Business and Marketing

Its new emphasis on direct response campaigns will pay off immediately, predicts eMarketer, while its value as a medium for social engagement will diminish.

Facebook seeks a direct route to top of ad sales list.

Facebook will grow ad revenues by more than 56% this year to nearly $11 billion and give the social network a two-point bump in share of digital ad spending, to 7.8%, according to an analysis released by eMarketer.

Fueling this surge, says eMarketer, is Facebook's recent strategic shift to serve as a platform for direct response advertising rather than as a medium for brands to drive social interaction and consumer engagement. The majority of Facebook's most recent ad initiatives are aimed at marketers with performance goals, the researcher reports.

“Companies still see Facebook as a platform for social brand interactions, but that's no longer the way Facebook is presenting itself,” says Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst of social media at eMarketer. “Facebook has moved on, but many brands are still marketing the same way they did two years ago.”

In the past five years U.S. advertisers have upped direct efforts at a compound annual rate of 16%, according to eMarketer's “2014 Digital Ad Spending Benchmarks” report issued last month. Over that time, marketers increased spending on direct response campaigns by $4.74 billion as compared to a $2.79 billion rise in brand campaigns. Nearly 60% of ad budgets are now devoted to direct methods, led by retailers (70%), financial services (62%), and automotive (60%).

Despite the sizeable one-year boom it envisions for Facebook, eMarketer is more conservative as to how soon marketers will master its capabilities for direct marketing. “There will be a learning curve,” Williamson says. “Facebook's targeting is getting very sophisticated and advertisers can segment audiences into smaller and smaller buckets, but many brand advertisers are more accustomed to buying ads aimed at mass audiences.”

Business Breaking News: Twitter Marketing: 4 Ways to Engage Customers

Are you tweeting or are you engaging? When it comes to successful Twitter marketing, simply tweeting about your business isn't going to cut it. Without a solid strategy to actively engage followers and customers, your tweets could easily vanish into the Twitterverse, where the sheer number of daily tweets reaches well into the hundreds of millions.

"Twitter continues to grow in popularity with more than 230 million active users and 500 million tweets sent per day," said DJ Muller, president and founder of WebLink International, a marketing and membership management software company. Such high-volume activity calls for businesses to create a strategic presence. Otherwise, average tweets risk getting lost in the fray. "Implementing a strategy around Twitter can be a cost-effective way to promote your brand and connect with your target audiences," Muller said.

Avoiding — or escaping — Twitter's black hole isn't easy, but a little bit of planning can go a long way. Muller shared the following tips on how to create an effective Twitter presence and implement a successful Twitter marketing strategy — one that increases engagement and yields measurable results. [19 Social Media Marketing Solutions for Small Businesses]

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