Martin Beck says, “Facebook’s status as king of the social hill shows no signs of slippage. In 2014, the social network pulled in 75% of total advertising spending on social networks, according to a new report by Boston-based Strategy Analytics. Facebook accounted for $11.4 billion of the $15.3 billion market for social media advertising, a market that grew 41% in 2014, according to the report. Twitter, which earned $1.2 billion in ad revenue in 2014, had 8% of the share. The report predicts that the total social ad market will hit $19.8 billion by the end of this year and $24.2 billion... [...]

Sean Donahoe has a new product coming out this morning. AzonAuthority was created to help you build highly-profitable real businesses selling physical products by leveraging the market power of Amazon in a true e-commerce environment. With AzonAuthority, you turn Amazon into your personal drop-shipping and payment handling system while creating a high-powered, authority store. At the heart of AzonAuthority is a proprietary SmartCart Engine that integrates with Amazon’s systems to make sure you sell most effectively. Donahoe says that unlike other Amazon affiliate stores, search engines treat... [...]

Mitch Meyerson says, “When it comes to Facebook, some people talk about metrics, such as the perfect time to post, the perfect length of a post, or the perfect way to post a link. But none of that matters as much as posting content that your audience cares about. Yes, there are strategies that work better on Facebook in terms of getting more visibility, but when you focus on providing good content consistently, your audience will make sure they go out of their way to find you. There’s no doubt that Facebook is increasingly becoming a “pay to play” platform with pages getting less... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Every year, Facebook holds its F8 conference where it makes key announcements and launches new offerings. This year was one of the biggest yet and dozens of announcements were made. Here are the five most important for brands and marketers. Messenger Platform Reports that Facebook would be opening its Messenger app to third parties were correct. With the newly unveiled Messenger Platform, third party developers, including brands like ESPN, will be able to reach the more than 600m Facebook members who use Messenger on a daily basis. Apps can be installed from within Messenger,... [...]

Adriana Lee says, “WhatsApp doesn’t want to be a platform. Co-founder Brian Acton, on a panel Wednesday at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, made that very clear. Unlike its sibling service Messenger, which has started courting outside developers and businesses, all that matters to WhatsApp is that the service remain stable, simple and unfettered for its worldwide audience of 100 million monthly active users. That matters to parent company Facebook too, but likely for different reasons. WhatsApp—which sold to the social network last year for $19 billion dollars—offers an interesting... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Today at Facebook’s developer conference F8 the company announced, among other things, Messenger Platform, which opens up the app to third party publisher and developers. As one feature of Messenger Platform, Facebook also introduced what it’s calling “Messenger for Business.” The objective is to “reinvent the way people communicate and interact with businesses.” Initial integrations include e-commerce sites Everlane and Zulily. Customer service software provider Zendesk is also supporting the platform. Facebook isn’t limiting the program to e-commerce;... [...]

Signe Brewster says, “If you are interested in sharing a video across the Web, you probably start by uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo. Facebook wants in on that action, and as of today allows videos uploaded to the site to be embedded elsewhere. During an F8 keynote address Wednesday, product marketing manager Deborah Liu announced anyone can now grab the embed code from their Facebook videos. “This dramatically increases the potential reach of your content,” she said. But not anyone’s ability to make money from video. Upload a clip to YouTube and you can get paid based on... [...]

David Shiffman says, “In today’s e-commerce climate, it is not uncommon to find that browsing the ever-increasing number of companies, products and services can be daunting when trying to find just the right thing. But fear no more, because Facebook has recently made a milestone announcement that could mean huge changes for consumers and businesses alike. Introducing ‘topic data’ to select partners in the US and UK, Facebook will loosen its hold on its user data information to provide marketers with a broader look and deeper understanding of how their online presence is faring... [...]

Lisa Furgison says, “Your Facebook audience has a craving. They’re craving video. According to recent statistics, the number of videos showing up in Facebook News Feeds has shot up by 360% this year compared to last. The king of social media sites is also allowing most page administrators to make videos more prominent by selecting a featured video. This featured video sits on the left side of your main page and appears like this on your video page”. 5 Unconventional Ways to Create Videos That Engage Facebook Fans VerticalResponse Blog  [...]

Patricio Robles says, “According to reports, Facebook is set to announce at its F8 developer conference that it will be giving third parties the ability to integrate their content into the Messenger experience. Facebook can be a great friend to publishers and brands. For many, the world’s largest social network has been and is a significant source of referral traffic. But Facebook’s friendship with content producers is a complicated one. Changes to the algorithm (previously known as EdgeRank) which Facebook uses to determine what appears in their users’ news feeds, can make... [...]