Here are this week’s ‘Sunday Musings’ – the top five stories in branding and digital marketing.  You can find the archives of this weekly write-up under the Blog-Sunday Musings tab at the top of the page.

#1 – “Facebook Earnings Results Show Progress On Mobile” – ReadWrite.com

Premise: Facebook reported their financials from Q1’13 earlier this week and results were largely viewed as positive among investors.  Mobile advertising numbers grew significantly (23%) from Q4’12 o Q1’13.  Facebook also made several strong statements during the earning’s call regarding the advertising benefits of the site, driving traffic to app markets for downloads.  They also showed the overall growth of their mobile platform, a significant focus for the company now and moving forward.

Thoughts: The continued shift in focus towards mobile looks to be righting the ship that is Facebook and its stock performance.  It was also interesting to see the upward trend in the mobile numbers (usage, spend, etc.) from the call.  While brand new for the site, the article hints at weakness on several of the recent launches – Facebook Home and Graph Search – areas that will be of interest in future earnings’ reports through the remainder of 2013.

(In case you didn’t see it, here are our tips and recommendations for using Facebook for your brand or business, released earlier this week.)

#2 – “15 Stats Retailers Should Know About Pinterest” – DigiDay.com  

Premise: This article from DigiDay is a concise summary of why businesses need to strongly consider Pinterest as part of their digital marketing plan.  The articles provides facts and figures from various sources across the web, including the overall size of the site now (~25 million users) and the amount of money Pinterest shoppers are spending online at checkout relative to Facebook and Twitter shoppers.

Thoughts: There are a lot of eye opening numbers available here.  The spend levels mentioned above relative to the most popular social media sites certainly warrants a retailer’s attention.  Two other numbers that really caught my attention were the connection that Pinterest has with moms (a highly influential group) and the level of trust the site has built with its users.  

#3 – “Lowe’s Embraces Six-Second Vine Videos for Spring Campaign” – AdAge.com

Premise: Lowe’s home improvement stores have found a way to leverage Vine to provide customers with six second “how to” tip videos.  The store and its agency have put together twelve clips for various tips on home improvements including how to work with a stripped screw and using shower rings and a hangar to organize scarves.

Thoughts: This is another great example of a company using Vine to market to its consumers.  While marketers tinker with the platform, these companies that get ahead of the curve and in front of (potential) consumers before their competitors, are simply providing a strong point of difference for themselves in the online / digital marketing space.  To see more of Lowe’s videos, you can scroll through their Twitter feed (if Vine itself isn’t available to you).

#4 – “Dos Equis Resolves A “Cinco De Lemma” With Integrated Dos De Mayo Campaign” – ConvinceandConvert.com  

Premise: With today’s Cinco de Mayo holiday falling on a Sunday, Dos Equis decided to extend the holiday this past week with a holistic marketing program based on starting the celebrations on Dos de Mayo and having it run through the weekend.  Dos Equis used their SM sites, created a unique landing page for the marketing push, and included it in TV spots.

Thoughts: Dos Equis did a nice job of pulling several contact points together and focused their message on one area and on a major holiday, most specifically for the brand.  You will likely see the infographic created by Dos Equis again later this month, as I really like how they have branded this campaign and put a lot of effort around it.  For those interested, the microsite has a bar locator on where you can find a bar/pub in your area that sells Dos Equis.

#5 – “Zynga.org and New Schools Venture Fund take on ed-tech with launch of their learning games accelerator” – TheNextWeb.com

Premise: Zynga’s non-profit organization has provided funding for the formation of a learning games accelerator to help create social games that will have a positive impact on learning and learning experiences for users.  There are several groups that are already lined up to help produce the first round of games.

Thoughts: When playing several Zynga games in the past, I have seen a number of little campaigns for good causes or relief efforts.  You will also see this on the Zynga.com home page.  It is good to see a company that has this type/size of voice have a non-profit ‘on the side’ that promotes this type of positive message.  I wish we saw more of this.

Several other tech companies reported this week such as Yelp.  Were any of those of particular interest for you?  Was there anything else in branding or digital marketing that caught your eye this week?