The social media site that dominates our lives is powering on through 2014 and has introduced a number of changes;

Investments at Facebook - Facebook is set to make ‘large, strategic’ technological investments in a bid to boost mobile revenue and a major force in premium advertiser monetisation.      
Quick Stats;

• Advertising revenue has risen 64% year-on-year to £1.8bn in the three months to September, with two thirds of that coming from the mobile side.
• On mobile, 1.12 billion people now use Facebook each month
• 703 million people every day, nearly 40% growth from this time last year

Places Directory - Facebook's new Places Directory has been discretely released and will be spark fierce competition with directory sites such as Yelp. Places Directory allows you to search the globe for destinations and then narrow down your searches for bars, hotels, restaurants, gyms, landmarks and many more attractions. It's strength lies in the fact results are ranked by user ratings and show comments from your Facebook friends. Places Directory taps into Facebook's existing technology such as Graph Search, Page Locations API, and other elements.

The Online Marketing Institute has identified the most the largest talent gaps and most in-demand digital skills of 2014. The 'State of Digital Marketing Talent' study consisted of interviewing 747 advertising and Fortune 500 marketing executives to find out what skills their teams possessed and which were most desired.

The Missing Skills: It's striking that talent is perceived to be a 1/3 short of where it should be. This could have a detrimental affect on performance, identify your talent gaps within your company and address them. As an individual, look where the gaps might be in your team and gain a greater understanding of these skills (making yourself more valuable to the company).

Lenovo - Following a very successful 12 months, Chinese company Lenovo aims to become a 'top 10 brand' in Europe. As a result they have hired Jo Moore from Ogilvy & Mather as EMEA brand and consumer marketing director in a bid to push on in European markets. Moore will report to EMEA vice president Jan Huckfeldt, who described the new appointment will support the brand’s marketing strategy switch from “monologue to dialogue” in the region. Jo Moore joins from Ogilvy & Mather, where she was worldwide managing director for global brands and her one of her clients was Motorola, who Lenovo plan to acquire out this year.

NFL - The National Football League has named a new chief marketing officer as it faces mounting pressure from both fans and sponsors due to publicity it has received for not taking domestic violence seriously as a result of a number of incidents that have directly effected the game. Dawn Hudson, former Pepsi senior marketer, has been handed the responsibility. She takes over from Mark Weller who has returned to his previous role of over seeing international expansion of the NFL. This news follows the NFL's appointment of four female consultants to improve domestic violence policies. Time will tell whether these appointments will change the organisation internally or just please stakeholders.

Dixons - Ian McGregor has been appointed by Dixons Carphone as marketing communications director and tasked with leading marketing for the Currys PC World brand. McGregors experience includes his last role as Vice President of marketing at Activision, a senior marketing role at Eletronic Arts, and board account director at London agency Publicis. In his role he will oversee advertising creative, media buying, visual store communications and consumer PR.

Telefonica - Daniel Rosen has been appointed Global Director of advertising for O2 owner Telefonica. He leaves his position as Global CEO of mobile ad agency Joule. Rosen has been hired in order to accelerate revenue growth and product innovation by building closer relationships with the brand, publisher and agencies.

Ab InBev - Former Coca-cola marketer Nick Robinson has joined Ab InBev as UK and Ireland brand chief. He will be overseeing top alcoholic brands such as Stella Artois and Budweiser, who are currently enjoying strong sales on the back of a successful world cup campaign. It is believed that a key factor in Robinson's appointment was his expertise in the soft drinks market, as Ab InBev look to expand their offerings to customers.

Coca-Cola - Following the retirement of Joe Tripodi, Coca-Cola has moved to Marcos De Quinto as chief marketing officer. He moves from his current dual role as VP of the company’s Iberian business and vice president of its pan-European steering group, a role he's been in since 2000. De Quinto has a vast amount of global strategic marketing experience that Coca-Cola will be hoping will help them through a period of disappointing growth

The latest study from the Advertising Association has shown a 8.5% rise in advertising spend to a grand total of £4.5 billion in the three months leading to June. This is the highest spending we've seen since late 2010. It is believed a maturing attitude to digital marketing played a key role behind this growth, with Internet (17.2%), Radio (17.7%) and Display (5%) all having strong quarters.

Although the growth for the rest of this year is expected to slow to 5%, if we look to 2015 demand for Display will push Internet spending to £8.1 billion (compared to the projected £7.5 billion for 2014). Search marketing is also predicted for strong growth figures next year, growing from £3.9bn to £4.3bn between 2014 and 2015.

Tim Lefroy chief executive of the Advertising Association, says the performance of digital media so far in 2014 points to “digital and creative leadership in e-commerce”. The insight is supported by companies such as Mondelez and Diageo tightening the link between online advertisements and search marketing to move further into ecommerce, which is considered a well of untapped potential for food and drink marketers. Around 60% of UK GDP is household consumption – one of the highest – according to the Advertising Association and “e and m commerce are an increasingly large part of that picture”.

Ad spend was up across the media mix, they were all down in the first quarter of the year, but posted rises in the following quarter. The latest Bellwether report, which said over 25% of companies planned to increase the marketing spend.