the Facebook Live application-programming interface into its games, with the Facebook Live API…

Are you looking for a new mobile game to play this weekend? If so, there are lots of new games available for you to try, including FarmVille: Tropic Escape from Zynga . The tropical farming game allows players to create their own island resorts and complete quests as they craft items. In addition,…

It’s ironic that for all the investment Google poured into the Google+ social network, one of the world’s most valuable brands spun out a business responsible for one of the most exciting social media phenomenon since the launch of Facebook: Niantic Labs , creators of Ingress and Pokemon Go .…

Bing has released new updates to its search app for iOS and Android, adding new music and video features, along with more map options. The updated version 6.7.2 Bing search app will now play a video without sound directly in search results with the lyrics listed below the video — a feature that has…

The 2016 Summer Olympic Games spurred 285 million unique video viewers on Facebook, with 59 percent of those under the age of 35. The social network’s Facebook Live prospered from the events in Rio de Janeiro, as well, with 139 million views throughout the games. The top five Facebook Live videos…

A few years back when I first started NeilPatel.com, I spent $66,372.09 on paid advertising through LinkedIn, Google AdWords , Retargeter, Perfect Audience, and StumbleUpon ads. You might say that’s a lot of money. It was. But I learned some valuable lessons. I learned which platforms and networks…

Early this month, Instagram launched Stories , a “‘new” feature that enables users to create stories–a feed of photos and videos complete with your own doodles, captions and stickers, and displayed for 24 hours only. Sound familiar? That’s because it is. In what can only be seen as a fairly…

Media measurement solution Shareablee is the newest Facebook Media Solutions partner. Shareablee ’s clients include CBS, NBC, ESPN, Fox News, CNN, the National Basketball Association, Warner Bros, Procter & Gamble, Hulu, AOL and Luxottica. The company said in a release that Facebook will provide it…

It’s hard to argue that split testing (also know as A/B testing) is changing the face of marketing. According to Unbounce , 44% of online businesses are using split test software. And software products like Unbounce and Visual Website Optimizer are making it ever easier. Split testing, done right,…