Sponsored Conversation in Social media

I have been reading about how PR professionals are leveraging social media. "Social Media Conversation is moving into the paid advertising space. As public relations online moves into the social media marketing space, Internet marketing professionals are developing golden rules to secure market share though what is known as Sponsored Conversation. These rules will be exponentially golden to those who mentor today’s great brand managers into the social media space." Read more, http://sponsoredconversation.wordpress.com.

AdAge and other industry leaders are now trying to educate marketers and bloggers on the necessity of taking responsibility. AdAge suggests that endorsements by bloggers must “reflect honest opinions, findings, beliefs or experience” of the endorser. Both the marketer and the blogger can be held liable for misleading or false statements made by the blogger about the brand.”

Best Fits for Social Media in the Sales Cycle

Best Fits for Social Media in the Sales Cycle

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Google Goats, natural lawncare

Google, in an effort to be green has brought in a herd of goats to take care of the grass at their Mountainview, CA location. Apparently they did a great job and there's nothing but dirt left. Watch the video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw_XI0WVZBg

Online Statistics from Nielsen Online

According to Nielsen reports from last month,

• The average American visited 111 internet domains in March 2009.
• They surfed an average of 2,554 web pages in that one month.
• The duration of time spent on a web page was about 56 seconds.
• The top three parent companies (divisions) for the month were Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
• More than 137 million users visited at least one Google-owned site (or launched a Google application).
• AOL was the 4th largest, but had the longest amount of time spent per person (3 hours and 45 minutes).
• Facebook users spent an average of 3 hours and 16 minutes on the site during the month of March.

Oprah is on twitter:Ashton 1M followers

Today, Oprah had one of the founders of Twitter on her show. With her reach, she will create a huge influx of new members. Ashton Kutcher now has the most followers at 1 million, more than CNN. He thinks that social media has changed the way the media operates dramatically. Now, anyone with enough followers can have a voice, and hopefully use it for a good cause. Advertising Age's article, http://tinyurl.com/ctjq2l"The Real Meaning of Ashton Kutcher's 1M Twitter Followers, If This Dude's at the Pinnacle of the Attention Economy, the Attention Economy Needs a Bailout" doesn't think Ashton is so innocent, he has unleashed one of the biggest PR stunts in a long time. Their point is"Just that the utopian rhetoric of social-networking aside, the lesson of media history is that, regardless of the rise and fall of media conglomerates, media is almost always about The Few profiting at the expense of The Many's attention."

Costs of viral video-Survey from Marketing Sherpa

Marketing Sherpa has published the results of its latest survey of 1,000 marketers actively using viral video in their campaigns. Viral media success is predicated on the act of being passed on from one person to the next. This makes measuring results relatively easy to do. One of the most interesting conclusions Marketing Sherpa found was, "the discovery that the majority of successful executions were made on low budgets by TV commercial standards, but large budgets by typical DIY viral-video costs." Keeping creative expenses low, while avoiding amateurish-looking videos was also recommended.

To learn more, read the article: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31167

Blogs: Who to trust?

Blogs are immensely popular with everyone, from the stay-at-home mom looking for tips to businesses trying to sell their wares. With more and more people are turning to the online channels for text-based content, they are wanting to know who to trust in terms of valuable and real content? There is no real answer, but it usually becomes apparent when you start reading pretty quickly who to turn to for real advice. And, at that point you can decide for yourself.

Tweet, businesses tap new markets with social media

Globe and Mail: Business tap new markets with social media: http://tinyurl.com/c265cs11:49 AM Apr 2nd from web.

Twitter, the latest example of a social networking site turned business tool, is a "microblogging" site where members post 140-character "tweets," or updates on their activities, comments and links to websites. Twitter gets about 10 million unique visitors a month.

Marketing budgets shrink when times are tough.Shouldn't it be the opposite?

With marketing budgets under scrutiny, doing more with less is the new black. The fact is that marketing budgets are shrinking in today's difficult economic climate. But, this is the complete opposite of what should actually be happening. When times are tough, its the best time to start marketing. Outsourcing marketing functions is a good way to continue critical marketing functions while managing costs.