Tag Archives: Social Media

The parent of Snapchat are going public

Snapchat is one of the biggest favorite apps in the social media universe at the moment. Its founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy filed confidentially to go public with SEC late last year, and now they are ready to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SNAP.

Snap`s revenue rose to $404,5 million, which is eight times higher than their revenue in 2015. In Q4 Snap had 158 million daily active users (up 48%), and many of my friends and family members are one of them. 2,5 billion Snaps are created every day.

 

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Snap Inc is a camera company, and in the SEC filings they say: “We blive that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate.

Our products empower people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together».

Worldwide advertising spend is expected to grow from $652 billion in 2016 to $767 billion in 2020. The fastest growing segment is mobile advertising, which is expected to grow nearly 3x from $66 billion in 2016 to $196 billion in 2020.

Snap belive that one of the major factors driving this growth is the shift of people`s attention from their televisions to their mobile phones. According to Nielsen, people between the ages of 18 and 24 spent 35% less time watching traditional television in an average month during the second quarter of 2016 compared to the second quarter of 2010.

A huge difference between Facebook at Twitter is that Snap Inc doesnt have their own server farm, which makes it more expensive which means Snaps earnings can look much lower that those who have their own server farm.

Snap Inc lost $514 million in 2016, which is up from about $373 million. Some of that money goes to Google because Snap Inc rents storage and server space from them. New legislation that would change U.S, or foreign taxation of international business activities or other tax-reform policies could also seriously harm their business.

Benchmark Capital owns about 10% og the company. Lightspeed Venture Partners owns 8,3%, and Institutional Venture Partners owns 4%.

Snap are looking to raise up to $3 billion, and Snaps offering is being led by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Morgan Stanley won the desired «lead left» position on the prospectus. The bank also led Facebooks initial public offering.

 

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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The best social network advertisers love the most

How in the world are you gonna survive on this planet without marketing? The answer is very simple; you wont. How can you expect your customers to buy your product if they don`t know about you?

You need to brand your business and let people know about you, and the more they know about you, the more they will talk about you and remember you. Word of mouth is cheap and an extremely powerful form of advertisement, but is that enough?

Social media is the real big thing at the moment. Your competitors are using it. Your customers are using it, and so need you. This form of media advertising is extremely powerful, and by one simple click, you give them all something positive to talk about; Your products.

 

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You need to be were your customers are; on social media. You can`t run from it, so you may as well embrace it. The only way to connect with them is to make your online presence known. So, what platform do marketers spend time and money on, and who are the best? The answer is simple; Facebook!

Social media is a must. It makes you communicate with your customers and that will significantly increase your brand visibility. Traditional marketing in paper media could increase your traffic, but social media will bring people together, and your friends and followers will talk about you. That in turn will increase your revenue.

As you can see from the chart above, Facebook is by far the most popular network of choice. All marketers are using it, but Twitter can be replaced as the second most popular social media platform.

Instragram is third right now, but that seems to change very soon. A fresh new report claims that Instagram is quickly gaining popularity among marketers and could soon take Twitter`s place as the second most important social advertising channel.

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook revealed in its recent earnings report that more than 200,000 businesses around the world advertise on Instagram each and every month. Instagram and its network is available in more than 30 countries and their popularity is growing.

People come to Instagram for visual inspiration, and advertising on Instagram has the power to touch, inspire and move people. Instagram ads have proven to drive strong branding results. 97% of measured campaigns on Instagram have generated significant lifts in ad recall.

Instagram is expected to grow a lot further in the future.

 

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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Facebook is the KING of social media networks

Facebook is the KING!

The king of social media is without any doubt Facebook. The stock is up over 300% since 2013. Mobile ads helped Facebook`s revenue and stock price to skyrocket and their growth prospects comes from VR, Messenger and payment. Financial services are also coming.

Facebook has 1,5 Billion monthly active users, which is more than the world`s most populous country; China. Awesome!

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Of course I am impressed. Facebook has been very aggressive and proactive in their development of advertisement. This is not what you can say about Twitter. Facebook has differentiated their advertisement offerings within the News feed.

This is what Twitter needs. A product like Facebook’s News feed, and 1,5 billion active users, and about 1 Billion DAU`s. They have differentiated the News feed, and these differentiated News feed can help marketers with targeted ads. What marketer in this world would say no to that? Their online advertising growth is accelerating.

Facebook continue to offer services focused on people, marketers and developers and their MAU`s speaks for itself. People are engaged in their activities in all their various platforms which is Facebook, Instagram, messenger and Whatsapp.

Why are people so active on these platforms? People are active to share their opinions, ideas, photos and videos and to engage in other activities. They can also connect, discover and communicate with each other on mobile devices and personal computers.

Another innovation is Facebook’s e-commerce functionality where you can simply buy products direct from your own Facebook site. This comes on top of Facebook’s Instant Articles publishing platform. All this will increase their advertising revenue, which is expected to have increased 50% YoY, ex-FX.

In April 2014, Facebook acquired ProtoGeo Oy, which is a Helsinki-based developer of software for smartphones. In July 2014, they acquired Oculus VR Inc, which is an Irvine-based developer of virtual mobile gaming application software, and as you may know; they are the owner of WhatsApp.

What we see in these markets is only the beginning. An early stage. They have many opportunities as long as they have a massive user base. F or example, the online dating market generated $2,2 Billion in revenue in the U.S in 2014. Facebook can easily take a huge stake in this market if they want. That comes on top of travel, utilities, messenger and e-commerce to name a few.

Facebook will report earnings on Wednesday. Facebook`s earnigs per share forecast for the fiscal Quarter ending September 2015 is $0,35, which is up from last years $0,32. Revenue is expected to jump +37% YoY, to $4,176 million, which is a growth of over 40% since last year.

Facebook after the bell on Wednesday 4 November 2015.

 

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication. UA-63539824-1.

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Pinterest IPO

The biggest IPO last year was without any doubt Alibaba. It was the biggest IPO in history. How is it gonna be in 2015? Let`s face it; it`s not enough money out there to soak up all the shares, so I don`t think we will see a new Alibaba IPO in the near future.

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But there are many other interesting small companies planning to go public, and pinterest is one of them. Rumours have been in the market for a long time, but nothing have happened. They maybe think that 2015 is a bad timing?

Pinterest was first conceptualized in December 2009 by cofounders Ben Siberman, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra. The first prototype was launched in March 2010 and made available to a small group of colleagues and family members.

Baby photos and snapshots are still hot and people are still in love with social networking. Millions of people use social networking every day and Facebook is still the leader in this market. Facebook should pay attention to mobile social networking like Pinterest because here is where the next phase of growth is in the future.

Facebook is the biggest followed by Twitter, but what most people don`t know is that right behind Twitter is Pinterest. Facebook and Twitter is both noted on the stock exchange and the third biggest can be the next to go public.

Pinterest is revolutionising the world of interior design and the usage in Britain grew by about 130 percent last year. Millions of home dècor pins are pinned to the site every day. The site is not only a site for pinners.

It can also be a great commercial tool, and the site is one of the fastest growing platform for online content sharing, which means a good place to be for small businesses. If you ar more interesting in sport, food, cars, finance or business, you can simply save interesting articles with the Pinterest browser button.

The most popular categories on Pinterest are food & drink, DIY & crafts, woman`s apparel, home decor and travel.

Pinterest offers a visual discovery, collection sharing and storage tool, and the users can create and share the collections of visual bookmarks (boards). Boards can develop projects, organize events, or save pictures and data together.

Boards are created through a user selecting an item, page, website, etc, and pinning it to an existing or newly created board. Users save ans share pins from multiple resources onto boards based on a plethora of criteria, e.g similar characteristics, a theme, birthday parties, planning a vacation, writing a book, interior decorating or holidays.

This is a free website that requires registration to use. Once you are registered, you can upload, sort and manage images (known as pins) and other media content (video, images) through collections known as pinboards. No advertisements are displayed but companies have pinboards displaying their products.

Pinterest allows businesses to create pages aimed at promoting their companies online. Such pages can serve as a «virtual storefront». In a case study of a fashion website, users visiting from Pinterest spent $180 compared to $85 spent from users coming from Facebook. Studies also showed that Pinterest is more effective at driving sales than other forms of social media.

In early 2011, the company secured a $10 million USD Series A financing led by Jeremy Levine and Sarah Tavel of Bessemer Venture Partners. In October , after an introduction from Kevin Hartz and Jeremy Stoppelman, the company secured $27 million USD in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, which valued the company at $200 million USD. In May 2015, Pinterest was valued at $5 billion.

If you have your dream house, you should start on a Pinterest board.

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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Ello is Anti-Facebook

There has been a lot of buzz about the anti-Facebook stance from the new start-up Ello. The new site does not accept advertising and have no data mining. At the moment, you can`t participate, unless you have an invitation to join the community.

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(Picture: Ello logo)

Those Ello people do not like Facebook`s business model. They obviously don`t like to be a part of facebook as they feel they are the product, while the network is owned by advertisers. And this is exactly how they do it on Facebook.

They track every post you share with your friends, every friend you make on Facebook and the links you follow. All this is recorded while advertisers can buy the data and show you more ads. Ello obviously don`t like this, and belive they have a better business model.

The founder Paul Budnitz, which is also the founder of the cool bikes called Budnitz Bicycles, launched the site Ello earlier this year and say he has seen thousands of sign-ups an hour to Ello the last week, and it seems like this site is now taking off.

Ello is made by designers and they have a manifesto, which is;

Your social network is owned by advertisers.

Every post you share, every friend you make, and every link you follow is tracked, recorded, and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.

We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity, and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.

We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate — but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life.

You are not a product.

How will Ello survive without advertising? Are people willing to pay for a subscription? It can be a site for artists and musicians as they have the problem with Facebook`s policy to use their pseudonyms as part of their profession.

But I don`t think that billions of people will run from site to site as a new one is launched. Ello will probably end up as a niche community for musicians and drag artists, among others, who want to use pseudonyms to protect themselves. Your friends on Facebook will still be on Facebook I think.

It`s ads and banners everywhere and the ads on Facebook and their data commercialization is not an issue people out there care enough about, so shareholders should stay calm and relax. People will stay and continue to be active on Facebook.

Ello is a mix between Facebook and Tumblr and I think it will be heavy to compete with Facebook right now. There are a lot of social networks out there and I feel that Ello is just another Google+, and If they didn`t make it, why should Ello? And do we need them all? In my eyes yes, but only if they have a product.

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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