Social media has become a vital part of the online experience today; people spend a considerable part of their day either networking or shopping via social media channels such as Facebook or Groupon. For brands, people's increasing presence on various networking channels and their purchasing power presents tremendous marketing opportunities. However, for online marketers, building relationships via social media is not a one-size-fits-everyone endeavor. Marketers who are aware of this are smartly designing their digital campaigns focusing on unique target groups instead of simply creating one without a specific audience in mind. When social networking was in the stages of infancy, it was mostly teens and young adults who dominated this space. A lot ... Read more...

The March 26th edition of The New York Times carried a story about Twitter and how celebrities have turned to ghost writers to put out the 140 character text messages. The article cited examples, and quoted celebrities and consultants (i.e., ghost Twitterers) who explain and defend the "ghosts" in Twitter as acceptable. Basketball star, Shaq and cycling great, Armstrong, were the standouts in their opinion that it is pitiful if someone, even a busy celebrity, couldn't regularly string together 140 characters conveying their own thoughts and opinions to their fans and followers.

So, what should we make of this? Does it even matter?

It definitely matters. In this age of information overload when messages are being created, re-transmitted, ... Read more...