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Added the Google tracking code to the Landing page for the ads you are running? What about the Facebook landing tabs that you are running for a contest/sweepstakes/announcement or any other promotion. The insights are great and much more in depth than what Facebook provides. Do this now!Another great piece of code is the Google remarketing code. With the same added onto your Facebook page it makes for a great spread for your Google Adwords run ads. With a captive fan base account being pulled into the target range it makes for specific targeting.So you are running a contest on Facebook & Twitter at the same time? Ensure you talk about it on both platforms. Those with accounts on either will get involved. Sounds irrational? Now think where all your Twitter widget features and so does your Facebook News stream. Get it? Think social. Also remember they a lot of people stumble onto social media links via Google search and brows Twitter without logging in.Using a hashtag? Keep it small and precise. Do not add two words together that make puns or cannot be understood. Also, remember to keep the possibility of its use extremely narrow. You don't want negative publicity or feedback via the same.If you are using an application ensure you promote it using a Bit.ly link. No not for tracking the rate of the clicks alone but also the branding bit. A shot URL always saves space on Twitter and looks good too.

An auto reply for new followers does not always work on Twitter. Sometimes they follow you to DM you to make a complaint. Be careful. Keep it neutral if you have one. Who said the future can’t be predicted. On a content calendar plot dates of important holidays, days and celebrations. Include important soccer games, death and birth anniversaries of the celebrated personalities. Trust me. These trend on Twitter and do they go mighty!Keep a 5 time a day tab on your Twitter account. Twice a day checks are passé. Trends emerge and die within hours. Capitalize with these plugging in announcements, product launches or even new recruitment's. Trust me they work.The Youtube option of featured video makes for an excellent way to announce information to first time visitors. Simply set the same on auto play and have not only your videos plays increase but also your on channel engagement.So you have a welcome page as well as a thank you page that follows after the viewer has gone through the application/lead form etc. Does the thank you form have a tweet this/like this button? Build to scale when adding widgets to an interface and do so where the viewer is able to pause and dedicate time on the same.So people registered on your landing page and you forgot to add the Facebook widget there? Don't fret a simple mailer to the leads generated will ensure that at least some of them do follow you back on Facebook. In personal instances the mailers have generated as much as 400 likes when marketed to a database of 2000 leads. Unbelievable? Try it.

Google Adwords seems to be very generous with its marketing solutions coupons. Do you receive countless coupons for trial campaigns? Do you use them? Don't lie. The best way to use them is run ads targeting them to your page. This is an efficient way to use the trial versions and create some super cool traction on your page.Loaded a nice picture for the Facebook page? No not the cover, the profile we mean. Check how it appears on the news feeds of fans for a better perspective. Is it exciting to look at? Is it too cluttered? Note that most pages and updates pull traffic due to the nature of their visibility. Everyone looks at someone attractive right? Make a note.Wondering whom to follow on Twitter. Don’t worry, it’s ok. There are a million faces there. Heard about Twitter lists? These public/private database goldmines are a brilliant index of people according to the nature of their interests and hobbies. Another way of selecting whom to follow is by registering on wefollow.com – a twitter index on people and their influences. Wish to go more specific then there is klout and Peerindex. Both tools excellent on rating people on their merits in multiple aspects.Twitter makes for excellent ways to reach out to those who matter. Make lists according to the people who enquire and complain with you. Adding them to a special guess list will help in damage control as well as testing plans, products and packages in the future.

"We just started using them," explained Abby Suiter, practice manager for Daniel Island Animal Hospital. "…It’s all about clicking a link, so you don’t have to type in an address. You just scan it."

"We are using QR codes to try to get information out to potential patients and anyone who is interested in orthodontics as efficiently as possible," added Dr. Michael Zetz of Daniel Island-based Crescent Moon Orthodontics. "QR codes give you a way to give somebody information or access to information really easily."

Both Suiter and Zetz say they have added QR codes in their practice exam rooms, so patient families can literally tap into additional, relevant information while waiting.

1 billion consumers will own smartphones by 2016, with U.S. users owning 257 million smartphones and 126 million tablets. By 2016, 350 million employees will use smartphones, with 200 million of them bringing their own.

Mobile spending will reach $1.3 trillion by 2016, or 35 percent of the technology economy, with the app market generating $56 billion by 2015.

Apple, Google and Microsoft are expected to control 91 percent of the U.S. smartphone market and 98 percent of the U.S. tablet market by 2016.

-- "Mobile Commerce Sales" increased up to 684% with the average being 204%

-- "Store Locator Visits" increased as much as 2,042% with the average being 1,506%

-- "Average Order Value" was as high as $228 with the average being $102

Determine the kind of value you aim to derive for yourself and your followers from using the hashtag. Do you intend to crowdsource information? Do you aim to create buzz? Are you looking to provoke conversation? Make sure your intentions and purpose for employing the hashtag are clear and focused. Formulate a hashtag that is relevant to your purpose and the subject you intend to tweet about.  Check to see if the hashtag you have in mind already exists and is in use. It is also very important to check if your desired hashtag has not taken on some other meaning. Twitter Search, Hashtags.org and Tagalus are some tools you can use to do a quick hashtag check.  Start tweeting your hashtag. It helps to set the context of your hashtag by briefly explaining what it means. Tweet with moderation. The last thing you want is to be seen as a spammer. Always ask what value you and your followers can get from the tweet you are putting out.  If it does not exist yet, add your hashtag definition to online tools such as Tagalus.  Set up an automatic alert tool that sends you an email alert when someone tweets your hashtag. Twilert is one such tool.

The concept itself is deceptively simple; just add the “#” symbol in front of a word or a group of words with the spaces between them taken out.

By including a relevant hashtag in your tweet, it becomes visible to people searching for that specific topic, adding your voice to the general discussion. Conversely, hashtags automatically narrow down your audience, allowing your tweets to reach and engage only those interested in the same subject matter.

it is important to drill down to where you have a presence, what you do on there are why rather than rashly signing up to every site going and leaving them lacklustre.  Taking a step back to research and consider where your customers are hanging out online and and what strategy you can employ to reach them is essential.

GREEN - the one where your customers hang out most, and makes most sense to your marketing strategy.  Green = Go! This is the site you should start with. Commit some time to updating it regularly, and read around how other businesses are using this channel for marketing. AMBER - these are the social media tools that could add value to your marketing, but should be considered as your business progresses and you find you have some extra time to commit. RED - Avoid these at start-up stage. These may be sites you could justify to yourself using as marketing tools, but they are not an immediate priority. Ditch them for now and put them in your business plan under 'growth strategy'.

Finding Content at Your Fingertips - Google Alerts is absolutely your best friend for narrowing down hours of thinking through "what on earth can I post about".

With 40 percent of smartphone owners browsing the Internet more frequently on their phones – using their devices to make holiday charity donations and buy gifts online – it only makes sense to ensure mobile purchases are available anywhere at any time.

The No. 1 thing is brand cohesiveness. Use the same URL on mobile as on your desktop site, as opposed to m. or .mobi. All it takes is a simple redirect script.

product reviews and testimonials, which could even be presented in the form of videos. Additionally, incentives like discounts for an opt-in for future communication and for taking a survey or participating in a poll.

despite the rapid increase in smartphone usage, only around 25 percent of companies have bothered to create a mobile smartphone version of their sites and only 13 percent have created sites specifically for tablets.

Currently, over 90 percent of people in the U.S. have mobile phones and estimates of smartphone users generally run between 70 and 80 million people in the U.S. It's even more important if you're trying to reach those oh-so-valuable 18 to 34 year olds: 42 percent of smartphone owners fit this age bracket. Looking at it another way, fully 62 percent of mobile users aged 25 to 34 own a smartphone. And, as I reported in my last column, 40 percent of smartphone and tablet users break them out when they're watching TV.

Of course, there is a lot more to this and the mix and meeting point of resizing of images, while also ensuring they keep an air of quality can take plenty of skill. Aside from images and resizing there are other considerations at hand. To jump to the point; sometimes you don’t need to fit all the information from the big screen onto the small screen – the essentials are what matter. Responsive design cuts out all the needless stuff and gives people a web version of the site that is easy to navigate, without them having to zoom in and also provides them with what they want to see. It eliminates the noise and makes the whole mobile browsing experience a pleasure.

With this technology, created by Micros Retail, sales associates will be given Apple iPhones to process mobile sales and wirelessly e-mail receipts to customers, which in addition to building a relationship between associate and customer, expedites sales. Devices will also be equipped with the brand’s Gucci Style app (with customers encouraged to visit the company’s digital flagship at gucci.com), as well as other tools to enhance the in-store shopping experience such as Google translator, maps and a currency converter.

QR codes enable us to make the transition between digital and brick and mortar seamless,” said Patti Cohen, executive vice president, global marketing and communication at Donna Karan International, adding that the brand’s QR codes dovetail with the retailers’ own digital programs.

Many mobile Web users are mobile-only, i.e. they do not, or very rarely use a desktop, laptop or tablet to access the Web. Even in the US 25 percent of mobile Web users are mobile-only.

US consumers prefer mobile browsers for banking, travel, shopping, local info, news, video, sports and blogs and prefer apps for games, social media, maps and music. 3) Mobile searches have quadrupled in the last year, fo

The most used mobile apps in the US are games; news; maps; social networking and music. Facebook, Google Maps and The Weather Channel (TWC) rule.

By 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide. According to Gartner's PC installed base forecast, the total number of PCs in use will reach 1.78 billion units in 2013. By 2013, the combined installed base of smartphones and browser-equipped enhanced phones will exceed 1.82 billion units and will be greater than the installed base for PCs thereafter.

Mobile Web users are typically prepared to make fewer clicks on a website than users accessing sites from a PC. Although a growing number of websites and Web-based applications offer support for small-form-factor mobile devices, many still do not. Websites not optimized for the smaller-screen formats will become a market barrier for their owners — much content and many sites will need to be reformatted/rebuilt.

Mobile phone usage and internet traffic are growing at a staggering rate, causing powerful changes in consumer behaviour and in the way people socialise and work together.

Most company websites are not easy to use on mobile devices, meaning they are increasingly irrelevant to the average consumer. If you want to attract new customers, build rapport with existing clients or offer new services or other value online, then mobile is on the must-do list.

A new approach to mobile-friendly web design is to create a website which will detect and adjust to the size of the device it is viewed on. Mobile responsive website design means a single site works well on all devices, future-proofing your website as new devices become popular.

Proximity based, action oriented marketing solutions saw an exponential growth to its demand last year, and a Smith’s Point Analytics report is now suggesting that it may bring this market to the $2.3 billion mark by the year 2016.

According to the report’s author, Peter Crocker, “QR codes and proprietary 2D barcodes are popping up everywhere and we estimate that outside of Japan, 164 million unique codes will be created in 2012.”

However, in the rush to jump on the bandwagon and join in with this critical new channel, they are forgetting to educate their own employees, and it is hurting the efficacy of any efforts that they are making.

After all, mobile isn’t just new to companies and their marketing campaigns. It’s new to consumers, too. Many of them haven’t had their smartphones for more than a few months, and they’re still discovering what is possible. Though they may have heard of the popular services that businesses are joining by the thousands, these consumers may not yet know how to make them work on their own devices.

Equally, if QR codes are being posted on advertising, signage, or menus as a part of a mobile commerce campaign, then it is important to make sure that the staff – especially those who will be interacting with the customers that could be using those barcodes – understand what they are and that they can be scanned with smartphones when a scanning app has been installed on the device. That simple information can be enough to encourage its use by the consumer.

Nielsen found that – not terribly shockingly – the way in which the smartphones were being used and whether QR codes were scanned had a great deal to do with what the person was hoping to buy and where he or she was shopping.

the most popular place for mobile shoppers to use digital coupons was in grocery stores.

41 percent said that they’d used their devices for those discounts at grocery stores, while another 41 percent said that they’d used them in department stores, and 39 percent said that they had redeemed coupons with their smartphones at clothing stores.

The QR code program works in conjunction with Wildfire’s new mobile site. The codes are used for a variety of purposes and are located in an assortment of locations throughout Wildfires many restaurants in Chicago and it’s surrounding suburbs. Wildfire has placed the QR codes on everything from posters, to tabletops, to windows. The QR codes help Wildfire to endorse any upcoming events and promotions in order to keep customers “in the know” with the ultimate goal of increased customer participation in store events and promotions. The program gives Wildfire an opportunity to to interact with their guests all the while generating buzz for the restaurant and creating a unique experience for the diner.

"As the number of people with smartphones continues to escalate, marketing to the mobile customer is becoming increasingly more critical to the marketing mix.

URLs are out, and QR codes are in. With technology advancing daily, people want things instantly and effortlessly. QR codes do exactly that.

An article in USA Today laid out the process in three short steps. First, download a free QR code reader application to a smartphone. Many Android, Nokia and Blackberry phones come with QR code readers pre-installed.

87% of the consumers surveyed prefer to use websites and browser-based mobile sites for browsing and shopping, whereas only 4% prefer smartphone and tablet apps.

This would suggest that brands should concentrate on improving the ROI of their mobile site rather than investing in apps offering no obvious advantage to consumers.

Some 5 percent of Americans — and 15 percent of smartphone owners — have scanned such a code in the last three months, according to new figures due to be released on Monday by Forrester. A year ago, only 1 percent of Americans had been willing or able to do so.

codes provide an efficient and cheap means to link the online and offline worlds.

Digimarc, are pushing methods for embedding the codes into the page so that they don’t disturb the visual layout. The challenge, though, is that it is harder for readers to know that there is more content available.