"Blogs increase your credibility, boost your traffic, and put a personality behind your brand," writes Lindsay Atkinson at the Renegade Search blog. "But how should [a blog] be executed? Should it be hosted on your website or on a completely different domain?" The short answer is: It depends. To help you ... more

Word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations from friends and family and user-generated content (UGC) are sources most trusted for information about the products people want and need, according to a new report by Nielsen. more

Digital Natives, consumers who grew up with mobile technology, subconsciously move between devices and media platforms (e.g., TV, tablets, and smartphones) far more frequently than Digital Immigrants, those who learned about mobile technology in their adult lives, according to a study by Time Inc. more

Tablets are fast becoming the mobile shopping device of choice among consumers: 64% of tablet owners say they have made at least one purchase via their device in the previous six months, compared with 48% of smartphone owners who say the same, according to a new survey by Local Corporation ... more

Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the US, behind Facebook and Twitter, according to a new report by Experian Hitwise. Web traffic to Pinterest surged 50% from January to February of 2012, enabling the invitation-only site to overtake LinkedIn, Tagged, and Google+ in total monthly ... more

"Local search is one of the fastest growing categories of online advertising, expected to increase as much as 10% per year through 2015," writes Jon Schepke in an article at MarketingProfs. And with good reason. Consider the ROI of a local search campaign that Schepke's company implemented for an international hotelier: ... more

Google Android continued to widen its lead in the US smartphone market in February 2012, crossing the 50% threshold to capture a majority share for the first time in its history, according to data from the comScore MobiLens service. more

Online video has moved to the mainstream: 81% of senior marketing executives now use online video content in their marketing programs, up from the 70% who did so a year earlier, according to a report by the Web Video Marketing Council (WVMC) and Flimp Media. more

You've put an SEO program in place—but how can you tell if it's working? "Ultimately, the only factor that determines success is the bottom-line; like any investment, we do not think that our services are truly successful unless we can provide positive ROI," writes Taylor Cimala at the Renegade Search ... more

Despite the high cost of acquiring new customers (vs. retaining current ones), only one-half (49.6%) of surveyed marketing executives say they know who their most loyal customers are and how best to reach out to them, according to new study by Acxiom and Loyalty 360. more

Active "social TV" viewers—people who watch television and simultaneously engage with others via social networks—tend to watch more live TV so they can be part of social conversations in real time, according to a study by iModerate Research Technologies. Social TV is also enabling viewers' desires to influence programming, via ... more

Second- and third-generation Hispanics—American-born and English speaking—now account for the majority (60%) of the nation's Hispanic population, according to a new study by Yahoo. Proud of their ethnicity, such later-generation Hispanics are sensitive to the media's portrayal of their ethnicity, but are far less likely to seek out content tied ... more

Americans age 18-34, or "Generation C" as they've been recently dubbed, make up 23% of the US population but they comprise an outsized proportion of consumers who watch online video (27%), visit social networking sites and blogs (27%), own a tablet (33%), and use a smartphone (39%), according to a ... more

Local online and mobile advertising revenues are forecast to reach $38.5 billion by 2016, up from an estimated $21.2 billion in 2011, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.7%, according to BIA/Kelsey's US Local Media Annual Forecast. more

With some 845 million monthly active users, Facebook is becoming a vibrant e-commerce platform for more than 100,000 small merchants who actively promote and sell products via Facebook storefronts, according to a study by Payvment. more

Americans still love couponing—now a 125-year-old tradition in the US: Fully 70% of surveyed women say saving money with coupons is as American as apple pie, according to a survey conducted by Valpak. Moreover, without a coupon in hand, 49% of women say, they would not buy dinner out; also, ... more

The use of social networks, particularly LinkedIn, among engineering, technical, manufacturing and industrial professionals continues to rise: 55% of surveyed tech professionals now use LinkedIn, up 18 percentage points, or 48.6%, from the 37% who did so a year earlier, according to a report by GlobalSpec. more

Senior executives have a healthy appetite for a wide range of traditional and new media channels, according to a survey from Doremus and the Financial Times: Most surveyed execs still read business and trade information in printed formats, but they also use digital channels—such as online video, professional networking sites, ... more

Big brands use jokes to market their products all the time. But, sadly, many small and medium-sized (SMB) marketers have lost their sense of humor. Why is that? Maybe SMB marketers sense they have too much to lose. But there's much to gain, too. more

As advertisers continue to shift spending from traditional print media to the Internet, newspapers are failing to make up for the decline in print advertising revenues via gains in online ad revenues, according to a report by Pew Research. more

Apple is expected to unveil the next-generation of the iPad on March 7, 2012 and nearly one-third (29%) of mobile Web users say they plan to buy the new device, according to a survey from InMobi. Among those 29%, more than one-half (54%) are first-time tablet buyers. more

Buoyed by renewed confidence in the US economy and higher expectations for new business, CMOs say they plan to boost marketing spending over the next 12 months, with B2B products and B2B services marketers leading the way, according to the CMO Survey. more

More than one-half (52%) of surveyed small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) say they use social media to promote their businesses, and 49% purchase online advertising (including SEM products) themselves, directly from websites, according to a new report by BIA/Kelsey. more

When measuring the success of online display advertising, agencies tend to place great importance on performance metrics such as conversion, even for branding awareness campaigns, according to a survey from Maxifier. more

Businesses that use primarily inbound marketing strategies for lead acquisition consistently report lower cost-per-lead (CPL) rates than those using outbound-centric strategies, according to the 2012 State of Inbound Marketing report by HubSpot. more