On Tuesday AOL hosted a Social Media Salon for Internet Week New York where the differences between social media and community management were discussed.[read more]

There are three things on the Tumblr/Yahoo to-do list for 2013: 1. Push the edges on intelligent recommendation technology (just think of the dataset they must have!) 2. Innovate on engagement-based ad format design. 3. Bypass agencies: try to build partnerships directly with brands to help bring scale and meaning to a revenue model that is based on adding value rather than the very comfortable “interrupt and repeat.”[read more]

allison.hare via Compfight cc

Sara Rosso was a bona fide Nutella superfan: a consumer so passionate about Nutella that she had dedicated her precious time to furthering the brand’s cause. She was the type of fan that brand managers dream of. Then Nutella shut her down.[read more]

AHMAD FAIZAL YAHYA / Shutterstock.com

Looking at Google’s social media history, one could speculate that the company just doesn’t have a knack for that particular sector. But Google+ is poised to succeed. Why? Google hasn’t made its newest social network better than any other. They’ve simply made it count for more.[read more]

Questions about Google's Penguin update? / shutterstock

Last week Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Penguin 2.0 is a couple of weeks away, so if you’ve been partaking in black hat SEO tactics, it’s time to stop. Listen up and follow these steps to make certain that your site is safe and your ranking doesn’t get slammed.[read more]

The phenomenon of big data certainly comes with big promise. After all, having terabytes of data on customer history and behavior is certainly better than trying to extrapolate from just a few data points. The good news is, there are technologies and tools that make it much easier to find the gold hidden in the data—and use it to refine your online marketing with laser precision.[read more]

Your digital footprint is huge. Okay, well, truthfully, I don’t know what size it is. But here’s what I do know: your digital footprint has a huge effect on your online marketing. When it comes to factors you can control to improve your website traffic, it’s Mr. Big. You do want to improve your website traffic, correct? Let’s have a look at how it’s done.[read more]

A customer shares an insight within your company’s online community. He somehow found the time in between meetings, phone calls and lunch to share a suggestion, idea or complaint in a discussion thread. “It would be great if the XYZ product would … ,” he writes. What does your company do with that customer input?[read more]

Social media savvy is a unique skill and advantage that not all traditional PR pros have figured out yet and is now included in a public relations professional’s job description. Make sure you know how to improve and build media relationships through social networking.[read more]

From the moment Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced the $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, the underbelly of the alternative social network bellowed. An avid Tumblr user assures fans not to worry and provides a solution to the advertising question.[read more]

Feedback should be a two-way street. Combine social media and customer service with thoughtful, timely responses to comments and reviews. Even a simple “thank you!” to a positive review lets a customer know that you care about their input, and that is the kind of thing that keeps people coming back in a marketing milieu defined by relationships.[read more]

Pinterest's newest updates could mean big things for e-commerce and brands should take notice. What should your business be looking out for? In short, they add up to the emergence of Pinterest as a prominent e-commerce site. Partnership with brands allows Pinterest to be a greater part of the shopping or advertising experience.[read more]

It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by numbers. It almost feels like the new binary; we used to speak to computers in 1s and 0s, and now we have thousands of numbers with which to communicate our social media successes or failures. So how do you know which measures to pay attention to, and which ones are more vanity stats?[read more]

Twitter users who regularly retweet your tweets could be fans or influencers. If they're influencers in your industry, consider reaching out and looking for ways to not only thank them, but reciprocate their gesture. An easy and obvious way is to regularly retweet some of their tweets as well. This is not only good business, it's being a good social citizen.[read more]

Did you know that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text? Content with images attracts 94% more total views on average than content without images, and videos are clicked on 12 times more often than links and text posts combined. So here are five ways to help you incorporate visuals into your social media.[read more]

The study made clear that the UK (32%) is most open to choose a smartphone over a wallet when going out if they could only bring one item. Canadians might be struggle the most in the old world: 75% of them don’t carry cash around.[read more]

This is your only stop on the internet where you will find such a large, detailed guide to increase traffic to your website! I have not yet seen a guide where it lists so many effective traffic generation techniques, never mind a detailed explanation of each one.[read more]

Marcy Kaptur (D-OH9) tweeted a joke from the White House Correspondents Dinner. But then she erased it 8 minutes later. What if more members of Congress could embrace the boldness of a funny tweet, without running away from it as if scared of their own shadow? We might see more real discussions among our elected officials as they work to solve our very real problems.[read more]

As of today, Twitter sees 200 million plus monthly active users globally, and 120 million plus active mobile users monthly. Together they’re tweeting a billion tweets every two and a half days, but Guy Yalif, Head of Global Product Marketing at Twitter, said it’s the kinds of tweets that matter, not the volume.[read more]

I've always liked that Marissa Mayer. After Monday's news about the Tumblr acquisition and promising not to "screw it up," she posts on the new Yahoo! owned Tumblr to release the news of a major Flickr revamp, stating that they've made strides to make Flickr awesome again. So, what can you expect from the new Flickr?[read more]