Social Media Marketing

Monitoring online conversation can provide insights that are relevant to a range of functions and activities, and that drive different types of value to a company. Companies need to understand what these sources of value are and then design their social media monitoring program so that the findings ...

In the rush to Facebook, marketers are discovering that different kinds of content drive different kinds of results -- and different social networks respond in different ways. It was not that long ago that the experts warned that brands could not "sell" in social media, that the audience would rebel...

In the movie "The Social Network," the Zuckerberg character keeps insisting to his marketing director that selling advertising on the site would make Facebook uncool. Six years later, we've grown accustomed to advertising on Facebook. Now, Zuckerberg's team is ready to take the commercialization of ...

Twitter has received $200 million in financing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, according to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. The funding pegs Twitter's valuation at $3.7 billion. Clearly, the investors believe Twitter will find an effective way to squeeze substantial revenue from its massive use...

With holiday online shopping numbers at an all-time high, retailers understand that the Web is a critical sales channel. What they might be overlooking, however, is just how influential social networks have become in the shopping process -- both online and off. As more consumers turn to the Web and...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in his 1964 Order that he could not use words to describe pornography but "I know it when I see it." Even though judges may not be able to define "social media," they generally understand the complex circumstances in legal disputes. However, s...

Facebook brushed itself up with a new makeover Sunday, this time focusing on the layout of members' profile screens. Users' profile pages now begin with a snapshot of information about themselves and feature recently tagged photos of the user. Facebook users can list their activities and include fri...

With more than 500 million people around the globe spending 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook, there is no question that it is the most important and pervasive social ecosystem in the world. It's no wonder that brands of all shapes, sizes and offerings are leveraging the user base to connect...

MySpace and Facebook -- bitter enemies until Facebook left MySpace far in the dust -- have announced new and tighter integrations between the two. The announcement constituted a tacit, but completely unnecessary, concession by MySpace that the social networking wars were over and that Facebook was t...

Rumors have been flying wildly since Facebook sent out a press invitation for an announcement Nov. 15 in San Francisco. At 10 a.m. on Monday, Facebook representatives -- perhaps CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself -- are expected to announce something big in conjunction with the Web 2.0 Summit. Zuckerberg i...

It's been more than a decade since the publication of the The Clue Train Manifesto -- a business classic, well ahead of its time. Rich with both insight and foresight, it still amazes me that it was written before Twitter, Facebook and YouTube -- and, as business leaders, as marketers and as technol...

Many of the most popular applications on Facebook have been transmitting identifying information -- names of users and, in some cases, the names of their friends -- to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, according to The Wall Street Journal. Developers are not permitted to disclos...

The new Internet is full of extraordinary companies that looked at the market from a different angle and created entirely new approaches to the changing Web. Zynga, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook and 1-800-Flowers.com have all seen and seized the massive opportunity of a new Internet driven by social net...

Twitter Cofounder Evan Williams has stepped aside as CEO and placed Dick Costolo, the man he hired as chief operating officer, in charge of the company as it works to build its business model. "I am most satisfied while pushing product direction," Williams wrote in a blog post announcing his decisio...

Not very long ago, both social media and e-commerce were new and innovative. Now, they're simply elements of today's marketing mix -- part of the fabric of how you reach your customer engagement and revenue objectives. During the slow economic recovery, it has become business-critical to conduct mor...