Social Marketing

Marketers’ excitement over new social media channels is understandable; these platforms have fundamentally changed the way that companies and their customers interact. But a September poll of adult internet users and marketing decision-makers in the US, the UK, France, Germany and Australia conducted by Pitney Bowes Software found that marketers need to be careful to make sure they are not overcommitting to social channels, and, moreover, that their actions on social media are aligned with consumer preferences.

Social media and social networking are no longer in their infancy. Social media continues to grow rapidly, offering global consumers new and meaningful ways to engage with the people, events and brands that matter to them. According to Nielsen and NM Incite’s latest Social Media Report, consumers continue to spend more time on social networks than on any other category of sites—roughly 20 percent of their total time online via personal computer (PC), and 30 percent of total time online via mobile.

How do other organizations—from small nonprofits to multinational corporations—staff a social media team? How many people are using Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms? And what do these professionals earn?

Holiday shoppers are making a list and checking it against social media content—especially reviews, which they trust to help them make the best decisions about what to buy for friends and family members this season.

Pinterest, Online Video, and Google+ are being used more regularly by marketers in their advertising campaigns. That is a key finding of the latest quarterly survey of advertising agencies by STRATA, a leading media buying and selling software provider.

BIA/Kelsey forecasts U.S. social media ad revenues to reach $9.2 billion in 2016, up from $4.6 billion in 2012, representing a compound annual growth rate of 19.2 percent.

A new report by IBM finds that while companies are increasing their social technology investments, middle management leaders are struggling to embrace these capabilities as part of their day-to-day work.

TBWA\Worldwide announced the release of a new global study that reveals the powerful engagement opportunities that exist with young adults by leveraging their deep commitment to social causes. The study proves that companies, brands and NGOs have invaluable opportunities to engage in social issues with this powerful generation.

There are some conversations you just have to have over and over, and somehow this seems particularly true with social media.

Short, yet powerful enough to amplify the voice of millions and spark world-movements in 140 characters; welcome to a new Twitter nation! Where relationships, conversations and like-minded people come together for a unique reporting-networking-happy-hour-debate-table-style-real-time-virtual-exchange. By Lili Gil, Co-founder XL Alliance and Media Contributor

Available on HispanicCMO.com and HispanicPRpro.com

Most businesses have realized that social media users often expect to get responses to customer service queries and complaints through that channel, and according to research released in October by SAP and Social Media Today, 71.2% of companies worldwide provided customer support on social media.

Over the past several years we have measured technology use and adoption at the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University. We have consistently found that emerging minorities tend to lead in most areas of technology adoption. In 2012 with the cooperation of Research Now and the leadership of Ms. Melanie Courtright, we again collected an online national sample composed of Hispanics and Asians born in the US and those born abroad, in addition to African Americans and Non-Hispanic Whites. We used the country of birth as a proxy for acculturation to see if technology adoption varied accordingly. By Felipe Korzenny, Ph.D.

On Election Day 2012, the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds social media to be a significant part of the process by which voters are talking about their ballot selections, especially younger voters

Social media has been around for over ten years. My guess is that by now, your organization is probably involved in some way with social media. Maybe you have created a Twitter or Facebook account. Maybe you even have some friends and fans on those accounts, and you share things with them when you have time.

Although Hispanics overall post lower-than-average social networking penetration, online US Hispanics are social mavens. For them, the sites occupy an outsized place in their digital lives, according to a new eMarketer report, “US Hispanics and Social Networking: A Digital Space They Make Their Own.” In an Anglocentric online universe that pays comparatively little heed to Hispanic interests, social networks provide a congenial space.

As greater percentages of the population in Mexico become internet and mobile internet users, advertisers are devoting more resources to digital campaigns. eMarketer estimates that digital investments will grow by over 30% every year through 2014.

Less than a third of companies today use social media to support their corporate strategy and risk management practices, according to new research conducted by Stanford University’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance, the Center for Leadership Development and Research at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and The Conference Board.