Business
Cracking The Formula to Viral Videos - Marketing Update - Episode #229 With Mike Volpe (@Mvolpe) and Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) This weeks round up will give you some insight into what changes are going on with our social networks and how new technologies are being used to serve and deliver marketing to individuals on many different levels. Twitter Now Reducing Some Tweets to 117 Characters, From Mashable (http://mashable.com/2013/02/20/twitter-tco-length/) If a limit of 140 characters per tweet wasn’t difficult enough to get your thoughts across, try doing it in even less. As of Wednesday, Twitter has reduced the limit of characters to 118 for tweets sent with a URL and 117 for tweets sent with an https link. This is going to be an important change for marketers to take note of because it could affect any scheduled tweets you created prior to these new limits. 59% of Top Brands are Active on Instagram & Those Photos Are Shared to Facebook 66% More Than Twitter, From Marketing Land (http://marketingland.com/report-59-of-top-brands-are-active-on-instagram-photos-shared-to-facebook-66-more-than-twitter-34062) We all know why we love Instagram and Pinterest; it’s all the pretty pictures that tickle our fancy. Recently, these social networks have grown to be more than just digital catalogs and photo albums. In the past three months, top brand adoption of Pinterest has risen by 10% and Instagram by 9%. This is a strong indication that marketers are utilizing the potential of Pinterest and Instagram to build social engagement and expand overall reach. ESPN is Now Targeting You Via Online Radio, From Ad Week (http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/espn-now-targeting-you-online-radio-147388) It seems ESPN is looking to up their game in the world of digital advertisements though its online radio. With over 3 million downloads of its mobile radio app, it make sense that ESPN has been concocting ways to tap into this audience with some well targeted ads. This new cloud-based ad insertion program aims to target listeners by location, device, age, and gender in real time during live national broadcasts. The company responsible for this new age technology is the online radio provider known as Abacast. Contextual Content Engine Vurb Raises More Than $1.5M From Max Levchin and Others, From Tech Crunch (http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/20/contextual-content-engine-vurb-wants-to-make-the-internet-seamless/) With the hundred of online services, search engines, and social networks, it is still a chore trying to compile all our information into one place. I’m sure many of us have wanted to make a reservation at a restaurant through Open Table and wished that it would also suggest show times for new movies, buy the tickets, and send us directions without having to open the quadrillion tabs we normally would. Well, the start up Vurb is working on a contextual content engine that connects and compiles relevant information from services like LinkedIn, Yelp, Google Maps, Amazon, and many others in an attempt to unify our Internet shenanigans. LOL + WTF = $: An App That Shos Why Videos Go Viral, From Fast Co Create (http://www.fastcocreate.com/1682441/lol-wtf-an-app-that-shows-why-videos-go-viral) Ever wonder how to you can make the next Gangnam Style or Harlem Shake? Well TubeRank may have found a way to help you figure out what you need to do to create the next viral video on YouTube. The app was recently launched by Rubber Republic, a London-based content creation studio responsible for a number of viral videos.