Huffington Post Extends Social Offerings, Twitter Reportedly Planning Tweetdeck Purchase

April 25, 2011 | by | Category:

This week in our blogosphere recap we’ll examine four blog posts from last week that discuss marketers’ projected increase in 2011 social media spend, Huffington Post’s and other media publishers’ innovative uses of social media, and industry acquisitions by Groupon and Twitter. Below are some of the highlights from these articles:

Most Marketers Plan to Increase Social Media Spend this Year

Mashable | Todd Wasserman | 4-19-11

According to a poll by Effie Worldwide and Mashable, 70% of marketers intend to increase their social media spend by 10% or more this year. The poll, conducted in February, was given to a group of ad agency executives and marketers at companies such as Bank of America, Colgate-Palmolive and Mini-USA and others. 35% of those polled said their #1 goal in 2011 is to increase their Facebook “likes.”

Additional Info:

  • 50% of respondents claim to rely on both in-house resources and external agencies for their social media marketing.
  • Of the group, 87% deemed social media as “important” or “very important” for attaining their top marketing goal for 2011.

Back to Top

Huffington Post Doubles Down on Social Media

Gigaom | Mathew Ingram | 4-19-11

The Huffington Post, a consistent industry leader in using social media to boost reach and engage readers, announced they will now allow users to “fan,” “like” and “follow” individual reporters and bloggers, both on the site itself and via Twitter and Facebook. Readers can also choose to follow specific topics. This form of self-segmentation and personalization is – in Ingram’s opinion – a smart-move, which other publishers might want to consider.

Additional Info:

  • Some reporters cited from the New York Times and NPR have already been using social media successfully, but Huffington Post is one of the first publications to make their entire news organization easily accessible with “follow me” features atop news stories and blog posts.
  • NPR received tens of thousands in donations from one staffer’s effective use of journalism via Twitter. Who knows? There may even be opportunities for monetization down the line.

Back to Top

Groupon Purchases Pelago as Whrrl Dissipates

ClickZ | Christopher Heine | 4-18-11

Groupon has purchased Pelago, makers of the location-based service Whrrl. Whrrl will be obsolete at the end of April and Pelago’s CEO will become Groupon’s head of product development. It is a logical marriage of geo-social and daily deal capabilities as displayed by competitor Living Social’s recent experiment with $1 lunches, which resulted in the sale of 27,000 lunch vouchers in three hours.

Key Takeaways:

  • Groupon’s purchase signals the increasing and impending convergence of daily deals and geo-social.
  • There is potential for companies to wield tremendous sales power when combining mobile geo-social technologies with consumer goods and services.

Back to Top

Report: Twitter in Talks to Buy Tweetdeck

ReadWriteWeb | Mike Melanson | 4-18-11

Twitter is allegedly in “advanced talks” to purchase popular client Tweetdeck for $50 million, as announced by the Wall Street Journal last week. Tweetdeck was recently rumored to have been in sales talks with Ubermedia, originally for the price of $30 million. The WSJ also highlighted the pre-existing partnership between Tweetdeck and Twitter, as evidenced by Twitter ads on Tweetdeck, to further support their claim. To date, this revenue sharing opportunity has only been offered to a few clients.

Additional Information:

  • It is uncertain what this acquisition will look like for end-users. Twitter hasn’t indicated whether they would cull specific features from Tweetdeck, or use the solution in its entirety as a default desktop application.

Back to Top

Want More Updates Like This?

We hope that you’ve enjoyed this weekly update and that you’ll share any feedback you might have with us. To get the weekly summary, or any other Optify updates, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or subscribe to our RSS feed.