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| The mobile advertising market is fiercely competitive, with Google and Facebook both vying for the attention of consumers. While Google is currently winning the mobile advertising battle, it seems that Facebook may be winning the war.
According to a report published at The Information by senior tech Amir Efrati, Google is at risk of losing precious mobile advertising to Facebook. Google generates more than twice as much revenue as Facebook in regards to mobile advertising — thanks to search — however, in terms of graphical and video ads viewed on mobile devices, Facebook comes out on top, generating three times as much revenue than Google. In fact, Google’s share of these ads is decreasing. The inability to track the efficacy of ads across various mobile devices seems to be Google’s greatest hurdle, meaning it’s difficult for Google to prove a sale was made due to a user seeing on its mobile advertisements. On the other hand, Facebook’s mobile advertising platform seems to be more comprehensive, since it is able to determine if a user views an app on Facebook’s mobile ad and purchases that product on their laptop because of it. Facebook uses cookies — indicators that link a user’s web browser to their smartphone — to gather data about its users. This is unsurprisingly, considering an estimated 50% of mobile phone owners use their smartphone as their primary internet source. While Google also collects cookies, it fails to distribute them across its ad products. Data from Google’s search engine isn’t combined with data from Google DoubleClick, which is used to track Google’s ads on non-Google sites. On top of that, Google also has no way of determining whether or not a user has purchased the product they’re already seeing an ad for. Google seems to be leery of getting flack for using the information they collect on users. The company’s own employees have said that limited ad tracking is a direct result of concerns with government regulations. Though the choice to not integrate Google’s ad products may have been made by its executive some time ago, the exact reasons have not been made clear. |
Google vs. Facebook: Who Will Come Out on Top in the Mobile Ad Market?
SEO, Social Media Firms Struggle to Stay Ahead of the Curve as Google Releases New Updates
As tends to happen after Google puts out its latest updates for Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird — what you should think of as the gatekeepers of the Silicon Valley giant’s tech empire — digital marketing firms are freaking out a little bit. The changes to Google’s menagerie of animal-themed policemen are said to affect a full 90% of all listings on the search engine, which earns upwards of 100 billion search queries per month. With 93% of all online experiences beginning with a search engine — the vast majority of which start with Google — the updates aimed at removing low quality links and content from search engine result pages could obviously put a big dent in the revenue of a business that relies on digital marketing to generate buzz and sales.
As a new article from The Guardian details, however, the latest Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird updates shouldn’t be met with hysteria. In effect, they only serve to continue Google’s trend of pushing web marketing away from spammy link building and content creation practices. Instead, companies will have to shift to content that delivers utility to web users. In short, they’ll have to do what most top tier SEO companies have been saying they should have been doing for the last couple of years.
What Should a “Shift to Content” Actually Entail?
Quite simply, a shift to content should just be about focusing on high quality content that people find some sort of value in, whether that means making them laugh, educating them, or otherwise. Consider, according to a report from Business 2 Community, 73% of web users feel frustrated when they view a piece of uninteresting or otherwise useless content. The latest Google updates do, indeed, place more pressure on companies to put out great content, but if that means tapping into the $278.9 billion American web users are estimated to be spending online by 2015, the smart company will be willing to make the effort.
How are you modifying your marketing strategies to keep pace with Google’s updates? Let us know in the comment section below.
New Social Media Guidelines for Doctors
Last year, I wrote a post about 7 ways doctors can improve their online reputation. The American Medical Association published a social media policy earlier this year. Recently, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) has come out with a new set of social media guidelines to help physicians stay professional in the online world.
FSMB’s Special Committee on Ethics and Professionalism created the recommendations so that state medical boards can use them when educating the physicians they license. The recommendations specifically refer to using social media and social networking websites. Their aim is to ensure that physicians are maintaining professional standards online, without overstepping the boundaries of patient confidentiality.
The new guidelines are a response to a study done in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars, which found that 92 percent of state medical boards have received a complaint about a physician’s online behavior. That astounding statistic proves the need for physicians to be proactive in their online activities.
The guidelines are broken down into three parts:
1. Only interact with your patients online when you are discussing medical treatment; these conversations should never occur on Facebook or other social media websites.
2. Always uphold patient privacy and confidentiality, no matter what medium you are using to communicate with other physicians. This rule applies when you’re at a medical conference, or on a physician-only networking site, like Sermo.com. Never use any identifying information when discussing your medical cases.
3. Always be aware of what you’re posting on Facebook and Twitter. Anything you post on these sites could be shared with or read by other audiences, and therefore may be taken out of context. Ensure that you are utilizing strict privacy settings, only friending people you know, and don’t use social media to offer medical advice or discuss specific patients.
Law School Admissions Officers are Looking Closely at Facebook and Google
If you are applying to law school, you don’t just have to pass the LSAT, you have to pass Google, too. According to a recent study by Kaplan Test Prep of admissions officers at the top law schools, business schools and colleges across the U.S., 41% of law school admissions officers have "Googled" an applicant, while 37% have checked out an applicant’s profile on Facebook or another social networking site. In contrast, according to the same study, 20% of college admissions officers and 27% of business school admissions officers have "Googled" applicants.
