Monitoring Tools

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Even with the projected 80% increase in online investment by luxury brands in 2013, fashion brands small and large also are significantly recognizing that the silver lining lies in the adoption of a reliable listening strategy. As transient as fashion is, it appears that Geek Chic is here to stay. Of course, Oscar Wilde knew that over a century or two before Geek Chic became the rage, noting way back then that “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”[read more]

If you are using the internet for marketing your painting company, plagiarism and copyright infringement is an issue you will inevitably face twice. Once when you are building your site to make sure you are not using copyrighted material. The second time is every day after that to make sure your unique content is not being used by someone else.[read more]

Over the last decade, social media monitoring has become a primary form of business intelligence, used to identify, predict, and respond to consumer behavior. Listening to what your customers, competitors, critics, and supporters are saying about you is key to getting great results from your social media campaigns.[read more]

David Robins is CEO and founder of Binfire, a project management tool that focuses on collaborative work. Robins started out with a company for consulting services for data storage and project management in 2008. Two years later, they developed a tool that would make monitoring of work easier and more productive.[read more]

Nutshell

Running marketing for a startup comes with its own unique challenges, not the least of which is maintaining a tight budget while attempting to drive a daily influx of new leads. Even fully-funded startups would be wise not to invest too much in an expensive, agency-designed website or a powerful marketing automation solution.[read more]

When social media first began, we all felt a rush of excitement, because we had new and unique channels to interact with the people most important to us. Over the last five years, social media has lost its way: companies have lost sight of the “social” element and instead have focused on networks as media channels through which to broadcast mass communication.[read more]

Richard Margetic, Dell's social media lead

Social Media Today had a chance to sit down with Richard Margetic, Dell's Social Media lead, to discuss some of the topics that will be covered at the Social Shake-Up Conference in September, where Richard will be speaking. Here is a transcript of that conversation.[read more]

While Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which bundles Radian6, Buddy Media and Social.com, isn’t free, in the quest for thoroughness, I decided to include their offering in this evaluation to check in and see what’s new over there. Radian6 is the monitoring and engagement module, Buddy Media is the publishing platform and Social.com (...[read more]

We have to measure PR results to business goals. You can measure your efforts with tools such as Google analytics, DoubleClick Ad Planner or WhoReTweetedMe, but I’d take it one step further. From there, you have to combine the data you get in there with a client’s customer relationship management software, their email marketing software, and their ecommerce software. Without access to all of those things, you are only scratching the surface.[read more]

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer." This is one of the most famous quotes of Sun Tsu, the ancient Chinese military general. Know your enemies even better than your friends, because in battle, knowing your enemy’s strategies and next moves provides the ability to launch a preemptive strike or at least to plan counter strategies to their next move on the battlefield.[read more]

image credit: worradmu/freedigitalphotos.net

In many ways, things are harder than they’ve ever been before for the 4.5 million SMB CEOs in the United States. Between tightened restrictions on bank loans, and rapidly-changing marketing best practices, the 50% of companies that survive past their 5-year anniversary are typically run by individuals that are both savvy and tenacious.[read more]

Five years ago, Dell had little presence on social media. That changed when the computer company realized 4,000 conversations about the brand were happening online every single day and the company was not present. Since then, Dell has invested millions of dollars’ worth of time and resources to join those conversations.[read more]

The Social Command Centre—a kind of NASA Ground Control for social media hub teams in organisations—is an increasingly common sight these days inside large organizations. In reality though, having a whole bank of screens—I’ve seen as many as twenty—creates a wall of data that is sometimes very hard to analyse and understand without an army of community managers and data analysts.[read more]

targeted ads (image credit)

As of late, there seems to be a lot of noise on my Twitter feed around increase in ad spend across various emerging markets globally. In Middle East and North Africa (MENA), digital advertising budgets are projected to double from 4% to 8% in 2013. The question: is that money well spent?[read more]

Most of the free Google Reader alternatives in the market are focused on providing users with social filters to discover great content. Netvibes has been there and done that. They’re more interested in helping users finding meaning through context.Netvibes will give you their news reader for free. But if you want their analytics, you’ll...[read more]

Do you remember “show and tell” from your elementary school days? This is the exact approach social media business users should be taking. Too often businesses merely tell followers why their product or service is worthy of a purchase. The best social media practitioners show and tell.[read more]

Since last week's defeat of the Toomey-Manchin gun control bill, social media sentiment tracking shows the public is taking aim at foes of the bill in support of background checks.[read more]

Social media software questions (Photo: Flickr's Diamond Farrah)

Choosing social media management software for your agency or company is a difficult task. Ask lots of questions, and don't feel bad about it. Here are nine things to think about before you get on the phone with salespeople and schedule demos.[read more]

Google power

The biggest mistake made by small businesses when it comes to Google Adwords is just setting up a campaign and then leaving it alone. You need to be constantly tweaking your campaigns to get the most from them and that’s where linking to Google Analytics can help.[read more]

With the massive volume of consumer commentary through billions of daily posts across social networks and open-source channels, accurate, actionable consumer personas can now be constructed based on the actual self-identified comments of the consumers themselves. These personas can be incredibly detailed based on interests, life stage, lifestyles, activities, experiences and attitudes.[read more]