With the news of Steve Jobs's death on October 5, 2011, the Twitter universe exploded with tributes to the visionary co-founder and former chief executive of Apple. More than half of those tweets were generated via Apple devices, according to a study by Visibli. more

Hugging your customers—at least in a virtual, figurative sense—can increase engagement and boost positive word-of-mouth. Here are six ways to get customers to embrace you and market for you. more

In today's social climate, influencers are more important than ever in shaping impressions and customer actions. Connect with those powerful voices. Learn three steps to locating and engaging your key influencers. more

Running your small business is a labor of love, but promoting it with new, targeted efforts is necessary to connect with customers. Learn how to keep things fresh and stay connected when marketing your business. more

Online marketers have a dirty little secret. They've got no idea what to do once they've earned enough social media "likes" to reach their goals. Here are five ways to turn those fans and followers into brand advocates. more

"Plenty of companies have referral programs," writes Kimberly Smith, "but how many can say theirs converts at about three times the rate of other online marketing campaigns and brings in over 500 new product sales each month?" In a case study at MarketingProfs, Smith explains how Roku—which makes devices that ... more

Your customers will soon wield more and more power, becoming the most powerful communications channel. Are you ready for the new world of marketing? Learn the five keys to building a crowdsourced future.. more

Many companies have referral programs, but how many can say theirs converts at about three times the rate of other online campaigns and brings in over 500 product sales each month? Learn how one company did just that. more

Small business owners are still lukewarm about social media: 53% say they use social media for business, but only 12% say social marketing is a must for their business, according to a survey from Hiscox. Social media adoption varies by company size, however. more

What is serendipity? You could say it is a manifestation of creativity whose inspiration comes from outside. More companies are finding that serendipity is a huge factor in innovation processes, resulting in the birth of "open innovation" programs such as Procter & Gamble's Connect & Develop, and contests where internal ... more

Unless your company finds itself at the epicenter of a major scandal—à la BP—social media chatter can be a valuable sales-generating tool. "[C]onsider every mention of your brand for potential use in your email marketing campaigns," writes Hal Licino in an article at MarketingProfs. "Doing so demonstrates to your subscribers that ... more

Any good conversationalist will tell you: It's not enough to listen, you must know how to listen. That principle holds true in the sprawled social world as well. In a recent article at AdAge Digital, Kyle Monson notes that the "efficacy of social listening is determined not by the listening ... more

When executed well, a VoC program can provide insight about customers and what is important to them. Besides the obvious reasons why that's important to know, there are business benefits to making this type of investment of time and money. more

The Temkin Group's Bruce Temkin has a six-step philosophy for pleasing users. "The trick to getting customer experience right," he notes in an article at 1to1 Media, "is simply to apply a bit of common sense." Don't miss the complete article (sign-in required). In the meantime, here are a few ... more

Everywhere you look, people are talking about "communities"—how to find them, how to join them, and... if you're lucky, how to successfully sell your products and services to their members. Here are five steps to engaging online communities and finding and maintaining your fanatics. more

More than one-quarter of US consumers (26%) say they are more likely to tell family, friends, and coworkers about a bad experience with a product or service than a good one, according to LoyaltyOne's COLLOQUY report. more

We recently offered tips for checking out your business rivals through social media monitoring. But what exactly is the state of the customer-monitoring art in 2011?  Lucky for us, monitoring firm Synthesio has produced quite a useful article that explores what the big picture of social media monitoring looks like ... more

In a recent post at Search Engine Watch, Rob Chant notes that if you're doing any marketing at all, measuring the performance of your website is still critical to your success. And although your Web server likely has a basic tracking tool already installed, he argues that Google Analytics (GA) ... more

Marketers the world over are using social media not only to connect with customers and prospects, but also to see how well their competition is doing. As the wired social world grows in sophistication, so do the means to monitor the conversation. Sure, it's easier than ever to keep an eye on ... more

Social media still trails traditional marketing channels such as email in driving traffic to retail websites; however, customers who visit top retail sites because of a social media interaction are highly likely to purchase, according to a study by Foresee Results. more

Simply slapping up social media content and hoping it works to build brand awareness and drive sales is not enough: "Social" is not the same as "sharing." And social content works best when it's shared. Here's how you can activate viral sharing of your content. more

If you've been shoehorned, by choice or necessity, into the role of a social community manager, your fingers must ache. It's not easy navigating a multiplicity of social media accounts for yourself and a client—sometimes multiple clients—at the same time. But thumbs up! The super-helpful iPhone app MySocialMania doesn't just keep you ... more

With an article proclaiming "the democracy of fine dining," USA Today recently covered a growing trend of restaurants using Twitter to improve diner experiences and expectations. Among companies like Chipotle and Pei Wei (which have full-time social-media staffers) and Chicago-based Graham Elliott (whose Twitter is run by the MasterChef judge himself) ... more

Most prospects are not experts in purchasing the types of products and services you offer. So what do they do? They turn to testimonials because testimonials are readily available and because they hope to learn from others' experiences. 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