The two big social media outlets, Facebook and Twitter, each started a new ad format last week.  Facebook launched its "mobile local deal," with Gap as the first company to try it out.  Twitter had its first sponsor of a Promoted Trend: the Washington Post.  Marketing Vox analyzed the success of these first efforts, while pointing out that advertisers ten to be too proud to admit failure when they try out something for the first time:

With that in mind, it does appear that the initial campaigns by Washington Post and Gap went according to plan. According to the Post's executive producer and head of digital news products Katharine Zaleski, the campaign was a success, even though it didn't drive huge amounts of traffic to the paper's site. (via the Atlantic).

That is because it is defining success differently - it didn’t necessarily expect to drive traffic. Rather, Zaleski said, it wanted to be front and center in the conversation. Of all the people who clicked on the Election link from the Twitter.com homepage, 9% of them engaged with the Washington Post, according to Twitter's head of media partnerships Chloe Sladden, who added that the 9% engagement was on the "high-average" for other types of promoted trends.

Gap’s use of Facebook Deals was also deemed a success by the company, although as one poster on Gap’s Facebook page noted, how hard is it to give away Gap jeans? Fast Company reported that Gap stores in high-traffic New York City areas, such as Soho, the Financial District, Midtown, ran out of give-away jeans within hours. Even more impressive was the lack of advertising for the promotion, Fast Company said.

Read Under the Microscope: How did Gap, WaPo do? here.