Social Marketing

Blogs are sometimes overlooked as a significant source of online buzz in comparison to social networking sites, yet consumer interest in blogs keeps growing. By the end of 2011, NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company, tracked over 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only five years earlier in 2006.

Smart phones can perform countless functions, but how many people take advantage of the time-saving and paper-saving capabilities that are offered?

As social networks have picked up a greater share of digital ad dollars, a key differentiator they emphasize to brand advertisers is the ability to harness the power of friend recommendations when it comes to sharing experiences and content.

Brand advocates are consumers who actively promote the brands, products and services they love and provide marketers with a volunteer army of supporters who disseminate recommendations to friends and family.

While brands are reaching more and more consumers via their Facebook pages, companies are not realizing the full potential of engaging and interacting with these brand fans.

While several US-based sites like Facebook and Twitter might get most of the publicity, social networking is a worldwide phenomenon that eMarketer predicts will encompass nearly 1.5 billion internet users by the end of this year.

While Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have been at the top of the social media heap in the US for several years now, new services and relaunched versions of older ones are rapidly gaining popularity among consumers and marketers.

About two-thirds of internet users use social networking sites (SNS) and all the major metrics for profile management are up, compared to 2009: 63% of them have deleted people from their “friends” lists, up from 56% in 2009; 44% have deleted comments made by others on their profile; and 37% have removed their names from photos that were tagged to identify them. DOWNLOAD Report Here.

For brands interested in harnessing the power of social networking to further their goals, social media offers enormous opportunities. But navigating this universe requires more planning and strategy than ever. DOWNLOAD Report Here.

ROI is either a flag you wave in every meeting you enter, or it’s a curse that follows you around daily, depending on your point of view and level of comfort with data. I would like to propose a different definition of the model for ROI, one I think is more relevant for this day and age of social media: the return-on-interest model.

The World Wide Web has become a standard part of life, and it appears that social media has become a major part of the online experience. The vast majority have at least one social media account; in addition, over half of Adults 18+ (54.5%) say they log in to Facebook once a day or more often, according to the February American Pulse™ Survey. Blacks and Hispanics are even more likely to log in once a day or more on Facebook as well as other online communities.

As social media budgets continue to rise, demands from the C-suite to prove the value of these investments are intensifying. Executives do intuitively understand that direct consumer relationships are valuable, and they are patiently, albeit eagerly, awaiting the ability of their marketing departments and agencies to correlate the economic impact of ongoing social media investments.

In a follow-up to the successful 2011 launch of the social media-friendly website, the Dominican Republic Ministry of Tourism is introducing a multi-channel campaign featuring print, online and broadcast that generate engagement with consumers wherever they are in the world today, inspiring them to be social and share their unforgettable experience in Dominican Republic.

Past research has shown exposure to both earned and paid media can help companies build longer-term effects such as increased brand awareness, purchase consideration and brand favorability.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) released “Marketing in Today’s Economy”— the first SIIA publication to gather business-to-business sales and marketing tactics from leading industry executives.

The overall social and emotional climate of social networking sites (SNS) is a very positive one where adult users get personal rewards and satisfactions at far higher levels than they encounter anti-social people or have ill consequences from their encounters. DOWNLOAD Report Here.

When it comes to Facebook “likes,” social network users are sending brand marketers mixed signals. An eVoc Insights study indicates 59% of Facebook users have “liked” a Facebook brand or company page in the past six months. Although this statistic may seem promising for brands, how “liking” a brand connects with consumer loyalty is still vague.

Heinz UK has a vibrant Facebook fan base that reaches a broad population. Its Facebook page is a platform for the consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand to connect with its diverse audience, to promote new products and to run fun promotions.