Linkedin has announced plans of a new app for the iPad, as its plans gather apace in the mobile domain.

The site which was created to help professionals network has over 150 million users now.

Following the success of an app for smartphones, the company has announced it is making its iPad app available to download.

The smartphone app features in-application advertising space, it is thought that the company will also create space to be used on its new offering for tablet devices, thus opening up a new revenue stream for the Company.

Mobile advertising in the UK is on the rise, recent research by InMobi showed that during the first quarter of the year, more than 9.5 billion ad impressions were seen.

SMX London Boot Camp at SMX London, 14 May 2012 – Learn the Search Marketing Basics http://ow.ly/ayhC8

Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the U.S. according to the new 2012 Digital Marketer report from Experian.

According to Experian, Pinterest attracted 21.5 million visits in the week ending January 28, 2012 – representing a 30-fold increase compared to 6 months earlier. 60% of Pinterest users are Female, with 55% of the user base being between the ages of 25 and 44.

Pinterest users post photos of “Products They Love,” and as such there is huge potential for retail marketing.

For more Information:-
Social Media Marketing – Pinterest

Russian Internet Mobile usage is on the rise according to recent reports form Mobtop in Russia.

Russia still lags behind the rest of the Western world, but is seemingly catching up, with 2.5% increases registered during the 1st 2 months of 2012.

The profile of the Mobile user base remains predominantly young and male. Interestingly, Nokia holds by far the largest market share in Russia, with the iPhone barely registering. Android shows a very strong growth, driven by availability of lower price devises, compared iPhone.

Google is not the only Search Engine updating its’ algorithm currently. Yandex, Russia’s biggest Search Engine with 64% market share, has also recently been revisiting indexation protocol.

Key implications of this can be summarised:-

– Better rankings for strong brands. The evidence suggests that Yandex is going the same way as Google on favouring well-established brands on organic search. This shift is likely to drive more small to mid-sized companies to advertise on Yandex.Direct ads.

– Increased focus on user-generated content. Again, following the Google path, it appears that blogs, user-generated content is having increased traction on Yandex.

– Importance of Yandex Market. Yandex Market is a version of Google Shopping. Customer reviews from Yandex Market are ranking higher than ever on Yandex, meaning that more e-com sites are likely to be actively using Yandex Market.

– Yandex SERPs have become more social – Yandex (like Baidu recently) are now showing links to social media profiles in page snippets principally to Facebook, vKontakte, Twitter and LiveJournal. In order to get these links in your snippet, the social profiles need to be linked from your website.

Currently snippets with social medial links are only available for certain verticals (gifts and travel amongst others), although this is likely to apply to a broader range of verticals later this year.

The Facebook interface changes that came out of the recent fMC conference are imminent, here’s a summary of the main changes affecting businesses:-

1: Cover Photo and Profile Image
One of the biggest changes relates to the cover photo. No more photo strip across the top. You now have one large image to showcase your page. This image must be a minimum of 399 pixels across to be used as the cover photo. But you can have a photo cover designed to take advantage of the extra space you get. The cover photo maximum dimensions are 850 pixels by 315 pixels.

2: Larger, Highlighted and Pinned Posts
To help you tell your stories, the pictures and videos are now larger and more eye-catching.
You can also highlight a story (by clicking the star icon in the upper right of a post) so that it spans all the way across the Timeline as shown in this Lexus post with a video.

3: Setting Company Milestones
Another thing you can add to make your Timeline more interesting is Milestones. You can tell people about big events in the life of your brand or company.
All you need to do is click on the line that runs down the middle of your Timeline and select Milestone. Then you can fill out the information as shown.

4: New Applications
One of the biggest changes is the removal of the default landing tab.
Applications are still available and if you have created a custom welcome tab or added any other special application, it hasn’t disappeared.
You now have 12 applications you can showcase and only the four applications that you move to the top row will appear prominently. You cannot change the position of the photos, so technically you only have three applications that you have control over in that top row .

5: Facebook Offers
Only a few companies have access to Facebook Offers currently, but it will be rolled out soon. According to Facebook’s Offer Help section, they “expect to make Offers available more broadly soon.”

6: Facebook Insights, Admin Panel and Messaging
Another change with the Timeline is the location of the Insights. You can now access them by clicking on the Admin Panel in the upper right corner.

The Admin Panel tells you about new notifications and gives you access to the “back-end” of your Facebook page.
The Admin Panel has much different navigation than before, but everything appears to be there.

7: Facebook Advertising
Another new announcement that was covered in the fMC Conference was some changes to advertising. The ads will be larger and the product names are the Reach Generator and Premium on Facebook.

The Reach Generator is designed to reach more of your existing fans than you currently are reaching through the news feed.

Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook’s director of global business marketing, said that currently pages only reach about 16% of their audience each week with posts. With the Reach Generator ads, pages can reach 50% of their fans each week and 75% each month. Beta testing done by brands such as Ben and Jerry’s was able to reach 98% of fans and double engagement.

The Reach Generator ads are designed to connect to your existing audience and will include the Page Post stories. The ads will not be based on CPC or CPM models, but will be an “always on” ad. These ads will be shown on the right side of the page and they will also go into the news feed and mobile streams. Learn more about this product in Facebook’s Reach Generator Guide.

Aston Martin Opens a Flagship Showroom in Shanghai. High end Car manufacturers continue to invest heavily in China. It will be fascinating to see the impact that China has on luxury Western car sales.
http://www.astonmartin.com/news/news-archive/aston-martin-opens-flagship-showroom-in-shanghai

Bing increases UK market-share to almost 4%. Source: Hitwise
http://www.hitwise.com/uk/press-centre/press-releases/microsoft-bing-improves-uk-search-market-share/

Facebook versus Google in the adspend battle. Facebook Adspend showing an 81% increase this year: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/03/technology/facebook_google_fight.fortune/

Tumblr is the second most viewed social destination after Facebook in the UK – Neilsen Social Media Report Q3 – http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/social/