Snap Parts With Sales Chief; Facebook Youth In Decline?

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Snaplash

Snap sales VP Jeff Lucas, formerly Viacom’s ad sales chief, has left the building, Cheddar reports. Snap had a nice stock bounce, too, after it beat Q4 revenue projections, but the company’s next phase of potential growth will largely be in new hands. More. In related news, Recode reports that Snap is offering free credits to advertisers to lure them away from competing platforms such as Instagram that have aggressively copied its features. In spite of its market challenges, the platform has many fans among agencies and advertisers, who see it as one of the few tech companies innovating genuinely new creative formats.

New Blood

Facebook is losing touch with the youth, according to recent eMarketer estimates. The number of 12- to 24-year-old Facebook users in the US will decline by up to 5.8% this year, or about 2 million users. For the first time ever, eMarketer expects less than half of internet users ages 12 to 17 to use Facebook on any device in a given month. Total US Facebook users are projected to grow 1% this year to 169.5 million, mostly from older people signing up. Facebook mitigates its losses by picking up younger users on Instagram, but Snapchat has a plurality share among US teens and early 20-somethings. “The question will be whether younger users will still find Snapchat cool if more of their parents and grandparents are on it,” says eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson. “That’s the predicament Facebook is in.” More.

Clarizio Leaves Nielsen

Lynda Clarizio, Nielsen’s president of US media, has left the company. Last August, Nielsen realigned its product and sales teams under Megan Clarken, president of Nielsen’s Watch business. Clarizio, formerly EVP of corporate development for AppNexus, moved into a role focusing on strategic initiatives, but left the company last month, a spokesman confirmed. Clarizio’s LinkedIn profile says she’s now co-founder at a “soon-to-be announced venture.” In addition, she’s joined the board of directors of OpenSlate, a brand safety and contextual targeting tool for video campaigns. Release.

Tricks Of The Trade

TD Ameritrade released a Twitter bot on Monday allowing investors to trade directly on the social platform, as well as receive market updates and live sentiment analytics. “Investors are consuming news on Twitter, influencers are very active, and what they say tends to move the market,” Sunayna Tuteja, TD’s director of emerging technology and innovation, tells Tearsheet. It’s also a valuable source of data on investing patterns among users (following up on a Facebook Messenger bot TD launched in August). “We haven’t gone down the road of cross selling focused on contextual information,” Tuteja says. “We’ll do it if that’s something the customers are looking for.” More.

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