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"Sometimes I hear the sound of crickets when I stumble across certain blogs written by small-business owners," writes Samantha McCormick at the OrangeSoda blog. "At first glance, the content is good, thorough, and up-to-date, but the page rank is 0 and there are a dozen signs leading me to believe ... more
Some 8% of online adults—or 6% of the US adult population—say they use Twitter, but adoption levels are higher among online African-Americans (18%) and online Latinos (13%), according to a new survey from Pew Research. more
More than two-thirds (67%) of senior-level public relations (PR) professionals say their companies are now engaging in social media on some level and 69% say social media will be a top priority for PR in 2011, according to a survey from Vocus. Fully 80% of PR professional say social media ... more
Simply put, "app-vertising" is the use of applications to deliver branding, messages, content, or functionality to reach target audiences. And if you're looking for a tool that offers affordability, ease of use, and significant return on investment (ROI), then app-vertising may well be right for you. more
Fast-growing Groupon is enjoying prominence in the social deal-making market, accounting for 79% of US Internet traffic to group coupon sites for the week ended November 27, 2010, while second-ranked LivingSocial received just 8%, according to Experian's Hitwise Intelligence. more
"When you perform a search at Google or Bing, the results are significantly influenced by your physical location, even on queries where you don't specify a location," writes Ray Comstock at Search Engine Watch. "So if you're in New York and you search for [pizza], or [hot tubs] or [DMV], ... more
Global ad spending is forecast to reach $449.6 billion in 2010—up 4.9% from a year earlier—and continue to grow between 4.6% and 5.2% over the next three years, fueled by digital media and strong ad growth in developing markets, according to projections by ZenithOptimedia. more
Marketing budgets remain tight, and there's more competition than ever in the high-ROI world of social media. So how can you make your mark? In a post at the Influential Marketing blog, Rohit Bhargava tells the story of Ana Free, a Portuguese singer-songwriter who has racked up 20 million views ... more
Retail e-commerce spending for the first 29 days of the November-December 2010 holiday season reached $13.55 billion, up 13% from the corresponding days in 2009, as Cyber Monday recorded $1.028 billion in online spending, up 16% from a year earlier, and the heaviest online spending day in history, according to ... more
According to Molly Niendorf, some marketers worry that triggered email will look inauthentic to recipients. "Sure, automatic emails have been around long enough that recipients know you're not perched at your computer, hitting the send button just as soon as they sign up or click a link," she writes at ... more
Especially in this economy, small businesses are tripping over themselves to tell customers about their low, low prices. But in an article at MarketingProfs, Dan Hill argues strenuously against price-leading campaigns and gives reasons like these: It is not a sustainable long-term strategy. "One of the key advantages of a sale ... more
So, you want to improve your online visibility, but you're not an SEO expert. Never fear. C.B. Whittemore from the Simple Marketing blog has a basic SEO primer for you. As a "fierce practical" marketer, Whittemore seeks to understand how applying SEO to an array of digital content—website, blog, press releases, a ... more
In a post at the Email Marketing Reports blog, Mark Brownlow examines mistaken assumptions that can seriously damage the long-term success of an email program. Our basic beliefs about how our emails work aren't as self-evident as we'd like to believe, Brownlow notes; in some ways, we operate in the ... more
Whether you're a site owner attempting to rank higher in search results, or a Web developer or designer working with a marketing team on a cool new project, it's more important than ever to understand how Microsoft's Bing works. So advises John Pring in a Six Revisions post. Why is a ... more
Visits to Facebook accounted for 10.28% of US Internet traffic in the week ended November 13, 2010, up 63.5% from the same period a year earlier, according to according to Experian's Hitwise Intelligence. more
US Internet advertising revenues reached an estimated $6.4 billion in the third quarter of 2010, a record high for the online ad industry and 17% higher than the same period in 2009, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC. more
When managed well, Facebook's community of 500 million (and counting!) global users is an ideal place for brands to get the message out. But before you start developing dazzling social campaigns, start by taking a small foundational step in the right direction. If you're using Facebook to promote a brand, be ... more
National retailers are marketing via social networking channels—particularly Facebook, but also Twitter—at increasing levels, integrating their online and physical properties via those channels and using their rapidly increasing fan and follower bases to build stronger brand experiences, according to a report by Media Logic. more
There's still time to implement plans for your holiday email campaigns, writes Suzanne Norman in a recent post at the Emma blog, and you have reason to be optimistic about a profitable season: "[N]umbery types might like to know ... that email-driven sales were up 11% from 2008 during the ... more
Americans viewed more than 4.6 billion online video ads in October 2010, with Hulu delivering a record 1.1 billion video ad impressions during the month on the strength of fall TV viewership, according to comScore Video Metrix. Meanwhile, Google Sites maintained its position as the top online video property during ... more
Some of the funniest comedy skits have been spoof TV spots—and they closely follow proven DRTV principles to make their sketch more believable and more poignant: They grab your attention; they frame a problem that needs to be solved; they state their offer as the solution; they show the product ... more
"Just a few years ago, I could count on receiving a mailbox-full of direct mail nearly every day, including the crown jewel of direct marketing, the BIG direct mail piece," writes Dean Rieck at Direct Creative. "Thick #10's, fat 6×9's, and beefy 9×12's once stood atop the mountain of attention-grabbing ... more
Companies that deliver high-quality customer experiences via new media are rewarded for their efforts, often in the form of higher brand awareness and likelihood to purchase among those who engage, but that loyalty can be hard to find and hard to keep, according to a survey from Cone. more
Nearly four in ten mobile users (38%) say they're dissatisfied with most of the apps currently available from their favorite brands, and 69% agree that if a brand's mobile app isn't useful or easy to use, it contributes to a negative perception of the brand, according to a survey from ... more
Back in Mother Russia last summer, mobile phone operator MTS engaged users on a titillating mobile scavenger hunt on behalf of its 'Red Energy' branded phone plan. The game kicked off in Moscow at the Paveletskaya subway stop, where a user could scan a QR code (a two-dimensional bar code) with ... more
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