by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Markets, Online Marketing, SMEs, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : Inspired by small businesses who are using Facebook Messenger to connect with their communities and customers, the social media giant has announced the launch of the first-ever “bot makeover contest”.
In partnership with the bot development platform ManyChat, the contest will have three winners who will receive $5,000 each in ad credits.
They will also get a makeover to their Messenger experience courtesy ManyChat, along with consultation from Messenger experts, Facebook said in a blog post late on Monday.
“For small business owners looking to get started on Messenger on Tuesday, we will be partnering with small business expert Gene Marks for a Facebook Live panel about Messenger best practices,” the company said.
According to a recent Facebook-commissioned study by Nielsen, 63 per cent of the people said their messaging with businesses has increased over the past two years, and 67 per cent expect to message businesses even more over the next two years.
In fact, in 2017 alone, over 330 million people connected with a small business on Messenger for the first time.
More than 1.2 billion people on Facebook are connected to a small business in another country, out of which over 250 million people are connected to a business in India.
Also, 42 per cent of the people on Facebook in India are now connected to at least one small and medium business (SMB) in a foreign country and 65 per cent of Indians are connected to at least one domestic SMB.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, Marketing Basics, Markets, Media, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology, World
Paradise Papers
Washington : As the US Congress investigates Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election by using social media giants, a new trove of confidential documents has revealed that Facebook and Twitter received major investments from firms with ties to Kremlin-owned corporations.
The documents called “Paradise Papers”, were obtained by German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and several media outlets across the globe.
According to the ICIJ, the records show that one of the Kremlin-owned firms, VTB Bank, quietly directed $191 million into an investment fund, DST Global, which is owned by billionaire Yuri Milner, that used the money to buy a large stake in Twitter in 2011.
“They also show that a subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom heavily funded an offshore company that partnered with DST Global in a large investment in Facebook,” the ICIJ said in a statement on Monday.
Milner and other partners in the deals reaped large gains when they sold their stakes shortly after Facebook’s initial public offering in 2012 and Twitter’s in 2013.
The disclosure shows that years before Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election, the Kremlin had a financial interest in the US social media.
Facebook and Twitter, however, said they had properly reviewed Milner’s investments.
In response to questions from the ICIJ and its partners, Milner said the investments his firm makes, including the Twitter and Facebook deals, have always been based on business merits and have nothing to do with politics.
VTB also confirmed that it had invested in Twitter through Milner’s firm DST Global.
The documents also revealed that Apple was seeking out a new tax shelter around Europe and the Caribbean, ReCode reported.
In an email obtained by the ICIJ, an Apple lawyer inquired about whether moving to one of the six tax havens would allow its Irish subsidiary to “conduct management activities … without being subject to taxation in these jurisdictions”.
In August, Apple had come under fire for striking a deal with the Irish government that allowed it to avoid paying virtually any taxes in many of its global markets.
The European Commission ordered Apple to pay $13 billion in back taxes.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Large Enterprise, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
Mumbai : Facebook with over 217 million monthly active users in India is closely working with marketers and advertisers to discuss how the social media giant can help businesses drive growth.
With 2.1 billion monthly active users globally, Facebook currently has 212 million monthly active users on smartphones in the country.
“With over 217 million monthly active users in India — most of whom are active on mobile — Facebook is at the heart of a mobile-first shopping journey. We want to help all marketers and businesses drive revenue growth by tapping into the shift in consumer behavior towards mobile, and help them adopt practises to drive both penetration and loyalty,” informed Sandeep Bhushan, Director, India and South Asia, at an event here.
Addressing the needs of industry, Facebook hosted “Discover Growth” event here which brought together marketers and advertisers to discuss key strategies focused on growth marketing.
The participants gained an in-depth insight into Facebook’s mobile solutions that can help marketers grow and engage consumers efficiently.
Some of the top strategies included acquiring customers and generate intent, creativity and measuring what matters.
“Facebook’s people-based measurement solutions can help measure what’s working across channels to enable optimised spending to those attributing to the best results,” the company said.
Brands and businesses across industries in India are already taking advantage of Facebook’s full-funnel marketing solutions.
E-commerce and travel brands such as Jabong, Shopclues and MakeMyTrip have used “Dynamic Ads” to capitalise on intent and find interested customers.
With Facebook’s “Lead” ads, brands like Raymond and Mahindra have been able to drive offline sales while others like GSK, Vodafone, Mondelez and Myntra have leveraged Facebook’s measurement solutions to refine their marketing spends.
“Facebook in no time (within a period of six months) has become one of the key contributors to our business for orders from retargeting channels,” said Saujanya Shrivastava, Group CMO (MakeMyTrip.com and Goibibo.com).
According to Siddharth Banerjee, EVP-Brand Communications and Insights, Vodafone, partnering with Facebook on the launch campaign for Vodafone Supernet 4G helped them cut build awareness with the right audience.
“With the target audience leaning towards digital, Facebook delivered some of the highest impact across all media vehicles on driving salience and key brand messages,” Banerjee said.
Facebook-owned WhatsApp has over 200 million monthly active users in India.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Online Marketing, Social Media, World
San Francisco : As Facebook, Google and Twitter prepared to face questioning on November 1 into Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election, the tech giants were planning to tell the lawmakers that the Russian content on their respective platforms reached more users than reported earlier.
According to a report in The Washington Post late on Monday, Facebook was planning to tell lawmakers that 126 million of its users might have seen content produced and circulated by Russian operatives — many times more than the company had previously disclosed about their reach.
Facebook had previously reported that nearly 10 million users had seen those ads.
Similarly, Google also acknowledged that it had found evidence that Russian operatives used the company’s platforms to influence American voters.
Google said in a blog post that it had found 1,108 videos with 43 hours of content related to the Russian effort on YouTube. It also found $4,700 worth of Russian search and display ads.
“Further, Twitter would also tell Congressional investigators that it has identified 2,752 accounts controlled by Russian operatives and more than 36,000 bots that tweeted 1.4 million times during the election. The company previously reported 201 accounts linked to Russia,” the report added.
After scrutiny by the Congressional investigators, the tech giants have been working hard to make political ads more transparent.
Facebook has vowed to make political ads more transparent, allowing users of the social network to know more about the advertisers which may include their identity and location.
“We’re going to require more thorough documentation from advertisers who want to run election-related ads,” Rob Goldman, Facebook’s Vice President of Ads said in a statement last week.
“We are starting with federal elections in the US, and will progress from there to additional contests and elections in other countries and jurisdictions,” Goldman added.
As part of the documentation process, advertisers may be required to identify that they are running election-related advertising and verify both their entity and location.
To help protect integrity of user experience on Twitter, the microblogging site has banned advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik with immediate effect.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology, World
San Francisco : Facebook has vowed to make political ads more transparent, allowing users of the social network to know more about the advertisers which may include their identity and location.
The move comes ahead of the November 1 US Congressional hearings in which tech giants including Facebook will be questioned about Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
“We’re going to require more thorough documentation from advertisers who want to run election-related ads,” Rob Goldman, Facebook’s Vice President of Ads said in a statement on Friday.
“We are starting with federal elections in the US, and will progress from there to additional contests and elections in other countries and jurisdictions,” Goldman added.
As part of the documentation process, advertisers may be required to identify that they are running election-related advertising and verify both their entity and location.
Once verified, these advertisers will have to include a disclosure in their election-related ads, which reads: “Paid for by.”
“When you click on the disclosure, you will be able to see details about the advertiser. Like other ads on Facebook, you will also be able to see an explanation of why you saw that particular ad,” Goldman said.
“For political advertisers that do not proactively disclose themselves, we are building machine learning tools that will help us find them and require them to verify their identity,” Goldman added.
Facebook said it will also soon roll out a feature that would allow its users to visit any page on Facebook and see what ads that page is running.
“We will start this test in Canada and roll it out to the US by this summer, ahead of the US midterm elections in November, as well as broadly to all other countries around the same time,” Goldman said.
Reports earlier found that Russian-linked accounts used a number of tools including advertisements to influence the 2016 US presidential election.
In next week’s congressional hearings, Facebook, Google, and Twitter will be grilled about the roles their platforms played in Russia’s alleged attempts to influence the election.
—IANS
