Social Marketing

comScore, Inc. released the report The Rise of Social Networking in Latin America. The report examines the state of Latin America’s dynamic social networking landscape, providing insights into trends at a global, regional and individual market level. The 35-page analysis also reveals how social media has shaped the larger digital environment through its influence on other social web activities and its role in the dissemination of marketing messages.

Some 83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project asked those texters in a survey how they prefer to be contacted on their cell phone and 31% said they preferred texts to talking on the phone, while 53% said they preferred a voice call to a text message. Another 14% said the contact method they prefer depends on the situation.DOWNLOAD Report Here.

Retailers are increasingly shuttering Facebook storefronts while U.K., U.S. and French fans (recently rechristened “likers” by Facebook) are following fewer brands, and are not as quick to like a brand or recommend a brand to friends. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom as Facebook prepares to do battle with Google +.DOWNLOAD Report Here.

Marketers are working to measure social media investments in different ways, in the hopes that budgets will rise in this still-growing space.

Social media not only connects consumers with each other, but also with just about every place they go and everything they watch and buy. Nielsen’s new Social Media Report looks at trends and consumption patterns across social media platforms in the U.S. and other major markets, exploring the rising influence of social media on consumer behavior. View presentation here.

Barkley released findings from a study of Millennials, “American Millennials: Deciphering the Enigma Generation.”

Taken together, 28% of U.S. adults do at least one of these activities either on a computer or using their mobile phones—and many users do several of them. These figures come from a new national survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and represent Project’s most expansive study of location services to date. DOWNLOAD Report HERE.

As Twitter evolves its advertising platform, with the latest development being Promoted Tweets to followers, there is concern as to how consumers will react to seeing ads from brands in their Twitter feeds.

SocialCode announced results from a new Facebook advertising research study. The research examined over four million data points across over 50 clients from a wide variety of industries to get a better understanding of how age and gender affect click-through rates (CTR) and ‘Like’ rates on Facebook.

Older social media users have grown more likely to follow brands on social media sites as they’ve gained more experience interacting on them, but younger adults still outnumber them in this activity. Millennials’ enthusiasm for making friends with brands, though, may not be too far above average.

Paying for mentions in social media, or social media sponsorships, has become a more popular marketing tactic. By late 2009, it had attracted the attention of the US Federal Trade Commission, which released regulations requiring bloggers and certain other online publishers to disclose when they receive cash, free products or other compensation for a product or brand mention. But marketers are still interested in this form of outreach.

Bizo unveiled the results of an online survey of leading in-house and agency marketers. The results from more than 520 strategic marketers reveal that they are getting ready for the busiest season of the year and while they are betting big on new initiatives in social, some are also doubling down on old favorites like display. View interactive presentation