Automaker tells ClickZ it will continue advertising on the social site. While General Motors may halt Facebook advertising, according to a Wall Street Journal story today, Ford has a different attitude toward paid promotions on the social site.

Social media advertising revenues in the U.S. will grow from $3.8 billion in 2011 to $9.8 billion in 2016, according to BIA/Kelsey's U.S. Local Media Forecast )2011-2016(. The leap would represent a compound annual growth rate of 21 percent.

The big data-driven audience targeting system will combine Yahoo's registration, search, and behavioral data with information from 25 data sources, along with advertiser data, to perform predictive modeling for ad targeting and optimization.

Facebook is testing a feature to see if users will pay a couple bucks to have their posts more prominently featured on the social network. The paid user posts would be placed atop news feeds and be marked as "Highlighted.

Facebook is testing a feature to see if users will pay a couple bucks to have their posts more prominently featured on the social network. The paid user posts would be placed atop news feeds and be marked as "Highlighted.

Facebook is rolling out its Offers marketing platform to local businesses in the U.S.. Before, Offers - which competes with Google's platform by the same name - had been available to a limited number of test partners during the last four months.

Yahoo Small Business hopes to grow by offering small businesses an integrated marketing dashboard to manage and expand their digital marketing efforts. The dashboard provides a consolidated view of a business's marketing results and reputation.

Foursquare will charge businesses a fee of $10 to instantly verify their page online. In the past, restaurants, bars, and shops have had to mail in their application and wait for approval. The process typically took weeks to complete.

in "Optimize", Lee Odden contends that it takes many stakeholders in an organization - and not just on the marketing team - to contribute to an effective content marketing program and integrate it with search and social marketing.

Facebook's ad revenue totaled $872 million during Q1 2012, up 37 percent from the $637 million it took in during the same period the year before, according to its amended S-1 filing released yesterday. Total revenue reached $1.

Facebook's new analytics are designed to make paid advertisers feel better about their spends. In the coming weeks, the social network's Ads Manager dashboard will no longer simply be about how many click-throughs or Likes a paid promotion creates.

Foursquare hopes to launch paid search during the next two months. Merchants will be able to promote check-in deals on the platform when users search for local specials, employing the same algorithms currently used on the app's "Explore" tab.

Digital marketers praised Google's new measurement tools designed to measure whether an ad has actually been viewed - called Active View and Active GRP - but said they might not go far enough to make display advertising more accountable.

Yahoo's 2012 Q1 search revenue was $470 million, up 3 percent compared to the same quarter for the previous year. The company's search sales have evidently steadied after falling 27 percent year-over-year in 2011 Q4 due to the Microsoft partnership.

Facebook Offers are now available to more brands, including some international marketers. The Offers will be distributed to advertiser's likes/fans in the news feed on the social site. Claimed deals will trigger an ad in friends' news feeds.

Tech giant's Q1 earnings call reveals $10 billion in ad sales, as CPC falls again. Execs for the technology giant assigned multiple reasons for the price decline; shift towards mobile usage, increased targeting capabilities, and higher click volume.

Retail is inherently visual, so it comes as no surprise that two of the biggest online sellers - Amazon and eBay - have added Pinterest buttons to product pages. Expect more online retailers to add the Pinterest button to product pages.

The $1 billion purchase gives Facebook more ownership over the photo-sharing space. As Facebook has recently begun distributing ads via mobile, Instagram's audience and technology should facilitate Facebook's mobile monetization goals.

Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the U.S. and could help foster "meaningful connections" between retailers and consumers. That's according to a lengthy new 2012 Digital Marketer report from Experian.

Facebook is testing out a new design and set of features in the self-service ads creation tool. Campaigns will include both precise and broad category targeting. Facebook is also alerting Page admins that check-in numbers will be updated.