Driven by gradual economic recovery, advances in digital technology, and secular shifts in business and consumer spending, total communications industry spending is on pace to increase 3.5% in 2010 and post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.8% from 2010 to 2014, reaching $1.4 trillion in spending by 2014, ... more

Some 178 million US Internet users watched online videos in July 2010 for an average of 14.7 hours per viewer, according to comScore Video Metrix. Though Google Sites continued to dominate online video viewing during the month, Facebook jumped one spot from its June ranking to become the third-most popular ... more

Social media can be an effective marketing tool for small businesses. However, different businesses have different needs and different reasons for adopting social media. Regardless of the reason, social media can serve as an efficient, low-cost marketing tool for businesses seeking to generate measurable business results. more

Consumers looking for local business information are increasingly turning to their mobile devices: The number of people who accessed Internet business directories on a mobile phone reached 17.3 million in March 2010, up 14% from the same period a year earlier, according to a study by the Yellow Pages Association ... more

When it comes to SEO, writes Ian Lurie at Conversation Marketing, "Publishers have it easy: Make some changes, site- or server-wide, and you're a hero." This isn't quite the case, though, for writers and editors. "Editorial staff," he continues, "have to apply sound SEO and online writing practices to every ... more

Driven by increasing smartphone adoption, worldwide sales of mobile devices to end-users reached 325.6 million units in the second quarter of 2010, up 13.8% from the same period a year earlier, according to Gartner. more

Using Twitter for brand-building? Hardcore users know one personal account is a full-time job, so nurturing a bunch of client/brand accounts just might make you crazy! But lucky for us, applications that can help simplify your brand-building tweets are showing up almost daily. Case in point: Tweet Adder. This desktop application, used ... more

American businesses spent $5 billion reaching the Hispanic market in 2008, and for good reason. By 2013, Latinos will control 10 percent—or a staggering $1.4 trillion—of the country's buying power. So reports Chanin Ballance in an article at MarketingProfs. "That puts Hispanics ahead of all other minority groups, including African ... more

In a post at the Bronto blog, Julie Waite says you may know Chick-Fil-A recently introduced a Spicy Chicken Sandwich. "What you may not have heard," she notes, "was that they ran a special invite-only event promotion to taste the new sandwich (for free!) well in advance of its launch ... more

Want to increase traffic to your site? A recent article at the SEO Traffic Spider recommends using social-media optimization (SMO) as a highly effective method for search-engine optimization of any website. As the name implies, you optimize your site by advertising it through social-media sites and online communities. According to the ... more

In less than five years, more than 50 percent of users at any given time will be accessing the Internet from a mobile device, according to Morgan Stanley. Frankly, it feels like that number is already being reached in the business world. After all, Internet-ready mobile devices are ubiquitous, and the ... more

The best path to the heart is still the stomach, and Nabisco apparently knows it. The company recently began mining Twitter to find customers who love its Wheat Thins crackers and give a lucky few of them the surprise of their lives. Here's how the company and its agency of ... more

It's been a long time coming, writes Dylan Boyd at Email Wars, but with "new systems of marketing automation we are finally gaining ground to creating trigger-based campaigns on actions, behavior and timing." Boyd provides a thorough rundown on various trigger-based campaigns you might employ. Here are a few highlights to ... more

Smartphones have become an integral part of Twitter and Facebook use: 33% of smartphone owners who use Twitter say they read tweets primarily via their smartphone, and 33% of such consumers send tweets primarily via their mobile device, according to a survey from Compete. more

In a post at the Online Marketing blog, Lee Odden notes that one of the biggest fears for website owners is a sudden drop in search-engine rankings. Case in point: Google's recent 'Mayday' algorithmic change affecting long-tail searches (see Google Webmaster Matt Cutts' video explanation). It left many webmasters up-in-arms ... more

Social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men worldwide, and across leading social sites, such as Facebook, women are more engaged—consuming more pages and spending more time—according to a new study from comScore. On average, women spend 30% more time on social networking sites than men; moreover, ... more

It's easy to get lost in the Facebook hype. Everybody's on it—but is "everybody" relevant to you? Here's a quick way to find out. Check out Research Spotlight: Facebook, a new report from MarketingProfs that offers a cheat sheet on the social site, breaking down vital user data for marketers. ... more

Like many aspects of mobile marketing, location-based social networks (LBSNs) offer interactive marketers the promise of connecting consumers with places and points of sale. Most marketers, however, should wait to adopt the nascent channel until larger industry players, such as Facebook and Yahoo, offer location-based services at a sufficiently large ... more

If a subject line gets truncated on its way to your subscriber's inbox, cautions Mark Brownlow at Email Marketing Reports, it can do more than cause a "wry smile" or a "little embarrassment." It can cause outright confusion, or it can tell your customers something you didn't even mean to ... more

Small-business advertisers spent on average $2,231 on search advertising in the second quarter of 2010, up 159.7% from the $859 spent in the same period a year earlier, and up 1.4% from the $2,201 spent in the first quarter of 2010, according to a WebVisible study based on its small-biz ... more

"Facebook has more than 400 million active users who collectively spend more time on the platform than on any other website in the world, sharing detailed information about their likes, dislikes, and preferences," writes Matt Lawson at MarketingProfs. In other words, the social networking powerhouse is a potential bonanza for search ... more

Now, even your offline world can have a social element: Sotokolan, whose slogan is "Objects get social," enables you to attach your Facebook page to a custom QR code. (A QR code is like a barcode that, when scanned, points users to a Web page or reveals other digital information.) Through ... more

US retailers are actively pursuing the mobile channel to enhance customer engagement and loyalty: 73% have some type of mobile initiative in place and 20% of are in the process of evaluating the mobile channel, according to a survey from Forbes Insights, in association with Research In Motion (RIM). more

It's the social weapon you just don't hear enough about: SlideShare. At first glance, it comes across as a mere archive for uploading presentations, but oh—it's so much more than that! When used correctly, SlideShare can help you cleverly boost your messaging, your brand, your very corporate presence online. Consider these four ways ... more

Though the adoption of sophisticated mobile devices continues to climb, the integration of mobile marketing into email and online programs is still low: Less than one-third of marketers say mobile-optimized experiences are relevant to their email audiences, but nearly two-thirds say they are integrating social technologies into their email efforts, ... more