Social media marketers are beginning to really latch onto the social networking platform Facebook to promote and sell their brands. Through contest, video, coupons and conversation marketers are trying to draw in customers to up their fan count - yet they still seem to making the same rookie mistakes.

They key to social media is being a good listener. Just like in face-to-face conversation no one wants to be talked at, they want to be engaged, heard and cared about. Here are a few things you might be missing in your Facebook marketing strategy: (more…)

The Internet grows in terms of users everyday. By the hundreds, thousands and even billions platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare are being seen by more people as useful ways to consume and share media. However, this social media craze isn’t just for the kids anymore.

A new study from Pew Internet found that between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking site usage grew 88 per cent among participants aged 55-64, and that the 65 and older group’s social networking presence grew 100 per cent in the same time frame. (more…)

It seems that not only is social media becoming a more important aspect of the marketing function, however more executives are planning for the landscape with a social media strategy according to a new survey by King Fish Media, HubSpot and Junta42.

In June 2010, 457 marketers and managers were surveyed by the three companies and over 50 per cent were in the publishing, media, advertising and marketing industry. And, 72 per cent of U.S. companies said they had devised a social media strategy. (more…)

The social media space changes so quickly that it is often hard for marketers to stay at the front of the pack. While social media is no longer new, its trends develop with the blink of an eye and that isn’t even counting the endless list of start-ups, mergers, acquisitions and failures.

“Marketing has always been a field with a constant learning curve, but the shifts taking place today are occurring more quickly, making it especially challenging to keep pace,” said Donna Farrugia, executive director of The Creative Group. (more…)

More and more brand websites are being replaced or out-done by their Facebook fan pages. So how is it that some companies are still holding up their brand websites while others are slowly losing traction?

According to DBM/SCAN U.S. web traffic to brand websites rarely exceeds six figures, however it can already count 37 branded Facebook pages with at least a million fans just among consumer packaged goods, retail, pharmaceutical and fast-food marketers. (more…)

When Apple announced that it would not be adopting Adobe Flash into any of its products - ever, companies everywhere had to make a choice to have a website that worked with flash, HTML5 or both.

Both Google, and more recently Yahoo released HTML5-optimized versions of their sites. ICUC Moderation Services went for both, because we want our clients to be able to access us from anywhere, but what should other companies keep in mind when optimizing for mobile?

Eighty per cent of businesses across a range of industries said they plan to or already have developed mobile websites in the next year, according to a new survey by Adobe Systems. (more…)

A huge part of marketing success is based on the consumers ability to trust a brand. With the influx of social media use by today’s marketer, that trust has now taken an entirely new form where a company’s trustworthiness must be proven day after day, after day.

A study put out by research firm Invoke Solutions found that overall, people trust people they know much more than brands or service-based companies, the platform that brands used, be it Facebook or a blog, did not make a significant difference in how trustworthy they were perceived. (more…)

We’re all looking to be more influential on Twitter - however are we getting too wrapped up in the wrong numbers? According to a new study from HP Labs we might be concentrating too hard on how many people are following us rather than how many people like what we have to say.

Director of Hewlett-Packard Labs’ Social Computing Labs, Dr. Bernardo A. Huberman, and his team analyzed 22 million tweets over 300 hours in September of 2009 in order to develop what is referred to as an IP algorithm to highlight influential Twitter users by assigning them a score for influence and passivity. (more…)

Twitter has become a beloved tool for online marketing. It’s quick and easy, you can link to sites, add images, schedule updates and spread your message to a huge community of online users. So why isn’t it working for more people? Well there is that small thing called style that holds many marketers back.

According to a white paper by 360i called Twitter and the Consumer-Marketer Dynamic, more than 90 per cent of tweets come from non-marketing, everyday people, while just eight per cent come from marketers. As well, marketers are only spending 16 per cent of their 140-character messages actually conversing with consumers. (more…)

While so many of us are convinced that social media is here to stay, there are a few professionals out there who are convinced that the platform is still dangerous that is leading marketers and advertisers down the wrong path.

New applications such as Foursquare and campaigns that encourage ’stalker’ type behaviour, such as detergent brand Omo’s consumer tracking project - a part of its larger campaign Dirt Is Good -  stir a lot of emotion among marketers and advertisers.

Social media marketing can provide many significant benefits: (more…)