roi

ROI can be the three scariest letters in social media. You know that there are benefits social media activity that justify the cost, but how do you convince the C-suite? The answer depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your social efforts. Are you trying to use social as a sales channel, or create brand awareness and drive low-...[read more]

social media plan: birgerking/Flickr

If you can carve out some time to stop, reflect and strategize on your current marketing ideas, then there are some ways you can quickly cut the fat, save some money, and still get better results in the long run. Here are three easy ways to save money -- and still thrive -- in social media.[read more]

Social media: going the way of the dodo?

Please take a seat and enjoy your visit to our Theater of the Absurd. Today's play was written by Barry Feldman, who says he got the idea after reading 1,000,001 articles about C-level executives’ disregard for social media. "Many continue deeming social media as trivial," said Feldman.[read more]

Facebook is not a popularity contest! The number of likes you have is just a figure of how many people have been persuaded to click a little "thumbs up" icon. In increasing cases this is by acquiring fans by other than natural and organic means.[read more]

One-off ad campaigns still exist, but they are no longer the touchstone of ROI that they once were. To succeed in today’s techonomy, businesses need to adopt sophisticated marketing strategies that would be unrecognizable to Don Draper and Peggy Olson.[read more]

Social media is a great tool for non-profits to raise awareness for their causes and issues. This Valentine's Day, let's remember that the rest of us in the community can do our part to share the love with a few simple clicks.[read more]

The USPS decision to stop Saturday delivery will affect marketers and brands. Whether this means an increase in other channels such as email, mobile, radio, and so on, is obviously not yet known. Rest assured, though, marketers across the country who currently include direct mail as part of their integrated marketing strategy are busy making plans for the switch.[read more]

I shouldn’t have to tell you, since you are smart enough to be on this site, that a business that isn’t utilizing social media is a business that is doomed. The problem is not that businesses aren’t getting on board the bus. The problem is most can’t find a good seat and don’t even know where the bus is going.[read more]

The fact of the matter is quite simple ... with most customers trying their best to limit themselves to mostly essential purchases, it has never been more important to have a strong and respected brand identity, which is synonymous with quality and value for money..[read more]

Everett Collection/shutterstock.com

Or could GM’s move be, as some insiders are theorizing, a result of Google recognizing the advertising competition with Facebook and luring companies away, perhaps with the promise of free ads? Either way, it’s a significant loss for Facebook. But is it really about just Facebook ads and GM?[read more]

Image: Enciktat/Shutterstock

Social media is so much more than just plugging products on Facebook – it’s about maintaining a conversation, building organic relationships, and making sure the social media department isn’t veering off course and one person can’t shoulder that responsibility alone.[read more]

Dr.OGA/shutterstock.com

An article considering the value of truly social media, in comparison to traditional media advertising without any focus on user engagement.[read more]

Small businesses operating their own online stores have to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to drive traffic, convert visitors into customers and make money online. But, most traditional small businesses don't have the time or resources to implement a sustained SEO campaign, or pay a good SEO company to drive traffic on their behalf.[read more]

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Many tourism organizations manage aspects or their social media strategy quite well. Here are five challenges that will need to be addressed moving forward.[read more]

Google analytics, awe.sm, Sysomos, Radian, TrackUR, Techigry, FlowTown or Brandschat - we all know that they help you to track leads, conversations and real numbers, but they also offer an opportunity to gather human information. Then, what areas should we paying attention to so we can measure human metrics?[read more]

There are, without question, myriad soft benefits of social media: elevated customer service, real-time market research, influencer engagement, crisis management, brand protection and word-of-mouth marketing. But, many companies want to be able to see ROI.[read more]

Tips on how to measure the ROI of online video campaigns.[read more]

Because there are many ways to quantify the value of social media, marketers continue to struggle with social measurement. Based on the collective response of over 320 marketers reflected in our first annual report on The State of Social Media Marketing: Top Areas For Social Marketing Investment and Biggest Social Marketing Challenges in 2012, we are starting to see clearly see measurement patterns based on industry, which are driven by the way they define social marketing success. In this blogpost we identify key social measurements that are most popular by industry.[read more]

Let’s face it: one of the biggest challenges social media faces is the question of return on investment. If I funnel money to fund a social media campaign or presence, what will I get out of it?Bloggers and researchers struggle to quantify fans and followers, with research company Syncapse releasing a study that quantifies them somewhere...[read more]

Photo by Eli Duke via Flickr

2011 brought many memorable moments for Social Media, including the launch of Google +, the Facebook timeline, the sad death of Steve Jobs and of course, Charlie Sheen taking 25 hours and 17 minutes to break the Guinness world record of “Fastest Time to Reach One Million Followers” on Twitter. But what does 2012 hold in store for Social Marketers..?[read more]