How to Quantify Social Media Engagement in B2B Marketing

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For the past five years or so, social media has been all the rage. It's the cool, now not-so-new shiny toy that routinely makes its way into just about every new business and client presentation. Brands have slapped up Facebook pages, opened Twitter accounts, pounced on Pinterest, queried Quora, lapped up LinkedIn and given Google+ a gander.

But does any of it work? As is always the case with new marketing tactics (and old, as well), the question comes down to ROI; where did the money go and how did it affect the bottom line of the business? Here is one company's approach to answering that question.

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by Steve Hall    Jan-17-13    
Topic: Research, Social



How to Crush Your Competititors With Social Media in 30 Days

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Social media is a competitive landscape that many argue can make or break a company's marketing.

Social Media in the U.S. has increased 356% in six years. These days the question isn't should you use social media or not. It's is your use of social better or worse than your competitors?

Inbound marketing company HubSpot has published an eBook, How to Crush Your Competitors on Social Media in 30 Days, which will teach you the following:

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by Steve Hall    Jan- 9-13    
Topic: Research, Social



Report: 2012 Twitter Trends

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Here's a snapshot at Twitter share of voice and sentiment for top companies in several major industries: Media & Entertainment, Finance, Retail, Telecommunications, Quick-service restaurants, Health, Auto, Nonprofits, Alcohol, Travel, Tech, and CPG.

For each industry, social insight firm Topsy made a chart showing the share of voice for the top 10 businesses or brands with the share of Twitter mentions for each brand across the entire year including events that caused particular spikes.

The charts also show a list of the brands (combining name and Twitter handle) ranked by Topsy's social sentiment score. To compute the sentiment score, Topsy analyzes about 200 million English-language tweets each day, computes minute-by-minute sentiment for every term in every tweet, and creates scaled scores for all terms, such as the brands and businesses listed here. The scores range from 0 (negative) to 100 (positive), with 50 as neutral.

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by Steve Hall    Jan- 7-13    
Topic: Research



Infographic Explains What We Already Know: People Distrust Ads

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A new infographic produced by market researcher Lab42 reveals a stunning discovery; 76 percent of people think ads are somewhat or very exaggerated. Well slap me upside the head with an SRDS book. Who knew?

In other stunning findings, 96 percent of the 500 folks Lab42 surveyed believe half or more of all weight loss ads are photoshopped. Bet this makes Jessica Simpson pretty angry.

While it's obvious the majority of people distrust advertising, just 17 percent wish there were more laws to regulate advertising. Guess everyone's fine with being duped.

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by Steve Hall    Jan- 7-13    
Topic: Research



How IP Zone Targeting Bests Cookie Targeting by 128 Percent

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Cookies. They've been used as a method of online targeting since Netscape introduced them in the nineties. However, they are fraught with problems such as blocking, expiration, privacy issues and duplication. According to a whitepaper from Semcasting, only 50 percent of a target audience is identifiable by cookie because the rest are blocked or the cookie expires and just one out of three of those cookies represent a unique user, less than 20 percent of an audience is actually being reached.

Of course, this being a whitepaper offering, Semcasting has a solution to the problem. It's called IP Zone Targeting and involves going beyond simple geographic IP targeting. Seamcasting has developed a technology that allows advertisers to target user type (home, business, government, etc.) and demographics (750 of them).

Download the whitepaper now to learn more about Semcasting's IP Zone targeting.

by Steve Hall    Jan- 3-13    
Topic: Research



How 'Big Data' Can Improve Your Online Marketing

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Just like the term "native advertising" is being bandied about as the latest end-all, be-all solution to what ails the advertising industry, the term "big data" is said to be the savior of online audience targeteting. This Janrain whitepaper, part of the Adrants whitepaper series, explores ways to collect, store, and extract value from the ever-increasing volume of customer-related information.

Download the whitepaper now to insure your approach to "big data" is more than a buzzword.

by Steve Hall    Dec-20-12    
Topic: Research



Internet Ad Revenue Up 18 Percent to $9.3 Billion in Q3

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Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. reached $9.26 billion for the third quarter of 2012, making the quarter the biggest on record, according to the latest IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report figures released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC US. These figures show an 18 percent climb year-over-year, in comparison to Q3 2011's $7.8 billion. In addition, they mark a 6 percent increase over the Q2 2012 figures of $8.72 billion.

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by Steve Hall    Dec-19-12    
Topic: Research



55 Brands Rocking Social Media with Visual Content

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Remember that saying "a picture is worth one thousand words? Well that notion plays well in social media just as it does everywhere else. To help you get a sense of just how important visual media can be and how brands are using imagery today, inbound marketing company HubSpot has compiled this list of 55 brands killing it with visual content on the top visually-driven social networks.

Use this for inspiration to launch your visual content strategy.

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by Steve Hall    Dec-18-12    
Topic: Research, Social



How Mobile, Tablets Will Fuel Super Bowl Social Media Activity

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An infographic from mobile ad network Mojiva details the planned behaviors of mobile and tablet users during the Super Bowl. Overall, smartphones will remain a primary mechanism of social activities during this year's game,Here are some key findings from the research:

- 9% of tablet owners plan to use their device during the game, while 56% of smartphone users intend to engage on theirs.

- 45% say they use their smartphone during the game to post updates to their social networks, while 58% say they discuss the game through text, IM or email.

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by Steve Hall    Dec-13-12    
Topic: Mobile/Wireless, Research, Social, Super Bowl 2013



How Social Media Can Make Your Job Suck Less

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So everyone's been yapping about how great social media is and why you should implement it to better your relationship with your customers. Well, what about the most important customer of all? You. Yea, you. That's right. Because with no you, there's no them and without them, there's no you. OK, that's confusing. Tanslation: Social media is great for serving your customer's needs but it's also great for serving your own internal needs.

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by Steve Hall    Dec-13-12    
Topic: Research, Social