Search traffic to publishers has taken a dive in the last eight months, with traffic from Google dropping more than 30% from August 2012 through March 2013, according to research done by BuzzFeed. While Google makes up the bulk of search traffic to publishers, traffic from all search engines has dropped by 20% in the same period.

Of the three major search engines — Google, Yahoo and Bing — only Yahoo saw growth in this period. While Yahoo grew search traffic in this period, it sent 21M referrals to publishers in March, less than half of the 48M referrals sent by Google. Traffic from Bing dropped 12%.

In the past, we've reported how referrals from social platforms like Facebook to the BuzzFeed Network were growing, and at times sending more traffic than search. While that difference was at times marginal — 5 to 10M referrals — its now sustained and significant. In March, Facebook sent 1.5x more traffic than Google, the greatest difference we've ever measured between the platforms. At the same time, we've watched traffic from other social platforms — Twitter and Pinterest -—continue to grow an audience and drive traffic traffic to publishers. "Dark social," that netherland of direct traffic, is also accelerating on the network, growing referral traffic to publishers by 52% over the past twelve months. By comparison, referrals from social platforms, i.e. the Facebooks, Twitters, Pinterests and Reddits of the world, grew by 25%. It begs the question, could direct traffic be taking the place of search?

the so-called "long-read" could be seen as a nutritious, well-balanced meal, while snackable content is the fast food of the content world.

So "snackable content" is short-form data — be it text, imagery or video — that consumers can quickly engage with, possibly on-the-go, possibly on a smaller screen, that will hopefully leave them hungry for more, similar content in the future.

Facebook had 751 million monthly active users on mobile as of the end of March, a 54% increase from the same quarter a year ago

Mobile ad revenue now accounts for 30% (or about $375 million) of Facebook's $1.25 billion in total ad revenue. In the previous quarter, mobile represented 23% of the company's total ad revenue.

Pela primeira vez, o investimento publicitário em Internet no Brasil ultrapassou o montante destinado a revistas. Assim indicam os dados do Projeto Inter-Meios relativos aos primeiros dois meses do ano. No período em análise, a web recebeu 189,7 milhões de reais (cerca de 72,4 milhões de euros), sem contar com as redes sociais e os motores de busca. Superando, assim, os 188,42 milhões de reais (cerca de 72 milhões de euros) investidos em revistas.

According to data collected from the BuzzFeed Partner network, which tracks visitors to an assortment of major news and entertainment sites with over 350 million combined monthly visitors, Facebook accounts for over 75 million — more than 20%. The number is certainly higher for many newer media organizations, such as BuzzFeed, whose audiences depend on social networks for news.

The rise of Facebook referrals in the BuzzFeed network has corresponded, at least recently, with a fall in Google referrals. One, in other words, is replacing the other. But replacements are never exact: Facebook overtaking MySpace, a superficially similar service, had the effect of pumping millions of eyeballs to outside media organizations; as Facebook's real, identity-bound photos and personal information glued users to the site in a way that MySpace's cluttered data never could, Facebook's News Feed directed them outward in a way that MySpace's blog-centric design never did.

Recent research suggests that the next wave of social networks may not be as generous to outside content providers. Instagram and Vine and Snapchat and WhatsApp and Kik do not replace Facebook and Twitter in terms of functionality, but that doesn't matter — they draw from the same pool of available attention. Facebook stole users' attention from MySpace by being a better MySpace, then it grew into something more — the new wave of apps (and yes, they're mostly apps) is stealing attention away from Facebook by each being something less

Seventy percent of brand engagement on the social scrapbooking platform is driven by users—that is, users pinning brand content outside of brands' own Pinterest accounts—versus only 30 percent generated by brands pinning something that users repin, comment on or otherwise interact with.

fashion/retail brands that see 82 percent of their engagement come straight from the community. Meanwhile, auto brands saw 75 percent of their engagement from the community, and electronics brands saw a more even-keeled 53 percent engagement from the community.

Brands that want to join those conversations should create images that users will want to share.

Care about consumers’ experiences; don’t aim to disrupt what they’re trying to do. To that point, don’t expect an exchange of value in order to get a consumer to disclose personal information to the brand. If you are getting information from a consumer, use it to improve his or her experience. Don’t cannibalize the relationship being established.

innovation is often triggered by those too naïve to be aware of why something can’t be done

Innovations happen when you take beta concepts live, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by opportunity.

the role of content strategy is focused on the brand’s relationship with its target audience

with your content. Desktop PCs and laptops are where the internet matured, but nothing in technology stands still – and while platforms such as game consoles and TVs are currently underutilised, this will not be for long. It’s clear that mobile devices will be key in the future, but smartphones and tablets are not yet fully featured computers, and this poses one of the biggest challenges.

when planning you will need to ensure that your content is planned and built so that it renders in the way you intend on different browsers, operating systems, native mobile interfaces, mobile applications, media players and access technologies.

During “primetime,” which for apps also includes those “after-work” hours of around 7 to 10 p.m., app usage among the top 250 iOS and Android applications spikes to a peak of 52 million consumers, the company found.

App usage tends to drop off overnight, and weekends see higher daytime app usage through the day (9-5). During the normal workday, people use apps at least 75 percent as much as on weekends

reaching the key 18 to 49-year-old demographic using traditional media will become increasingly difficult as they turn towards digital media more. Flurry cited a report from Morgan Stanley, which showed that there has been a 50 percent decline in TV audience ratings since 2002

audience for mobile apps has hit 58 million in primetime — 8 p.m.

The IAB estimates that the U.S. mobile ad market brought in $3.4 billion in 2012. The IAB didn't break out revenues for apps vs. the mobile web, but Flurry has estimated that 80% of mobile activity occurs on apps

Kantar Media calculated that TV advertising accounted for $74 billion in ad revenues in 2012. Even if apps generated 100% of mobile ad revenues, the market would still be just 4.5% that of TV.

content-out design4 — the concept of determining how your design should shift for varying displays by focusing not on screen sizes, but on where your content naturally breaks down.

if you want to ready your content to be more flexible and adaptable, then you can’t just look at each page individually. You need to start finding patterns in the content.

Each bit of structure you add gives you options: new abilities to control how and where content should be presented to best support its meaning and purpose.

Digital advertising revenues climbed to a milestone high of $36.6 billion in 2012

That historic number marks a 15 percent rise over 2011’s full-year number, which itself had been the highest on record, at $31.7 billion.

2012’s fourth quarter numbers, at $10.3 billion, rose by 14.9 percent from $9 billion in the final quarter of 2011. These 2012 Q4 figures represent an uptick of 11.6 percent over Q3 2012, which came in at $9.2 billion.

30% of teens name Twitter as their most important social network, close behind the 33% who tab Facebook

Google+ (down 1% point to 5%); Tumblr (up 1% point to 4%); and Pinterest (flat at 2% points)

The trends favor Twitter, though: compared to the last survey, conducted in the Fall of 2012, the proportion of teens naming Facebook as their most important has dropped 9% points, while those naming Twitter have grown by 3% points. Instagram is also gaining, up 5% points to 17% indicating it as their most important social network.

what about Cisco? Stock is up 19% over the last six months too, while Twitter reflects 82% bearish sentiment. Apple? Stock is down 33% in the last six months, while Twitter sentiment remains neutral.

some stocks like Microsoft accurately reflect their Twitter sentiment: Microsoft is up 23% in the last six months, with 71% of tweets cheering the company on.

Facebook has been losing traffic and sales since the 2012 holidays, while Pinterest has been steadily trending upward.

Facebook’s share of traffic hit 92 percent in mid-December, then plummeted to 69 percent in the week leading up to Easter. Pinterest has grown from 6 percent to 25 percent in that time. Also in mid-December, at the peak of the holiday shopping season, Facebook’s market share of sales hit 89 percent, then fell to 78 percent by Easter. Pinterest grew from 10 percent to 21 percent in that same period.

the fundamental differences in how people use Facebook and Pinterest make the latter a better option for commerce. She likened Facebook ads to a marketer pitching wares while users are having conversations with friends, while Pinterest is more like window shopping at a store that the user chooses.

Earlier this month, Facebook unveiled a new metric for evaluating advertising campaigns on Facebook, called "cost per action" (CPA). Now, advertisers can pay not just for impressions or click-throughs, but for specific actions they want consumers to perform once they've seen an ad — including becoming a fan of a Page. For example, an advertiser could specify it is willing to pay $2.00 for a "Like" — that is, for a new fan on its company or product Page — and only pay when the Page gets a new fan. Other actions include Offer claims and clicks on links to third-party sites.

a fan is worth an average of $174 to a company. But as the chart below shows, the value of a fan can differ widely across companies:

"Marketers should define the value of a fan based on how it impacts the key criteria that determines the success or failure of their business," says Kalehoff. Specifically, marketers should measure the spending habits of fans versus non-fans, to see if fans are more likely to make a purchase, make purchases at great amounts and/or purchase repeatedly. Advocacy — the probability of a customer recommending a product to others, and the probability of that recommendation to affect sales — is another key metric. Another area that is more difficult to measure is brand affinity — that is, the emotional draw that a customer feels towards a brand because of the relationship that develops between brands and fans over Facebook. If positive brand affinity tends to be a powerful sales indicator on other channels, it may be worth cultivating on Facebook, too.