Social Media Marketing

Twitter is revamping its Web page so that users will actually stay on the site. With its reliance on 140-character messages that typically link to other content, Twitter's model was tailor made to send users elsewhere. The design changes and new partnerships with content providers are meant to keep ...

In a Ted Talk from 2004 that I watched a the other day, Malcolm Gladwell spoke about Howard Moskowitz. You might recall the New Yorker writer made a name for himself with the publication of The Tipping Point and several other works that focus on the unpredictable things that people do in the course...

I was at a friend's dual celebration of birthday and wedding anniversary recently, and as part of the occasion someone had prepared two fantastic cakes, which were both amazing to behold and a delight to eat. While the appearance was all to do with the icing, the taste and nutrition were defined by ...

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...

Many businesses have begun to use some form of user-generated content on their sites, and while this content can help to build a brand and develop a community, there is some risk involved. Some of the issues requiring management and moderation include abusive language, spam attacks, dilution of keyw...

Twitter on Wednesday launched its @earlybird service, aimed at providing its some 75 million members with daily deals and creating a revenue stream for itself. The first offering from the service was a discount on tickets to see the critically panned movie "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from Disney and...

Facebook has joined the list of social networking sites available in the in-boxes of Outlook users, thanks to Microsoft's Outlook Social Connector. Outlook users have been expecting Tuesday's announcement since November, when Microsoft said the service would be included in its Office 2010 suite. The...

Google has reportedly invested a significant sum of money -- between US$100 million and $200 million -- in social games company Zynga in order to build out a Google Games offering for the search engine giant. The investment, which was reportedly made by Google and not Google Ventures, is a highly st...

Microblogging service Twitter has announced its second major attempt to monetize -- the @earlybird service. This will let advertisers pay a fee to promote exclusive events, tout time-sensitive special deals and offer sneak peeks at products to Twitter users. The service had signed up more than 15,00...

Social media can be wonderful tools for sales and marketing, but so far most companies and most anecdotal evidence that I have seen point to practices that are mired in old-think, with the result that social media is being questioned as a strategy. Here are some ideas that I give my clients when th...