Martin Beck says, “Online video is so hot right now, but YouTube, the grandfather of the industry, isn’t worried about being pushed aside. In fact, Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s head of content, said the competition from Facebook and Twitter — “in the last 12 months every platform has decided that they want to add video” — is actually helpful to YouTube. “I think you are seeing tremendous validation of the market,” Kyncl said during an on-stage interview Wednesday at the Code/Media conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Calif., “and we are just happy to be part of it.” Kyncl... [...]

Siobhán McGinty says, “In June of last year, Facebook announced a new ad format called “multi-product ads” that caught the attention of many Facebook advertisers. This new format was designed to do three things: generate more website visitors, drive better conversion rates, and improve remarketing results. Quick movers were able to make the most of the new ad format using the Facebook Ads API, but others had to wait for Facebook to fully incorporate the format into its advertising product.Last week, Facebook started to do just that, making multi-product ads easily available... [...]

Kurt Wagner says, “Facebook is making a pitch to media publishers: let us host your content for you, and we’ll make it look beautiful (and give you more eyeballs) in the process. That’s according to Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, who joined Re/code‘s Peter Kafka onstage Tuesday at the Code/Media conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, Calif. Cox says that Facebook is actually having these kinds of discussion with publishers, and is trying to figure out a model that would enable Facebook to host content that would otherwise go on a publisher’s own website. Cox... [...]

JP Mangalindan says, “Like it or not, Facebook advertisements just got even smarter. On Tuesday, the social network announced Product Ads, a set of tools that lets businesses more effectively target Facebook’s 1.4 billion or so users with a new, automated process. SEE ALSO: Facebook is rethinking how it tracks ads With Product Ads, businesses who upload their product catalogs to Facebook can manually create ad campaigns. The other, more compelling option? Let Facebook do the heavy-lifting, automatically creating campaigns and targeting various kinds of users with ads it thinks will... [...]

Ahley Breen says, “Using Facebook for your business is a great way to establish brand awareness and loyalty. But how can you keep your social followers engaged and encourage them to take action with your brand? With Facebook’s new call-to-action (CTA) feature, it’s easier than ever for your followers to do things like sign up to your email list or start shopping with the click of a button”. How to Engage Social Followers Using Facebook’s New Call-to-Action Button Aweber Blog  [...]

Gina Broom says, “Have you ever thought to yourself… “Why bother with social media, really? I mean, it’s so hard to measure the worth of social campaigns directly. So much of it is just general exposure, and how vague is that? Especially when it comes to paying for this exposure with boosted posts on Facebook.” Many people think along these lines, and fair enough too, considering that a business must always consider the return on investment for any venture. The unfortunate part comes when some marketers make the mistake of trying to monetize their efforts on Facebook right... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Remember when the best way reach fans on Facebook was with photos? Those days are done. In a major reversal, photo posts are now the worst performing of all posts by Facebook brand pages, according to new data from social media analytics company Socialbakers. Photo posts are half as likely to be seen as videos, the new king of engagement on the Facebook platform. Looking at more than 670,000 posts by 4,445 brand pages (not including celebrity, entertainment or media pages) between October 2014 and February 2015, Socialbakersfound that video posts had organic reach of 8.71%,... [...]

Matt Niehaus says, “Business owners and decision makers have a lot of responsibilities to juggle on any given day; so the question is, should they still leave room on their plates for Facebook marketing? It’s not the no-brainer strategy that it was several years ago, when it was essentially a free way to promote and advertise your establishment and build a legion of online fans. With Facebook’s algorithm changes creating a significant drop in organic reach, it’s quite possible that your posts are going largely unseen. But with a few tweaks to your strategy, Facebook could still be a key ingredient... [...]

Todd Wasserman says, “In another effort to refine and improve ads that users see in their Facebook News Feeds, the company introduced a Relevance Score for ads this week. The scores, which are based on a scale of 1 to 10, measures how well the ad will perform for its targeted audiences. The numbers are a reflection of the ratio of positive to negative interactions. Facebook said those interactions vary, but they are mostly determined by the ad’s objectives and may include video views and conversions. The new measurement is not used for ads with guaranteed delivery — those bought through... [...]

Martin Beck says, “This just in: Facebook is a bigger traffic referrer than you thought. New data from Bitly, the web’s leading URL shortener, shows that Facebook’s share of clicks from mobile devices increased 30.2% in the fourth quarter of 2014. That’s after a gain of 27% in the third quarter. “It’s all Facebook; Facebook is crushing it,” Bitly CEO Mark Josephson told Marketing Land. “Everybody knows Facebook is big,” Josephson added, “but if you are a marketer and you are taking credit for direct traffic on mobile that number just went down and Facebook’s went up.... [...]