A Complete Guide to Facebook's Q2 2016 Earnings Call

Facebook reported strong second-quarter-2016 financial results Wednesday, with revenue up 59 percent year-over year and net income soaring 186 percent compared with the second quarter of 2015.

The company reported revenue of $6.436 billion for the quarter, up 59 percent from $4.024 billion in the year-ago period. Revenue from advertising of $6.239 billion was up 63 percent from $3.827 billion in the second quarter of 2015.

The social network said mobile ad revenue represented approximately 84 percent of total ad revenue for the second quarter, up from 76 percent in the previous-year quarter.

The fastest growth regions for advertising revenue in the second quarter were the U.S. and Canada and the Asia-Pacific region, which saw growth rates of 69 percent and 67 percent, respectively.

Facebook reported net income of $2.055 billion, or $0.71 per share, up 186 percent from $719 million ($0.25) in the second quarter of 2015.

Statistics and milestones

• Facebook reported an average of 1.13 billion daily active users as of June 30, up 17 percent from the second quarter of 2015.


• Mobile DAUs averaged 1.03 billion in the second quarter, up 22 percent year-over-year.


• Monthly active users were up 15 percent year-over-year, reaching 1.71 billion.


• Facebook reported 1.57 billion mobile MAUs as of June 30, up 20 percent from the year-earlier period.


• Time spent per person on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger increased by double-digit percentages year-over-year.


• There are now more than 60 million monthly active business pages on the social network.


• More than 1 billion people are using Messenger each month.


• Instagram has more than 500 million MAUs and more than 300 million DAUs.


• WhatsApp topped the 1 billion-user mark.


• More than 4 million 360 photos have been shared on Facebook since the feature's June debut, with about 1 million being added to that total each week.


• Facebook users are searching across more than 2.5 trillion posts and conducting more than 2 billion searches each day.


• Facebook Lite, Facebook's lightweight Android application for emerging markets, was used by more than 100 million people.


• More than 1 million people are using virtual reality technology from Oculus VR each month, via Oculus' Gear VR partnership with Samsung, and more than 300 apps are available for Gear VR via the Oculus Store.

Advertising

Facebook said more than 85 percent of active business pages use mobile, and 40 percent of active advertisers have created Facebook ads via mobile devices, adding that more than 80 percent of new advertisers in the second quarter started off simple with products such as boosted posts.

The social network also touted dynamic ads, saying that more than 300 million users see them each month, and more than 2.5 billion unique products have been uploaded by marketers.

As always, the bulk of chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg's opening remarks involved the social network's advertising offerings:

We continue to focus on our three priorities: capitalizing on the shift to mobile, growing the number of marketers using our ad products and making our ads more relevant and effective.

People have shifted to mobile, and marketers know they need to catch up. Mobile is no longer a nice to-do, it's a must-do, and we're working closely with marketers to help them make this transition.

The best marketers understand that people watch video differently in mobile feeds. The goal is to create what we think of as thumb-stopping creative, videos that grab attention in the first few seconds, even without sound. For example, to drive awareness for Sour Patch Kids Gum, Mondelez International targeted teens with non-chocolate candy interests. Working with VaynerMedia, Carat and the Facebook Creative Shop, it created punchy, 10-second looping videos tailored for Facebook and Instagram. The campaign helped the Sour Patch Kids portfolio beat sales benchmarks for the entire candy industry.

We're excited to bring more relevant video ads to people both on and off Facebook. In May, we expanded Facebook Audience Network to include video for brand objectives. This means that advertisers can place video, brand video ads, not just on Facebook and Instagram, but across a network of apps and sites.

Our second priority is growing the number of marketers using our ad products. More than one-third of small and midsized businesses in the U.S. don't have websites, and having a mobile presence is even more difficult and expensive. Creating a business page on Facebook is as easy as setting up a personal profile. This is why Facebook pages are the mobile solutions for many of the 60 million businesses using our products each month in the U.S. and around the world. We've made it easy for business owners to manage their Facebook page from their mobile devices. More than 85 percent of active business pages use mobile, and 40 percent of active advertisers have created a Facebook ad on their mobile device.

In Q2, we rolled out new tools to make it easier for businesses to promote posts and track performance directly from the Instagram app. We've worked hard to make becoming an advertiser as easy as possible for these businesses. With just a few steps and for as little as a few dollars, businesses can boost their posts to reach more people. Simplifying our ad products is key to advertiser acquisition. More than 80 percent of new advertisers in Q2 started with simplified products like boosted posts. Once these businesses begin advertising with us, we make it easy for them to take advantage of even our most sophisticated capabilities.

Our third priority is making our ads more effective and relevant. Our goal is to help our clients grow their businesses, whether it be moving products off shelves, driving online sales or building their brands. Our system constantly looks for the most efficient and effective way to drive these objectives. Businesses that want to build their brands need to reach a large audience with a compelling story, and they're seeing strong results from immersive formats like video and Canvas ads.

Businesses working to acquire new customers need to reach high-quality leads and convert them to actions. We introduced lead ads in Q1 to make it easy for people to fill out forms on mobile devices right from News Feed. In Q2, we made it possible for advertisers to retarget people who opened or completed a lead ad form.

Businesses selling products are getting search-like return on investment from dynamic ads. Dynamic ads allow advertisers to upload their product catalogs and target people with specific products in real-time. More than 300 million people see dynamic ads each month, and over 2.5 billion unique products have been uploaded by marketers. In Q2, we expanded dynamic ads to Instagram and also launched dynamic ads for travel. For example, you can now advertise specific destinations and dates for hotel rooms.

We're pleased with the value we're driving for our partners and the progress we're making across our three priorities. With only a small fraction of our 60 million business page is advertising, we have a lot of opportunity ahead. We also have a lot of hard work to do to help businesses make the shift to mobile and to drive results for our clients.

The social network's ad load was a key discussion point during the question-and-answer portion of the company's earnings call after market close Wednesday.

JPMorgan Securities analyst Douglas Anmuth asked:

Going back to the ad load, we have in the past heard some caution from you guys before in that area, and granted it was a few years ago and at a much earlier stage. But I guess my question is: If targeting continues to improve along with click-through-rate and then ultimately ROI, why does ad load have to become less of a factor going forward?

Facebook chief financial officer David Wehner replied:

On the ad load front, ad load is definitely up from where we were a few years ago. It has been an important driver of inventory growth. And really, I think one of the things that's enabled us to grow ad load has been improving the quality and the relevance of the ads, as you've mentioned. And we've been be able to do that without negatively impacting the user experience. We do expect that ad load will be a less significant factor driving overall growth, especially after mid-2017.

The optimal ad load is really a mix of art and science. We've carefully tracked the impact of ads on the user experience over the last several years. We aren't seeing a cause for concern. We also want to be thoughtful about making sure that each person's overall feed experience has the right balance of organic and ad content. And that factors into how we think about ad load and where that might ultimately be. And that's really why we're talking about our expectation that as you get into mid-2017, ad load will not be a big factor in driving overall inventory growth. We still see the opportunity to grow inventory from the growth of people and engagement on Facebook, as well as our other services like Instagram. Instagram does have a lower ad load than Facebook.

Later in the call, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post asked:

About the ad loads, how are you deciding how many ads to show? Could you hold back a bit and drive higher pricing? How are you balancing that? And why not hold back a little bit more now for longevity there?

Wehner answered:

We've talked about the different factors that go into it, obviously, just in driving the overall business–advertiser demand, which was particularly strong this period, and then also we matched that with supply. And the supply–the two big drivers are user and time spent and then ad load.

And getting the balance and mix right is important, and clearly, how the pricing plays out is via the auction. And we've had a good balance of demand growth and supply growth, and that's led to our good strong financial results and our ability to deliver very strong ROI to advertisers. So we think we're in a good zone on the right ad load, and we do think there are opportunities to grow that modestly. But as we look forward into 2017, we think it'll be a less significant factor driving inventory growth. But we still think there are opportunities to drive inventory through user growth and time spent.

I don't think we would think about necessarily dropping ad load to drive pricing. We're also very cognizant of providing good value to advertisers, and getting that balance right is important to driving overall ROI, as well as obviously providing better targeting and measurement tools for our advertisers.

Video

Macquarie Capital USA analyst Benjamin Schachter asked:

What are the lessons you're learning from seeing the growth of Snapchat and some of the other newer networks, particularly among young people? And obviously Facebook is continuing to do well but these things are growing. And then second, related to video, what are the key problems that you really think you need to solve for consumers and video producers, and how is Facebook going to evolve to help solve those problems?

Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said:

Sure. And they're related. So, overall, people are spending more and more time on mobile, and that means that there are always more services that people use, whether it's YouTube or there's some really interesting ones with younger folks, especially like musical.ly and live.ly that I think are pretty interesting as well, and Snapchat, which you mentioned.

And part of why I think you see this is that there are just so many different ways that people want to share so many different kinds of content, ranging from text to photo to video, just richer and richer and more immersive content. And also there's a range from private one-on-one type sharing to small groups, all of your friends at once, large interface communities and then ultimately fully public. And there are different apps that explore different regions of that space and do a good job with it, and offer ideas that I think the whole market needs to learn from.

Right now, the big theme and strategy that we're executing is that we're going to become video-first. And what I mean by that is that there's this trend where 10 years back, most of what you saw and shared online was text, and then we went through a phase where most of it was photos. And we really believe that–and call it five years, or whatever the period of time that it takes to get there–I think most of what people consume online is going to be video. And that means that there needs to be a whole range of new production tools and consumption experiences for enabling that.

For production, I think that means that you need to get the camera experience, and the experience for capturing and uploading videos that you've captured to be much better in a more central part the of the experience. On consumption, there are innovations that we've had like auto-play in feed, but what's the next version of that, that makes it so that people can have an even more native and default video experience when they're in News Feed, as well as private areas like Messenger and WhatsApp? So I think you're going to see this across all of our apps–more focused on producing this kind of content, and making it first class to consume as well, both in private and public context. And I think that that's just a big trend across the market, and one of the big things that if we get right, I think it's going to unlock a lot of sharing and opportunities.

Search

Nomura Securities International analyst Anthony DiClemente asked:

How far away are you from commercial search on Facebook being viable? Why can't you do that today? And how big of an opportunity could commercial search be?

And Zuckerberg answered:

When we talk about our strategy, I often talk about how when we develop new products, we think about it in three phases: First, building a consumer use case; second, making it so that people can organically interact with businesses; and third, on top of that, once there's a large volume of people interacting with businesses, give businesses tools to reach more people and pay, and that's ultimately the business opportunity.

So, I'd say that we're around the second phase of that in search now. We have a pretty big navigational use case where people look up people and pages and groups that they want to get to and look at in search. One of the big growing use cases that we're investing a lot in is looking up the content in the ecosystem, and that is an area that we're very excited about, which helps people find more content. But certainly, there's a reasonable amount of behavior in there which is looking for things that, over time, could be monetizable or commercial intent. And at some point, we will probably want to work on that, but we're still in the phase of just making it easier for people to find all the content they want and connect with businesses organically.

M

Deutsche Bank Securities analyst Ross Sandler asked for an update on Facebook's M digital personal assistant for Messenger, and Zuckerberg obliged:

We've released the Messenger platform M bot in the last six months–F8 was the big announcement there. And I think since then, I think we've announced we have more than 10,000 bots in the system, which are basically making it so that different businesses can build automated ways to communicate with people.

The way we think about this experience is that, qualitatively, I don't know a single person really who wants to call a business to get support or interact with it, whether that's trying to get a reservation for a restaurant or getting customer support or calling to buy something. And those are slow interactions. They're synchronous. They consume your whole attention while you're doing them. And if we can make it so that you can have some of those interactions in an automated way where you fire off a text and then just get a response back quickly, but asynchronously so it doesn't take up your full attention, then I think that's going to be a much better experience that people really enjoy and like.

So we're in the experimentation phase I think with the platform. We're seeing a lot of good ideas getting tried out. And I personally enjoy a lot of the different bots that people are using or making, especially the news one where you get these digests at the end of the day of different kinds of content. And between that and M, which is kind of our own internal bot that we're building, I think that this is going to be an interesting area to watch and encourage more interaction between people and businesses and messaging.

News Feed

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Carlos Kirjner-Neto asked:

Some people believe that much of what users see in their News Feed is driven by their behavior and preferences, and as a consequence, the stories they end up seeing are always, or almost always, in line with their existing views and preferences. Does this phenomenon lead to increased adoption in use of Facebook creating more polarization of views and less effective communication, at least in some areas of people's lives? Mark, how do you think about this line of thought that because people see things that they are already in line with what they believe, communication is hindered?

Zuckerberg replied:

We have studied the effect that you're talking about and published the results of our research that show that Facebook is actually, and social media in general, are the most diverse forms of media that are out there. The way to think about this is that even if a lot of your friends come from the same kind of background or have the same political or religious beliefs, if you know a couple of hundred people, there's a good chance that even maybe a small percent–maybe 5 percent or 10 percent or 15 percent of the–will have different viewpoints, which means that their perspectives are now going to be shown in your News Feed.

And if you compare that to traditional media–where people will typically pick a newspaper or a TV station that they want to watch and just get 100 percent of the view from that–people are actually getting exposed to much more different kinds of content through social media than they would have otherwise or have been in the past. So it's a good sounding theory, and I can get why people repeat it, but it's not true. So I think that that's something that if folks read the research that we put out there, then they'll see that.

Pre-roll

Kirjner-Neto asked:

When it comes to video ad formats, are you philosophically opposed to pre-rolls, and if yes, why? And if not, what is missing for you to adopt that?

Zuckerberg responded:

We don't think it would be a good experience in News Feed, because a lot of when people are finding videos on Facebook is you're scrolling through News Feed, you're looking at what story seems interesting to you, which is why we did the auto-play videos so that rather than having to take an action, you can just start experiencing the video automatically and continue watching it if it's something that you're interested in.

But if we started playing an ad in the middle of a feed before you got to the video, then that would really go against that. I think people just would watch a lot less of the organic videos that were posted because of that.

But the important thing to keep in mind on this is we don't really–we don't need to do pre-roll because our model is not one where you come to Facebook to watch one piece of content, you come to look at a feed and putting the ads in between the stories is a much more effective way to do it and better for the user experience.

Teens

The ever popular question about whether fewer teens are using Facebook surfaced again, this time as part of a question from Anmuth, and Wehner addressed the topic as follows:

On the teen front, younger users, we continue to be the best way to reach the largest global audience of teens and millennials. Teens remain very engaged on Facebook. Clearly, how they've used our service has evolved over the years. And in addition to Facebook, they're using Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. So, from a teen perspective, that's some color there.

Pokemon Go

Yes, Mark Zuckerberg plays Pokemon Go, too. In response to a question from RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney, he said:

Well, I, like everyone else, am enjoying Pokemon Go. And the biggest thing that I think we can take away from this, as we invest in augmented reality in addition to virtual reality, is that the phone is probably going to be the mainstream consumer platform where a lot of these AR features first become mainstream rather than glasses form factor that people will wear on their face. So I think we're seeing this in a number of places, whether it's location through Pokemon or some of the face filter activity. I referenced the MSQRD app that we acquired earlier in my remarks. That's a kind of a fun way to augment. You know, social experience that you're having with someone. I think that there's a big opportunity to build out that platform and a lot more functionality around that.

Readers: What were your thoughts on Facebook's second-quarter-2016 financial results?

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How to Use Offline Media to Drive Social Media Engagement

From Deadpool to Donald Trump, multichannel media is dominating 2016, and it's about time. E-commerce, mobile applications and social media have all been huge for years now, leaving some of us wondering if offline media was dead.

Despite the ascendancy of digital channels, more than 50 percent of online ad impressions aren't actually seen by people. That's because current tracking technology counts one-half of a banner appearing for one second on an audience member's screen as a “view,” making it difficult to accurately measure how effective an online ad is. But when your brand is all over the social media news feeds, search result screens, banner ads on third-party publications and-gasp–the walls of public spaces, that's when you can really make an impression.

Today it's all about finding the best multichannel mix. Internet-driven companies like Uber use outdoor, print and broadcast media for visibility. Brick-and-mortar businesses are turning to online advertising to ensure their survival. Research by TVTY shows that 67 percent of brands plan to spend more this year on digital campaigns triggered by offline events than last year.

What's more, consumers respond amazingly well to multichannel interaction. The more they see your brand, the more they'll buy. Fluent found that 62 percent of people who interact with their favorite brands on 10 or more channels make in-store purchases from those brands weekly, and 49 percent report the same for online purchases.

Multichannel marketing is a must for modern businesses–especially those looking to maximize their footprints on social media.

Social's role in the multichannel puzzle

For superior cross-channel engagement, it's best to think about the customer's journey to conversion and how it relates to your brand's best-performing channels for long-term relationship building. In business-to-business situations, this is likely to be a sales representative's LinkedIn presence or an email list. For consumer goods, where fun and peer-to-peer sharing are such powerful forces, Facebook or Instagram might be the way to go.

Once your campaign goals are sorted out, you'll need to close on a good call-to-action concept. To keep the interaction non-sales-y, your CTAs should lead people somewhere that's not just an ad. One of the best CTAs you can use is a branded hashtag. Easy to include on any channel, hashtags let users reach you on their favorite platforms, and in a way that's visible to their social graphs.

Take a look at Charmin. The company used #tweetfromtheseat, an easily abused hashtag, for a campaign in 2014. Toilet paper isn't easy to market, but this campaign was an instant hit.

Laura Dressman, Charmin's communications manager, recently told Digiday that a big part of the brand's multichannel success is thanks to her team's ability to tailor channel-specific messaging. “We're a toilet-paper brand that doesn't take itself too seriously, we've always had a playful instigator tone and we tweak it according to which platform we're on to make sure that it plays well on that channel,” she said.

Offline media for receptive moments

Only 17 percent of marketers feel confident going multichannel, which makes a lot of sense, given the solo-oriented thinking that's rampant in most companies. To get started driving social engagement with offline media placements, consider OOH (out-of-home) advertising, which offers huge value to local brands, given the medium's location-specific nature and all-around effectiveness. A recent Nielsen study found that approximately 17 percent of digital billboard viewers visit an advertiser's website or search online within a month of seeing its message.

Combined with a clear strategy for inspiring engagement via other channels, it's powerful stuff, especially when incentivized and interactive, like the Burt's Bees billboard below:

OOH catches viewers' attention at points of wait, like bus stops and checkout lines. “When people see messaging that appeals to them in the context of what they're doing, that's extremely powerful for building brand equity and eventually driving purchases,” says Dominick Porco, CEO of grocery video screen ad platform Impax Media. “When people are doing things like commuting or waiting in line at a retail checkout, they're looking to pass the time, and our data shows that they're happy to do so with some lightly branded infotainment. They even look forward to it.”

Data points from everywhere

Gareth Powell, head of analytics at JD Williams Group, believes that smart, data-driven marketing requires gathering information from multiple sources. “We take customer profiling via social media with a pinch of salt,” he recently told Econsultancy. “The most popular school on Facebook is Hogwarts.”

Smarter marketers today know how to exploit the new capabilities of digital advertisement technology, like anonymous attention tracking, programmatic media placements and ad creative personalization. Advertisers using Impax Media, for example, can optimize messaging for attention impact by measuring how audiences respond. It's like an offline version of A/B testing.

A wealth of other new technologies is helping businesses integrate their offline media efforts into the online world. Like online advertising, more and more offline media companies are now capable of measuring actual views and demonstrating return on investment to advertisers.

For great multichannel results, follow Deadpool's over-the-top strategy. Don't limit your campaigns to social and one offline media channels. Use billboards, streaming video advertisements, QR codes and more. Go big, and make sure your media channels feed one another, so you can drive social engagement from offline media.

Old Spice, for example, has seen smashing success over the years with its series of viral YouTube clips. It's unlikely that the below video could have racked up 3 million views if it hadn't been such a natural tie-in to related TV spots:

Of course, a sweepstakes contest and #smelllegendary hashtag help to amplify the campaign's effectiveness, as well.

“People have different experiences and different expectations for the media they consume in different situations,” says Porco. “It's all about the right message for the right person at the right moment.”

Taking social offline

The emergence of social media as a hub for all brand marketing activity might feel like the arrival of a new industry. On the context of igniting multichannel engagement, however, social is essentially an extension of traditional marketing. And with new capabilities for using rich data to make offline campaigns more effective, multichannel performance is more accessible than ever before.

John Stevens is a business consultant and marketer who regularly contributes to Adweek, Entrepreneur and other major publications.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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How Millennials Interact With Online Video (Infographic)

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Of the 500 U.K. millennials surveyed, 73 percent reported watching more than two hours of video per week, and of those, 51 percent watch more than six hours per week. Within certain verticals, audiences are even more voracious: the 11 percent of respondents who preferred video game content watched more than 31 hours per week.

Ad blocking is also a concern, and more than one-half of survey participants said they always have their blockers turned on. However, that doesn't mean they don't see advertising content. 44 percent said they enjoyed watching well-made promotional videos. And this kind of video, particularly review content, has a large impact on purchase decisions. In fact, 85 percent reported that they are more likely to buy a product after watching a positive online video review from a trusted source like an influencer.

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Facebook, Instagram Head to Rio 2016 With NBC Olympics

Facebook and Instagram will be part of the NBC Olympics team for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games from Rio de Janeiro.

The partnership will kick in prior to the Aug. 5 Opening Ceremony, with Facebook and Instagram helping NBC Olympics “engage with new audiences around the spectacle and pageantry that occurs when the world comes together for the Games in Rio.”

NBC Olympics and Facebook will also create a Social Command Center in Rio de Janeiro, where producers from the television broadcaster will help create Facebook Live content featuring commentators and athletes.

A “full complement” of short-form videos will also be produced by NBC Olympics and be available via Facebook and Instagram in the U.S., including highlights and interviews. For example, a two-minute daily recap video will appear on Facebook daily for U.S. users, as well as a daily slow-motion video covering an inspiring moment in that day's competition, which will be featured on Instagram.

NBC Olympics commentators will appear on the @Instagram account and direct users to highlights via Instagram's search and Explore video channels.

Content related to the Games that is posted on Facebook and Instagram by athletes, celebrities and public figures will be incorporated into NBC Olympics' coverage, including primetime and late-night on NBC and on Spanish-language network Telemundo.

In addition, Ryan Seacrest, who is hosting NBC's late-night coverage, will highlight the content that draws the most buzz on Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook head of global sports partnerships Dan Reed said in a release presenting the details of the partnership:

We're excited to work with NBC Olympics to provide fans with a unique, immersive and engaging Rio 2016 experience on Facebook and Instagram. As a complement to NBC's programming, our platforms will allow fans to access, interact with and share a wide variety of engaging NBC video content from Rio to stay current and connect with their friends and communities. Together, our platforms will provide both a front-row seat and backstage pass to the biggest event of the year.

NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel added:

This partnership is about reaching fans on Facebook and Instagram with NBC's great and compelling Olympic content. It's about fueling the Olympic conversation and driving interest in watching the Games, and it's a natural outgrowth of our mission to share the powerful and captivating stories behind the world's most accomplished athletes.

Readers: Will you follow Rio 2016 via Facebook and Instagram?

Instagram Primes Advertisers for Rio 2016

According to a study by market research firm GfK, 80 percent of Instagram users plan to follow the 2016 Summer Olympic Games from Rio de Janeiro, with more than one-half planning to do so every day.

This presents opportunities for advertisers, as an Instagram for Business blog post also pointed out that 52 percent of Instagram users use mobile devices while watching sports on television, and two-thirds will likely seek Olympics-related news, stories and content on Instagram and Facebook.

GfK also found that 60 percent of Instagram users consume drinks while watching sports, and 64 percent consume snacks, which opened the door for one of the official sponsors of Rio 2016, Brazilian brewery Skol, to create an Instagram campaign showing people “How to Torcer,” or how to cheer, while promoting its beer.

Instagram added in its blog post:

With 83 percent of Instagrammers enthusiastic about the 2016 Olympics, take advantage by sharing creative that plays off the games. Share content that reflects the events while aligning to your brand, products or services. Include a popular Olympic hashtag or two, like: #bomdia, #rio2016, #riodejaniero, #familia, #brasil, #rio and #felicidad. And if you're running Olympic-specific ad campaigns, reach viewers by selecting specific targeting interests like 2016 Summer Olympics or Olympic Games.

Whether you're thinking about running Olympic-specific ads or simply content on your feed, with more than 250 million Instagrammers tuning into the big games this year, there's no better time to get in on the action.

Readers: Do you plan to follow Rio 2016 via Instagram?

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The social network has begun rolling out the feature, and users should start seeing it “in the coming days.”

The birthday videos function like the Friends Day videos Facebook introduced in February in celebration of its own birthday (No. 12): Users will see a prompt atop their News Feeds on their birthdays, after which they can preview the videos before they go live and add or remove specific posts.

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A total of 15 new sports-themed venues were introduced for SimCity BuildIt, and EA Mobile said these additions will help players attract new citizens and boost the populations of their cities.

New content will be released every week for the next four weeks, according to EA Mobile, and venues for every type of sport will be included.

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Twitter reached an agreement with ELEAGUE, a professional eSports organization formed by Turner Sports and WME | IMG, to provide live-streaming coverage of the semifinals and championship featuring Valve gaming title Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

The competitions will take place Friday and Saturday at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, starting at 5 p.m. ET Friday.

In addition to the live streaming, the @EL Twitter account will offer real-time highlights, GIFs, memes, statistics, score updates, Periscope content featuring ELEAGUE on-air talent and behind-the-scenes footage with players.

Twitter chief financial officer Anthony Noto said in a release announcing the pact:

eSports fans go to Twitter to see and talk about what is happening now in competitive gaming. Gamers are one of the largest and most engaged audiences on Twitter, and we are thrilled to partner with Turner and WME | IMG to bring them the live content from ELEAGUE and Twitter commentary they are already looking for, all on one screen.

ELEAGUE general manager and Turner Sports vice president of eSports Christina Alejandre added:

Twitter is the native social platform for eSports, and this partnership provides our passionate fans with an additional opportunity to consume ELEAGUE content as we reach the pinnacle of our first season. We're excited for our first ELEAGUE championship and look forward to offering these content experiences to our high-engaged fan base.

eSports fans: Are you excited?

Modern Love: Words With (I Wish We Were More Than) Friends

While searching online for a local woman to date, a man finds himself falling instead for a Scrabble-playing stranger on the other side of the world.

Didi Chuxing and Uber, Popular in China, Are Now Legal, Too

Although they have had huge success, and billions of dollars in investment, in the country, the ride-hailing services had operated in a legal gray area.

The Language of Fat Shaming on Twitter (Infographics)

As much as Twitter has become a hub for breaking news and a home for social TV engagement, it is not known as the most welcoming environment. In fact, sometimes Twitter is a downright hostile environment where hashtags get hijacked and harassment drives people to shut down their accounts.

Like others that face the same accusations, Twitter continues making efforts toward reducing harassment on the platform. Still, the harassing behaviors on Twitter may be a symptom of a larger culture issue. For instance, modern societies are notorious for their disdain for those considered overweight and, according to a report from EllipticalReviews.com, the anonymity of social media has made it easier to ridicule others.

EllipticalReviews analyzed more than 17,000 fat-shaming tweets to find out where they come from and what the language shamers use most often.

Wyoming and Vermont emerged as the origins of the most fat-shaming tweets. The report notes that both states have some of the lowest rates of obesity among children and adults, respectively. Interestingly, California is also among the states with the lowest rates of obesity and the lowest incidence of weight-shaming tweets.

The language of fat shaming on Twitter ranges from relatively benign phrases like “lose weight” to more hurtful phrases like “fat bitch,” the latter of which was most popular in Alaska.  

Globally, fat-shaming tweets were most prevalent in the U.S., which has a higher rate of obesity than other countries on average. However, according to the report, the words “fat and ugly” seem to be interchangeable in the modern world.

Check out the full report for more data and charts on the state of fat-shaming on Twitter.

Is D.N.C. Email Hacker a Person or a Russian Front? Experts Aren't Sure

The hack of the Democratic National Committee has focused wider attention on who, or what, is operating behind the internet moniker Guccifer 2.0.

Wife of Raif Badawi, Imprisoned Saudi Blogger, Feels Pain From Afar

Ensaf Haidar has had to watch from Canada, where she lives in asylum, as her husband was flogged for criticizing Saudi Arabia's religious establishment.

Amazon's Profits Grow More Than 800 Percent, Lifted by Cloud Services

Amazon reported net income of $857 million, the second quarter in a row it has shown a record profit even as it invests heavily in its own growth.

Bits: Facebook Casts a Giant Shadow Over Twitter

Facebook's quarterly revenue is up 50 percent and its monthly users 15 percent, versus Twitter's 20 percent growth and 3 percent rise in users.

Where a Suitcase Full of Cash Won't Buy You Lunch

Although America is far from being completely cashless, some restaurants are betting that customers will be comfortable forgoing cash for convenience.

Tech Fix: Alexa, What Else Can You Do? Getting More From Amazon Echo

Making Amazon's voice-activated speaker smarter is not intuitive, but with a little tinkering, consumers can expand its skills.

Where It Happens: How Scalpers Make Their Millions With 'Hamilton'

A sophisticated and lucrative bot operation on the secondary market for tickets is coming under scrutiny from legislators.

Twitter Stickers Now Available to All Users

The stickers feature for photos that Twitter announced in late June is now available to all users.

Twitter's stickers act as “visual hashtags,” meaning that users can tap on stickers to see a timeline of public photos where those stickers were used.

The social network commemorated the feature's global launch with its #StickTogether campaign, featuring leading digital creators.

Twitter users: Have you used #stickers yet?

When you place a sticker on a photo, you #StickTogether with others around the world.https://t.co/sibEWqSM08

- Twitter (@twitter) July 28, 2016

Yahoo and the Online Universe According to Verizon

In amassing Yahoo, AOL and other online services, Verizon is preparing for the day when its most important clients are advertisers, not users.

Bits: Farhad's and Mike's Week in Tech: The Cautionary Tale of the Fall of Yahoo

Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon shared their second-quarter earnings reports, and Yahoo agreed to sell itself to Verizon for about $5 billion.

The Interpreter: D.N.C. Hack Raises a Frightening Question: What's Next?

With Russia accused of injecting itself into the American presidential race, analysts worry that such attacks could become a routine element of geopolitics.

Verizon Is Said to Be Near a Deal to Acquire Yahoo

Verizon has long been considered a front-runner to buy Yahoo's core internet businesses. An announcement could come as early as next week.

If Your CEO Doesn't Understand Your Social Strategy, You Don't Have One

In my job, I spend a lot of time talking with Fortune 500 CEOs about their industries–what is working, what isn't, and what challenges are on the horizon. The biggest topic today: social. It's been widely embraced, yet it is not fully understood in the world of business-to-business marketing to date. Your company no doubt has a presence, but is it truly working? Is it driving revenue?

If you look at the data, with 61 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs not active on any social media channel, and fewer than 12 percent active on more than one channel, they likely don't personally understand how your social media strategy supports business objectives.

So now we know two things. First, these CEOs are not overly familiar with how social platforms work, and second, they are busy focusing on running a successful business. To get them on board, you need a clear, succinct message that ties back to financial realities of the company.

It's been more than one decade since social forever changed the balance of power, giving consumers a voice and enabling them to reach other consumers in real-time and at scale. Most recently, you can think of Chewbacca Mom's Candace Payne and the free advertising Kohl's received, or Alex Hamberger and the goodwill American Airlines earned by showing compassion.

Your brand needs market validation, and today, that comes solely from social engagement with consumers. The risk is real: If you're not listening and participating in the conversations your business loses, you're losing ground to competitors and, more directly, you're losing credibility in the boardroom.

Marketers are only recently embracing the fact that their brand messaging is a shared proposition. Peer-to-peer conversations make traditional digital advertising obsolete. If you want to resonate with your consumers and the boardroom, here are a few tips to build a social strategy that your CEO understands.

• Explain audience behavior: Even in the B2B world, people use each social platform for a different reason. Messaging must be targeted to each. A table that showcases audience targets in rows and social platforms in columns can provide the CEO with an easily digestible visual that shows how the brand messaging is consistent and how each platform is optimized contextually.


• Provide context: Illustrate how social is integrated into every marketing initiative. Whether it's an eBook, a whitepaper or a product launch, social is a key driver of distribution. Illustrate how it's baked into every program you run. This provides a framework for not just why social is important, but how it actually help drive inbound leads.


• Define measurable key performance indicators: B2B decisions require multiple touch points; it's not realistic to think that social media alone will drive a purchase decision. Social should provide content that delivers value. The goal is engagement and leads. Providing information or education that makes people feel and look smart will not only ensure they engage with you, but also encourages them to share with others. Create KPIs around your social messaging that measure the actions people take and the number of new leads generated.


• Correlate results: Looking at social numbers in vacuum misses their overall impact. It should go without saying, but you should be measuring everything you're doing. Assuming you are, you have a good baseline of how each channel performs. During each campaign, how are these numbers affected? Is there a correlation when social is active? Measuring this impact not only ensures you have optimized your message, it allows you to predict future success through causality. Believe me, CEOs love nothing more than a marketer who can deliver predictable, sustainable growth.


• Demonstrate use of proceeds: Remember, CEOs are focused on the big picture. Social is a key element of the marketing mix and typically requires external support. Whether you're working with an agency partner or paying for a social customer-relationship-management platform, make sure you demonstrate how you're leveraging third parties to increase return on investment.


• Build a data dashboard: Finally, provide a weekly (or monthly) dashboard. You literally can't be too data-driven. Getting your CEO on board with your social strategy is not a onetime exercise–show engagement and conversion trends over time. To gain credibility for social, every decision moving forward must be informed by data. This provides a clear ROI to your CEO on social activity.

For your social channel to have an impact, it's critical that you get alignment internally. If the CEO doesn't get it, you're just experimenting. Social is a key element of your marketing strategy, so make sure you have clearly articulated the strategy, defined the KPIs and demonstrated that you are measuring and optimizing every week to deliver better results.

Promise Phelon is CEO of influencer marketing company TapInfluence.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

These 3 Marketing Automation Tools Will Boost Your Site Growth

There's no denying a fact that most of marketing tasks we get to perform cannot (or should not) be automated. You cannot automate content creation and link acquisition. You'd better stay away from automating most of relationship building tasks. You cannot fully automate customer service, loyalty building and community nurturing.

However automation can reinforce your marketing efforts and a few powerful automation tools should definitely be on your marketing agenda (especially if you value your time and mind your budget).

1. Automate Your Email Marketing with GetResponse

GetResponse is the prime example of how automation not only saves your time but also discovers new marketing opportunities letting you engage customers exactly when they are ready to act. It has the most advanced marketing automation features I am aware of allowing you to automate your emails using advanced workflows you can build using a powerful editor:

Automate your emails using advanced workflows you can build using a powerful editor

Here's how you build the workflows using the visual editor:

That being said, you can send a customized and personalized email to someone who clicked a specific link, skipped your specific email, opted in on a specific date or using a specific landing page.

On top of that, there are more great online marketing features GetResponse offers:

• Web traffic tracking (more info)


• Conditions, Actions & Filters (more info)

I haven't had a chance to play with those yet but it would be amazing if those two spoke to their email marketing automation settings too!

In short, it looks like Getresponse is turning into an all-in-one online marketing platform with powerful marketing automation features.

2. Automate Your Automate Your Social Media Sharing with Viral Content Buzz

ViralContentBuzz.com offers you the most non-intrusive way to bring your content in front of the social media influencers and generate shares: You don't have to beg for shares, you just add your project for those looking for interesting content to discover and share it.

VCB RSS sharing feature lets you save time on adding projects: You add your RSS feed and whenever you have a new article going live, it will be automatically added to VCB.

This means, as soon as you publish an article, it gets shared by someone outside your immediate following which gives it an immediate social media boost.

Mind that ALL VCB projects go through moderation before appearing on the public dashboards which means two things:

• Automation in no way affects the quality of projects available for sharing


• RSS projects are not immediately added (it takes up to 6 hours to go through the premium review)

3. Automate Your Social Media Updates with DrumUp

There are quite a few tools that allow you somehow automate your own social media sharing. I like and use a few. In this article I am sharing my most recent find which I ended up using more often than the others.

DrumUp has two features I use (which are probably not unique but I like how they are set up):

• RSS to social media: Once you publish a new article, the update goes to your social media streams automatically. I wouldn't rely too much on this feature though: It's always best to share a new article manually (So you can make sure your post thumbnail looks nice or you can tag tools and people you mentioned in the article or you can immediately respond to the comments, etc. RSS to social media feature makes perfect sense when:
  
  
  
  • You share to branded accounts (Those that do nothing else but broadcast your site updates)
  
  
  • You plan a long trip and have a bunch of blog posts scheduled and want them to get shared on your social media accounts for more exposure.
  
  
  
  


• Recurring tweets: Here's one thing about Tweets you couldn't help but notice: Their life span is extremely short. An hour after your tweet goes live, no one will ever see it in most cases. You've probably seen only a couple of your tweets that lived for a day or two thanks to continuous retweets but that's extremely rare. That's why recurring tweets come so in handy. You can automate your tweet to go live a few more times throughout upcoming days and weeks for more of your followers to be able to see it.

A powerful alternative to DrumUp is Mavsocial which I am using quite often as well, especially for scheduling to multiple Facebook brand pages.

Bonus: Automate More with Zapie

Another recent discovery of mine, Zapie offers much more automation opportunities than you could imagine. It works by making any two online apps work together. Some examples of automation opportunities using Zapie:

• Automatically follow new Twitter users that mention search terms


• Automatically create Trello cards from new (starred / labeled) Gmail emails


• Automatically tweet posts from a Facebook page


• Automatically add new Facebook posts to an RSS feed


• Auto-share newsletter campaigns on your LinkedIn profile


• More!

A powerful alternative to Zapie is IFTTT (which I know is awesome but I haven't had a chance to play with it enough).

What do you automate in your marketing? What other powerful tools are you aware of? Please share!

Verizon Is Said to Be Near a Deal to Acquire Yahoo

Verizon has long been considered a front-runner to buy Yahoo's core internet businesses. An announcement could come as early as next week.

Robin Williams' Daughter Honors Dad's Legacy In The Best Way On His Birthday

Robin Williams would have turned 65 on Thursday. 

It's been almost two years since the beloved comedian died by suicide, leaving behind two sons and daughter Zelda Williams. 

Zelda, who now stars on Freeform's new series “Dead of Summer,” shared a touching post on Instagram to remember her father as a charitable soul on his birthday. 

“Still not really sure what to do on days like today… I know I can't give you a present anymore, but I guess that means I'll just have to keep giving them in your name instead,” she captioned a a black-and-white photo of Williams being embraced by his children. “Happy birthday Poppo. Shasha, Zakky, Codeman and I all love you and miss you like crazy. Xo”

Still not really sure what to do on days like today… I know I can't give you a present anymore, but I guess that means I'll just have to keep giving them in your name instead. This year, I tried to help three causes you cared about in one; rescue dogs, people suffering from disabilities, and our nation's wounded veterans, so I donated to freedomservicedogs.org. They rescue pups from shelters and train them so that they can be paired with someone in dire need of their help and companionship. Thought you'd get a kick out of furry, four legged friends helping change the world, one warrior in need at a time. Happy birthday Poppo. Shasha, Zakky, Codeman and I all love you and miss you like crazy. Xo

A photo posted by Zelda Williams (@zeldawilliams) on Jul 21, 2016 at 2:37am PDT

In her post, Williams also mentioned that her father was especially moved by causes that helped the lives of “rescue dogs, people suffering from disabilities, and our nation's wounded veterans.” In lieu of a gift, she chose to donate to Freedom Service Dogs of America, an organization that matches people with disabilities and rescue dogs trained to enhance the lives of their owners.

“They rescue pups from shelters and train them so that they can be paired with someone in dire need of their help and companionship,” Zelda added. “Thought you'd get a kick out of furry, four-legged friends helping change the world, one warrior in need at a time.”

When looking at the family photo Zelda shared, one can't help but be reminded by Williams' final Instagram post. Two weeks prior to his death, Williams shared a sweet black-and-white photo of himself and his young daughter to wish her the happiest of birthdays. 

#tbt and Happy Birthday to Ms. Zelda Rae Williams! Quarter of a century old today but always my baby girl. Happy Birthday @zeldawilliams Love you!

A photo posted by therobinwilliams (@therobinwilliams) on Jul 31, 2014 at 4:35pm PDT

“#tbt Happy Birthday to Ms. Zelda Rae Williams! Quarter of a century old today but always my baby girl,” he wrote alongside the photo. Happy Birthday @zeldawilliams Love you!”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Protesters burn flag outside GOP convention

Video shows protesters outside of the Republican Nation Convention setting fire to an American flag.

Feds want to seize $1 billion in corrupt assets

Instead of spending on Malaysian economic development, corrupt officials and financiers used money to buy real estate, art and a private jet says U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The government is looking to seize $1 billion in those assets.

Essay: My Hands Grip the Wheel Now, but Financial Autopilot Is Coming

Technology is fine for steering around traffic jams, but can it be trusted with our retirements?

Periscope Adds Editors' Picks Channel for Viewing Curated Streams

Periscope announced the release of an Editors' Picks channel within its live streaming application, which allows users to browse curated streams they may have missed. The streams are selected by Periscope's editorial team.

Users can find the Editors' Picks channel by tapping the search button and looking under the Broadcasts tab.

We're excited to announce our Editors' Picks channel! Browse for unique moments on #Periscope you may have missed. pic.twitter.com/1g1tXdCX9x

- Periscope TV (@periscopetv) July 14, 2016

The Editors' Picks channel features a variety of streams related to news events, culture and more. Depending on the video, the app may provide a brief explanation for why the content is significant.

Periscope is available to download for free on the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

Trump's day of meetings with VP picks

CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta reports on Donald Trump's unusually public VP selection process.

Pew: 72% of U.S. Adults Access News on Mobile Devices

Pew Research Center released the results of its two-part study, which analyzed the news consumption habits of U.S. adults. The findings showed TV remains the dominate source of news information for U.S. adults, as 57 percent of respondents said they 'often' get TV-based news. In addition, 38 percent of respondents said they 'often' get news from online sources, including social media, websites and apps.

The study found mobile news consumption has increased, as 72 percent of U.S. adults said they 'ever' get news on mobile devices, up from 54 percent in 2013. Two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents said they get news from both mobile devices and desktops/laptops, and of those users, 56 percent said they preferred mobile.

In terms of the trustworthiness of news sources, 22 percent of U.S. adults said they had 'a lot' of trust in the information they receive from local news organizations, while 60 percent said they had 'some' trust in the information they receive from those sources. For national news organizations, 18 percent of respondents said they had 'a lot' of trust in the information they receive from those sources, while 59 percent had 'some' trust.

When it comes to social media, the report showed only four percent of web-using U.S. adults said they had 'a lot' of trust in the information they receive from social media, while 30 percent said they had 'some' trust in that information.

Elsewhere, 26 percent of social media news consumers said they 'often' click on links to news stories on social media, while 54 percent said they 'sometimes' do. In addition, the report showed 11 percent of social media news consumers 'often' share or repost news stories on social media, while 38 percent said they 'sometimes' do. Finally, only five percent of social media news consumers said they 'often' discuss issues in the news on social media, while 26 percent said they 'sometimes' do.

Pew's complete report is available here.