Ad News and Views from Around the Web

Personal social media ROI; embeddable live social media counter; Yahoo! social science; “mobilizing” your website, and more

Your personal social media ROI
Twitter and Facebook can be a time-suck. We all know that by now. But there must be a pay-off, right? Maybe, maybe not. AdAge’s Simon Dumenco explains how to gage your personal social media ROI.

7 reasons you don’t need to justify ROI for social media advertising
These days, Web advertising is all about the math—click-through rates, open rates, engagement modeling, registrations, etc. But, iMedia Connection’s Clyde DeSousa argues, social media advertising is a different animal, and he offers seven “justifications” for social media advertising that you can use when trying to convince the “suits” in the corner office to go for it.

Social media hall monitor
Social media gadfly, Gary Hayes of Personalize Media, has just released a widget that counts social media in real time: stuff like new blog posts, members added to Facebook, the amount of money spent on virtual goods globally, Tweets and more—what’s happening now, for the last day, the last week, the last month and the last year. That’s one impressive widget, according to this, the 330 jillionth blog post this year. You can embed the widget, as we have below.

Social science meets computer science at Yahoo!
Demographics are so 20th Century. The future’s in psychographics. And Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz is leading the charge, says the San Francisco Chronicle.

Is your website ready for mobile?
If you haven’t already, get your geeks on this right now. Mobile’s already big and it’s only going to get bigger, so you’ve got to get your website ready. TopRank’s Thomas McMahon provides these important tech tips on how to do it.

Creative Spotlight: Aussie Yahoo! Video’s 10 best video ads of 2009
Brought to you by the thoughtful folks at the Australian branch of Yahoo! Video, here’s a playlist of their picks for the top ten best video ads of 2009. Keep your eye on the koala bear.

—Michael Mattis