Five on Friday: Monetization, Expansion and Crowdfunding

Featuring Recurly, Ayden, Facebook, Conde Nast and Gawker

Five on Friday: Monetization

Source: Bigstock Photo

The week is winding down, and we are ready for a long, holiday weekend. As you prepare for the holidays, check out this week’s edition of Five on Friday. Ayden and Recurly are teaming up to help subscription business expand across the globe, Facebook is finalizing monetizing WhatsApp, we share social media resources for newbies, Conde Nast announces two new video ventures, and former Gawker staffers are trying to revive Gawker as a nonprofit with crowdfunding. 

 

 

Adyen and Recurly Combine Strengths to Help Subscription Companies Expand Internationally

 Expansion and Crowdfunding

Source: Recurly

Last week Recurly, Inc. and Adyen announced they are partnering to help subscription businesses grow outside the U.S. through a new integration, reports Payment Week. By combining their respective strengths, Recurly and Adyen can offer subscription merchants around the world a wide range of payment types to suit the needs and currencies of in different countries.

Five on Friday: Monetization

Source: Ayden

‘Subscription businesses can differentiate themselves on the global stage by delivering frictionless experiences with a variety of payment options,’ said Kamran Zaki, North America President of Adyen. ‘Our integration with Recurly helps subscription businesses provide seamless and secure payment experiences and increase revenue opportunities worldwide.’

‘Global subscription businesses require a payment processing partner equipped to handle the unique requirements of cross-border commerce,’ said Recurly CEO Dan Burkhart. ‘The Recurly and Adyen partnership provides a distinctive set of capabilities for subscription businesses to rapidly expand their offerings outside the continental U.S. market.’

Read more about the partnership at PaymentWeek.com.

Facebook to Monetize WhatsApp with New Ad Option

 Expansion and Crowdfunding

Source: Facebook

While WhatsApp has said it won’t include ads within its app, Facebook is still trying to figure out how to monetize it. To that end, last week Facebook launched a new ad unit where businesses can create a link between Facebook and WhatsApp. Advertisers can include a button on their ads so people can call or message using WhatsApp by clicking on the button, says TechCrunch. It will first roll out the new option in North and South America, Africa, Australia and much of Asia.

According to TechCrunch, more than 1 million pages are already integrating the two apps, including their WhatsApp numbers in their posts, allowing customers to contact them via WhatsApp.

‘Many people already use WhatsApp to communicate with small businesses. It’s a fast, convenient way to stay in touch,’ said Pancham Gajjar, product marketing manager, Facebook, in a statement. ‘By adding a click-to-WhatsApp button to Facebook ads, businesses can now make it even easier for people to learn about their products, set up an appointment or use their service.’

Read more about the new ad units on TechCrunch here.

5 Social Media Marketing Resources for Newbies

Five on Friday: Monetization

Source: Bigstock Photo

Social media is part of every marketer’s job these days, but it changes so quickly that it can be hard to keep up, especially as platforms come and go. If you’re relatively new to social media, or just want to brush up on your skills, the marketing experts at Hubspot offers some great resources for newbies in Ryan Scott’s article, ‘How to Learn Social Media Marketing: 30 Resources for Beginners.’ Here are five of our favorites.

  1. Social Media Examiner: helpful blog posts, downloads and links
  2. Social Media Explorer: a great collection of tools and tips
  3. The Social Toolkit: a social media marketing podcast with digital tools, apps and software, by Social Fresh
  4. The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media: a downloadable guide of tips about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more from Moz
  5. 58 Social Media Tips for Content Marketing: a SlideShare collection of tips from the Content Marketing Institute

For more social media marketing resources, read Scott’s complete article on Hubspot here

Conde Nast New Video Opportunities for Advertisers

 Expansion and Crowdfunding

Source: Bigstock Photo

Conde Nast continues its digital transformation with two new video products, reports Media Post: Conde Nast Prime and 1 Billion Views. Prime features returning and new series, organized by the most popular videos in each category, and includes branded series including ’73 Questions’ by Vogue and ‘Fear Box by Vanity Fair. 1 Billion Views shares Conde Nast’s most popular videos, including those with more than 1 billion views across platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.

These new products are a way for advertisers to connect more directly with Conde Nast viewers. In November Conde Nast reported that its YouTube channel had more than 189 million views, Facebook had 594 million total global views and 227 million views on its websites.

‘We have created and scaled a next-gen network of premium video storytelling that is driving the highest levels of audience engagement and attention to our brands, and now we have two new ways for advertisers to access it,” said Pamela Drucker Mann, CRO/CMO of Conde Nast.

Read more about the video initiatives in ‘Conde Nast Ups Video Presence, Announces 2 New Ventures‘ by Melynda Fuller for Media Post here. 

Can Gawker Make a Comeback with Crowdfunding?

Five on Friday: Monetization

Source: Gawker

In August 2016, Gawker.com was shut down after 13 years, forced into bankruptcy after Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan won a $140 million judgment against Gawker and Nick Denton. The site is now up for auction, ready to go to the highest bidder. A group of more than a dozen former Gawker Media employees are trying to buy it back, and they are asking readers to help them through a $500,000 crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.

If they succeed in reaching their goal, the group plans to run the site as a nonprofit called The Gawker Foundation to (a) preserve the site’s archives and make them accessible to members, and (b) relaunch the site under the supervision of former editors and new writers.

‘We believe the site can thrive in an entirely membership funded model,’ the former employees say in their Kickstarter campaign. ‘If we don’t raise enough money to buy the site, we will preserve the archive and launch a new publication under a different name. We’re bringing this back whether we have the Gawker URL or not.’

Read more about the crowdfunding campaign and the fight to save Gawker.com here.


That’s a wrap for our second-to-last Five on Friday column of the year. We hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday. We’ll be back next Friday as we look back on some of our most popular Five on Friday features of 2017.

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