The need to balance your social media mix

In 2010, industry experts predicted Facebook to see exponential growth in the years to come; and rightly so. Facebook saw its active user base (outside the US) grow by over 19 million in just four months (October 2010-February 2011), signaling that the networking giant was clearly the king of social media. Predictions for Twitter indicate that it will have a steady 2011, while LinkedIn is expected to witness strong growth in the next five years. According to eMarketer, in 2012, 88% companies in the US will use social media tools for marketing purposes. This brings us to the question of what social media tools are ... Read more...

The influence of the internet, especially via social networking, on people's purchasing behavior has grown over the years. Retailers, who depended on traditional stores to drive sales, have found that the reach of social media extends beyond generating visibility; it is also a channel to generate revenue. Social media being the next logical marketing arena has prompted retailers to shift a percentage of their marketing dollars to this space. According to Forrester Research:

• Online retail sales will grow to $250 billion by 2014, up from $155 billion in 2009.
• As estimated $917 billion worth of retail sales in 2010 were 'web-influenced'.
• Online and web-influenced offline sales together accounted for 42% of total retail sales.
• This figure is ... Read more...

When Security was Breached

The personal information of millions of Sony's PlayStation customers was compromised when (as yet unidentified) hackers recently raided the company's databases. In addition to the theft of 77 million user accounts earlier, nearly 24.6 million SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) accounts have also been hacked into. Sony, which was first alerted of the attack on 20th April 2011, stated that it was doing everything to restore network at the earliest. Approximately 2.2 million credit card numbers are rumored to be stolen, besides other user data such as home addresses, email addresses, birth dates, usernames and passwords. Meanwhile, the database has apparently been put up for sale on underground hacker forums.

The Reaction

• Following ... Read more...

Social media, in all its forms, has become a key factor for ad agencies. While traditional advertising is here to stay, ad agencies are increasingly including social media into their marketing mix. According to Jeremiah Owyang, there has been a significant increase in spending by corporations for employing the services of agencies that specialize in social media engagement and monitoring.

In 2010, Old Spice launched its viral campaign called "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" featuring Isaiah Mustafa. Although the campaign was first aired on TV before it was featured on YouTube, it recorded around 22.3 million views between February 2010 and July 2010. The online marketing for the ad was ... Read more...