Weekly Digital Roundup (4.28.14)

Edelman lands a stellar account, Ronald McDonald loses the jumpsuit and gains a Twitter account, and other updates from our pals at Facebook, Google, and Bing. Without further ado, here’s what we found to be the biggest news, so you may comfortably remain snuggled under a rock.

Edelman Digital Goes Galactic

Space-tourism company Virgin Galactic has picked Edelman Digital to manage its social media marketing as they prepare to launch customers into orbit. The notion of A-list celebrities tweeting from space could provide the potential for out-of-this-world buzz, says Edelman managing director Ron Guirguis. “When you do what we do for a living, this is the kind of opportunity that comes around once in a lifetime,” he says. Congrats to the folks Edelman Digital! They'll just have a blast.

Ronald McMakeover

Brand ambassador Ronald McDonald is preparing for his first foray into social media, taking to Twitter with an updated wardrobe and snazzy new style. Sporting cargo pants in lieu of the jumpsuit, he'll use his social prowess to salvage the restaurant chain's tanking sales from this past quarter—or at least they hope. “Customers today want to engage with brands in different ways, and Ronald will continue to evolve to be modern and relevant,” said McDonald’s Dean Barrett.

Facebook Ads Up in Q1

Mickey D's may have seen a Q1 decline, but according to an Adobe report, Facebook ad clicks are up 70% year-over-year for the first quarter, while ad impressions have grown 40% in the same period. The report credits Facebook's growth from Q4 2013 to Q1 2014 to in-application ads and its success with driving referral retail traffic. “Facebook’s revenue per visit is continuing to grow when everyone else’s went down,” said Tamara Gaffney, an Adobe principal analyst. So organic reach may be out the window, but there's hope for paid, at least.

Reddit Welcomes Native Ads

Redditers, brace yourself for another lovely layer of advertising, as the link-sharing hub makes promoted posts available on its site. This comes as a somewhat of a surprise, seeing that Reddit has only allowed targeted banner ads in the past and has hesitated to monetize user information. These clearly distinguished geo-targeted posts are available on the country and city level, and with 5.3 billion page views in March, we're thinking this'll be quite the cash cow.

Bing's Data for Divulging

Bing is using all of its search data lay bare the endings of your favorite guilty pleasure reality TV shows. The search engine announced that they’re starting to collect data to predict who gets eliminated next on The Voice, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars. In the near future, they also hope to roll out forecasts for other things like sports outcomes and concert ticket prices. This could be awesome, but dang them spoilers.

Child-friendly Search

Bing continued on its roll this week when they announced the Bing in the Classroom, an ad-free, child-friendly search view. It's now open to all U.S. schools, and trumps the competition, Google, who has yet to offer such a branch of their service. To learn more, read this.

Keyword Planner Update Platter

Google Keyword Planner introduced nine new features late last week. Nine. Highlights include fancy graph visualizations for geographical breakdowns, location breakdowns for specific areas in your location target, device segmentation, mobile trends compared to total volume, and time period comparison. Enjoy these goodies!Mayday, mayday. It's almost May Day.