The days before Social Media

The $19-billion question: Is Snapchat the new television?

Gigaom

Not that long ago, Snapchat turned down a massive $3-billion acquisition offer from Facebook, and almost everyone thought the company had lost its mind. Now, the startup is reportedly raising money in a financing round that will value it at a staggering $19 billion. Is there anything that could justify putting that kind of market value on a company that is only four years old and still has almost no revenue?

Technology analyst Ben Thompson thinks there is — and it’s more than just the fact that Snapchat has a huge audience of millennials and younger users, although that’s clearly part of it. Thompson argues in a recent post at his Stratechery blog that one of Snapchat’s strengths is somewhat counter-intuitive: Namely, the fact that its model is a lot more like television than it is anything else.

[blockquote person=”” attribution=””]”Mark Zuckerberg, earlier than just about anyone, clearly saw…

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Hotel Marketing

By Shea Bennett 

In less than a decade social media has revolutionised many businesses around the world, and the hotels and hospitality industry has certainly benefited from using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to attract, engage with and convert travellers into prospects and customers.

Naturally, there’s a flipside to the all of this, too. Hotels are especially vulnerable to bad reviews and negative word-of-mouth – reputation can be crushed with a series of one-star reviews, particularly if they’re ignored. So, using social media for damage control is a key asset for brands working in these verticals.

Times and trends quickly change, and it’s important that hotel management keeps up with the latest digital developments and opportunities.

TARGETED ADS

KEEP YOUR EYE OUT! FACEBOOK IS GETTING BETTER AT TARGETING ADS

By: Trevor Mogg 

 Facebook’s latest effort to keep marketers happy and the cash rolling in involves a new product to help businesses better target their ads at users of the social networking site.

According to Facebook, its new “product ads” featureis designed to “help businesses promote multiple products or their entire product catalog, across all the devices their customers use.”Essentially, it’ll give businesses much more control over who sees its ads, with increased management over the targeting of specific products to specific audiences.