About Social Media Today
Posts by Errol Apostolopoulos Subscribe 
Meeker’s Year In Review: Digital Trends and Predictions
Technology and youNo doubt 2012 was a big year for all things social – and we were pleased to see Mary Meeker’s (of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers) follow-up to her May report – “2012 Internet Trends Year-End Update,” which details many of the...
Year in Review: Lessons from American Apparel's Social Marketing Miss
Social marketing misstepsDespite the proliferation of social media “gurus” and over eight years since the start of Facebook, many companies still find themselves in crisis mode following social media snafus. These missteps come in the midst of...
Year in Review: Lessons from Ryanair’s Social Marketing Miss
Conflicting social messagesThe whirlwind of conflicting social media activity in 2012 buffeted marketers from one extreme to the next, leaving us all reeling with differing opinions from credible sources. On the one hand, The McKinsey Global...
Year in Review: Lessons from Two Social Marketing Hits
Making sense of conflicting predictionsWith over a billion Facebook users worldwide, everyone’s life has been touched in some way by social media. The question, however, is how brands can best leverage this medium. With Gartner predicting that half...
Two Critical But Often Overlooked Benefits of Social Media Marketing
If you struggle to achieve ROI using social media, you’re not alone – multiple studies, including the latest from Awareness Inc., reveal that measuring ROI is still the top challenge for the majority of marketers. For those worrying about its...
Cheap Qualified Leads From Social: A Lesson in the Value of Social Media
Potential vs. actual benefits in social mediaImagine an industry with 1.5 billion potential consumers. An industry that, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, has the potential to add $900 trillion to $1.3 billion in value for companies, as...
Social Marketing ROI Mindset – Musings on Olivier Blanchard’s Book
Social Marketing ROI - are we there yet? The answer is still, surprisingly, “It depends!” And it just may be that as social marketing is evolving, marketers are still challenged with finding an ROI framework that works for their marketing executions...
A New Framework for Quantifying Social Media Investments [Infographic]
With Gartner estimating that half of all web sales will come from social and mobile, and only 20% of marketers currently taking advantage of this opportunity, your brand needs to know what it’s doing with social marketing. That’s...
4 Ways to Take Advantage of the Social Commerce Opportunity This Holiday Season
For digital marketers, this last quarter of 2012 brings a new social commerce flavor. Social media will take a more central role in the brand marketing arsenal, with 90% of marketers planning to maintain or increase holiday campaign investments in...
Making Social Holiday Shopping Trends Work for Your Brand
Holiday shopping trendsIt’s coming. That time of year when you can buy tech, apparel, and holiday gifts at jaw-dropping prices. The Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas specials that make you remind yourself shopping at any other time of the...
Why Newsfeed GRPs Will Become a Standard Way to Measure Marketing ROI
Most of us don’t miss the Mad Men era, but you have to agree that those times were indeed the golden times for the ad industry – television was the mass medium and the most powerful communications channel, it glued millions of wide-eyed consumers to...
Takeaways from Future M: The Future of Social is Action
An agency, a brand manager, and a software vendor walk into a bar…Sorry, there’s no punch line yet – any suggestions? On October 23rd, I had the opportunity to speak at Future M on how small startups can work with big brands. Before my session...
A New Framework for Quantifying Social Media Investments: Part II
Transaction and Endorsement: The keys to ROI in DITEAs mentioned in our first post on DITE, marketers need a new framework to better engage with and leverage fans on social media. In 2011, 80% of marketers failed to achieve quantifiable ROI from...
A New Framework for Quantifying Social Media Investments: Part I
Social media participation: The need for a new fan engagement frameworkBrands today understand that they must participate in social media channels both to leverage those communities and to avoid a negative backlash from consumers who expect their...
Driving Revenue with Social Media: The Importance of Social Endorsement
The proliferation of social mediaIt’s no secret that if you’re reading this post, your life, as well as the lives of those around you, has likely been heavily influenced by social media; according to Pew Research, 65% of online adults now use social...
Takeaways and Ideas from Ad Age Digital 2012
Ad Age Digital Conference 2012 in San Francisco touted to be the premiere event in marketing, technology and media, “where the biggest brands meet the most innovative startups and the new technologies that are transforming business”. For a...
Social Commerce: Leveraging the Consumer Evangelist
The growth of social media and the emergence of social commerceSocial media plays an enormous role in all facets of modern life. With over a billion social media users worldwide, and over 900 million users on Facebook alone, social media has become...
