Small business owners are planning to engage customers in new ways in 2010, according to an Ad-ology Research study: 28 percent say they will spend at least the same or more on online video, an increase of 75 percent over last year's plans; 25 percent say they will commit more resources to social media; and 21 percent say the same for mobile advertising. More
Supporting a Global Brand Campaign with Paid Search
from Search Engine Land
As soon as you, the marketer, pay for a search click, someone will want to know what you got for it. This means that you will need effective ways to both optimize and report out results on your campaign. This is yet another example of how search marketers can excel in otherwise uncharted territory (e.g. brand campaigns), and ultimately how you can end up looking like a hero to your upper management. More
Fans and Followers: The Social Media Numbers Game
from Practical eCommerce
Momentum is a valuable force. But customer-generated momentum is powerful. And it's readily accessible thanks to social media. That, to a large degree, is why businesses create Twitter accounts and encourage Twitter "followers." So what is the tipping point for social media? How many fans and followers do you need before your popularity--and, in turn, your potential customer base--grows exponentially? More
Five Tips for Using Video to Grow Your Business in 2010
from Mashable
It's no secret that online video is hot. A recent study by comScore revealed that in October 2009, more than 167 million viewers in the U.S. watched an average of 167 videos each, while YouTube (YouTube) reached 1 billion views per day -- or 41 million views per hour -- in the same month. More
Your Top Holiday Deliverability Virtue: Patience
from ClickZ
Delivery issues usually come to a head during the hectic holiday season, when the crush of retail e-mail meets sometimes unforgiving filters at the major Internet service providers (ISPs) like AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail. It's the worst time of the year to discover that mass quantities of your e-mail messages are failing to reach inboxes that had previously been open to you. Your first instinct is to hunt down all the ISP deliverability reps you know and demand that they lift the gates and let your e-mail get through. This is precisely the time when exercising patience will help get your problems fixed more quickly than nasty phone calls and threats. More
The Brave New World of the Engaged Web
from MarketingProfs
It's clear that Web habits are changing fast. In terms of clicks per minute, the world's attention is dominated not by traditional content-based sites but by a set of radically different, interactive, community-based tools and services. We no longer use the Web just for browsing, we use it for doing: posting videos, creating content, sharing things, and connecting with people and organizations. Welcome to "the Engaged Web," a new world where passive websites have been replaced by engaging Web applications and where visitors have become users. That new world has three important implications for marketers More
Four New Signals in Search
from Search Engine Watch
Search engines constantly look for new signals they can use to improve the quality of the results they provide to users. Ultimately, user satisfaction is a critical component in retaining or increasing their market share, especially over the long term. This article explores some of these new potential signals and the way search engines evaluate and make decisions to use a new signal. More
Retailers Go Nuts for Social Media in Holiday Marketing
from Advertising Age
Retailers are embracing social media like never before this holiday season. More than half are including it in their marketing strategies, up drastically from only four percent in 2007, according to a new survey out from BDO Seidman. Of those who reported plans to use social media, 76 percent are focusing on Facebook, 50 percent on Twitter, 14 percent on MySpace and 14 percent on YouTube. Ten percent said they expected to utilize each of those outlets. More
Nielsen: U.S. Ad Spend Falls 11.5 Percent
from Media Daily News
Only three media advertising areas have shown growth through the first three-quarters of this year: cable TV, Spanish-language cable TV and free-standing newspaper inserts. The Nielsen Company says overall U.S. advertising spending declined 11.5 percent from January through September -- compared to the same time period a year ago -- to $83.4 billion. More
