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Corporate websites perhaps have a key reputational role to play in the marketing mix, supplementing and underpining social media marketing spending — by providing reassurance of a brand’s professionalism where a Facebook page can provide evidence of user engagement/approval (or otherwise).

The results indicate that corporate websites still have a key role to play when it comes to marketing a company’s offerings, despite the big role also played by social media. It’s also notable that mobile marketing is still relatively low down the priorities list, with an aggregated percentage of 24%. It’s still far better than the poor unloved (and doubtless rarely updated) company blog, though, with just 6%.

The survey asked respondents to rank different marketing activities first, second and third in importance, collating all three preferences to get the overall percentage. On first place preference, corporate websites came out joint top with online advertising, cited by 18% apiece as the most important activity. Social media slumped in importance on this measure — cited by just six per cent of respondents as the most important activity (and second only to the company blog):

The top priorities for increased budgets in 2013 are commerce experiences, social and mobile marketing, and content creation and management

The report notes that traditional ‘one-way’ marketing techniques like banner ads are clearly ineffective in a landscape of “perpetually connected consumers”. Web users are tuning out this old school type of marketing or failing to notice it in the first place or forgetting they ever saw it — which may also partially explain why personal recommendations from people they know well are so much more trusted. With so many sources of information to filter, better the devil you know and all that.

The survey also indicates there is still considerable trust in natural search engine results, and also in consumer written reviews, such as Amazon’s user reviews — which were both ranked around 3x more trusted than social marketing.

Help them build social capital. Practitioners of this new, community-oriented marketing are also rethinking their customer value proposition for such MVP (or "Customer Champion" or "Rockstar") customer advocates and influencers. Traditional marketing often tries to encourage customer advocacy with cash rewards, discounts or other untoward inducements. The new marketing helps its advocates and influencers create social capital: it helps them build their affiliation networks, increase their reputation and gives them access to new knowledge — all of which your customer influencers crave.

Get your customer advocates involved in the solution you provide

Florida won half of the "non-buyers" of its anti-teen-smoking "product" away from its much bigger, much better funded competitor. They did so by tapping the best source of buyer motivation: peer influence.

Nearly all the advertisers polled (92%) said they aimed content marketing at their customers, and 54% targeted prospects. Six in 10 also created content designed for journalists or others in the media. The most popular approach—mentioned by 65%— involved placing content on both print and digital platforms, while 43% used only digital channels.

Facebook was the runaway winner when it came to distributing branded content; 84% of advertisers said they had used it, and a further 11% planned to do so in the future.

More than three-quarters (78%) of those polled said they had produced newsletters, and 12% intended to do so, while 74% had posted content on properties such as partner websites. Pinterest was one of the least compelling propositions for these advertisers. Just 8% said they had used it to post content, and 3% planned to do so; 73% said they weren’t even considering it at the moment. Despite the growing enthusiasm for content marketing, content-related budgets remain rather low, judging by this research. More than two in five respondents (42%) reported that their company spent less than SEK1 million ($147,711) on these initiatives, and 24% spent between SEK1 million and SEK5 million ($738,552). Yet only 6% said they had no funds at all for content marketing. In another vote of confidence for content, 53% of advertisers said their content budgets would increase in 2014.

According to the yet-to-be-released BrightEdge 2014 Search Marketers survey across a customer base of 8500 brands, over 83% of marketers are placing a greater strategic importance on content performance by optimizing for organic search.

The key to creating hyper-timely emails is planning and being nimble, says Christopher Stemborowski, associate communication strategist for marketing agency Oxford Communications. “Seeming timely can be the result of preparing multiple emails or just one email and waiting for the right time to send it.”

Build multiple versions ahead of key events: In the same way that shirts are made ahead of the Super Bowl declaring each team the champion, you can design two versions of an email to respond quickly to the outcome of major events.Plan an email for an event that has an unspecified date: Snowstorms will happen each winter. Will you have an email ready to go out the moment it happens? With a little planning, you can.Track trending online memes: In 2011, we have seen a #winning Charlie Sheen and a really excited Rebecca Black ready to have fun, fun, fun. Smart brands can tap into these memes in email blasts. You can keep track of these popular memes by viewing the trending topics section on Twitter.

Blasting irrelevant content to your email subscribers is one of the biggest email marketing mistakes you can commit.“For example, if a salon sends an email to men that highlights services solely for women, it shouldn’t be a shock when the men unsubscribe,” Stemborowski says. “To avoid this, the salon needs to know who in its database are males and who are females and then avoid sending irrelevant messages.”

“Self-selection means subscribers willingly receive emails that are in the categories they asked to get,” Stemborowski said, adding that it’s vital to keep the screening short so users don’t abandon the process.

More than ever, people are reading emails on their mobile devices. Mobile email usage increased 36% in 2010, according to comScore.

The first line of your email should never read, “If you are having trouble reading this email click here,” he adds. “Remember, the first line of the email is what shows up as the preview on smartphones. For this reason, the first line is premium real estate and, with this in mind, you should put your most important message first for a well-crafted call to action.”

Marketers are already confronting the implications of a more shadowy Internet, specifically the phenomenon known as DarkSocial and DarkSearch.

“DarkSocial,” estimates that 69% of the publication’s social traffic is dark--meaning users who access content by clicking on a link emailed or IMed to them. Marketers don’t know where these users came from or what exactly drove them to their website.

cloud services like Google and Apple are proactively stripping referral data out when sending users to third party sites via search. These DarkSearch visitors, like their DarkSocial counterparts, also end up in the “direct referral” bucket of analytics reporting, indistinguishable from the geography-less visitors who typed your domain name directly into their browsers to visit your site.

In the near-term, brands will have to confront a potentially darker Internet, as the roadblocks to data-driven marketing thrown up by DarkSocial, DarkSearch and an emerging DarkNet increase. There will be real consequences, including in investments in marketing, if it becomes more difficult to quantify customer engagement.

In the longer-term, we may see a nascent e-commerce system more familiar to science fiction fans (and current users of services like Silk Road, the online illegal drug marketplace). Imagine a future Amazon.com-like e-commerce site where all profiles are anonymous, all payments utilize crypto-currencies, and all deliveries of physical goods use inexpensive, multi-hop services that conceal the ultimate end delivery address behind anonymous dropboxes.

But for curators to surface awesome content, there has to be awesome content to begin with. Original content, from inspirational marketing videos (like Nike's below) to an online-specific show, will continue to rise in popularity. While user-generated content will exist as long as users exist, and can often be very successful, the next five years will see viewers putting curated quality over random quantity.

Online video doesn't have the luxury of longer-form shows that a viewer schedules time to watch. More likely, they stumbled upon your video by chance on their Twitter or Facebook feed. They haven't committed to watching their video, but their interest is piqued and they've pushed play. Don't waste that chance. The video must grab and engage them nearly instantaneously--if not, you'll lose potential longterm fans. Unengaging, ported-over content won't survive in our ADD environment.

in an attempt to push the brand, marketing videos often forego authenticity in favor of an over-markety tone. This disengages the viewer and separates them from the brand. Online users don't wanted to be sold to, they want to be engaged.

Brand loyalty stems first from producing the best product possible, but once you've captured a user's attention, it's about engaging that user and making them feel special. Because of their loyalty (whether that's liking a brand on Facebook or signing up for their newsletter), they want to feel as if they are in on a secret that non-followers don't have access to.

Brands should create a movement they believe in--and match their videos to it--rather than slamming their brand down their viewers’ throats. Be authentic and engaging and the viewers will come.

Like Pinterest did for online photography, a new startup will emerge for curated video content.

The most popular reasons for sequential device usage include web browsing (81 percent), shopping online (67 percent), managing finances (46 percent) and planning a trip (43 percent). Eighty-one percent of sequential online shopping is spontaneous, which Google credits to the widespread availability of smartphones.

98 percent of sequential screeners move between devices in the same day to complete a task

Seventy-seven percent of the time, TV viewers have another device plugged in — with smartphones (49 percent) and PCs/laptops (34 percent) the most popular.

The study also found search to be a critical connector between devices used sequentially. Consumers use search to pick up on a second device where they left off on the first 63 percet of the time they are conducting multi-device search, 61 percent of the time they are browsing the Internet using multiple devices, 51 percent of the time they are shopping online via multiple screens, and 43 percent of the time they are using more than one device to watch online video.

Google advises digital marketers to allow customers to save their progress between devices, as well as use tactics like keyword parity (maintaining the same keywords across different publishers and the three primary match type silos of broad, phrase and exact) to ensure that they can be found easily via search when that customer moves to the next device.

80 percent of searches that happen on smartphones are spur-of-the-moment, and 44 percent of these spontaneous searches are goal-oriented. And more than half (52 percent) of PC/laptop searches are spontaneous, with 43 percent goal-oriented

Advertising spending in emerging markets is increasing faster than in the worldwide market

Ad budgets in North America grew by 2.1 percent, and recession-hit Europe dropped 1.4 percent — the only region to see a decline.

In terms of total dollars spent, TV is still king with the most spending. The growth in TV market ad spend, like the growth in overall spending, was region-dependent. In the emerging markets of the Middle and Africa, for instance, TV soared 33.8 percent, while it grew only 4 percent in North America.

The evolution of print advertising is also heavily region-dependent, meaning that any predictions about the demise of print might best specify a location. Magazine ad spending actually increased by 7.6 percent in Latin America, for instance, but dropped by 5 percent in the U.S. Newspapers showed a similar difference, increasing by 10.3 percent in Latin America and dropping by 2.1 percent in the U.S.

However, the growth in online advertising was consistently strong around the planet. The Middle East and Africa again led, with 35.2 percent, followed by Latin America at 31.8 percent and Europe at 12.1 percent. Radio also saw growth in every region.

The people who use your product or service: The voice of the customer is the most influential of all. Provide loyal consumers with an opportunity to get involved by sharing their stories. Identify digital influencers that fit your brand aesthetic and explore partnership opportunities. This approach is heavily evident in the fashion industry, where brands routinely work with fashion bloggers on everything from Twitter chats to advertising campaigns.

The people who support you: Why not collaborate on content development with partners or vendors? By working together, budgets become more manageable and both parties can benefit from the potential PR story. By working together, you can deliver deeper impact and cast a wider net. 

With more brands developing more and more content, we will naturally reach a point of over-saturation where only the very best stories will make an impact. As such, it is absolutely crucial to begin to refine and optimize current content marketing practices. Also, with the line blurring between marketing or brand managers and content developers, it’s worth noting that those best suited for positions in content marketing have a rare combination of business and marketing acumen, digital savvy, as well as journalism, public relations, film, and even creative writing. For those with this mega-mix, employment opportunities abound.

Where does this ultimately lead? We’re not there yet, but I suspect it’s predictive modeling, with internal social and content opportunity routing based on artificial intelligence and enterprise knowledge mapping. If we know the specific areas of expertise of each employee and can store that in a relational database, and we can also know via presence detection who is online and/or what their historical response times have been, we can use natural language processing (a la Netbase) to proactively triage and assign social interactions to the best possible resource in the organization.

There's no way to compare the results to people's views on standard banners, because Harris didn’t ask respondents about that format. It did, however, ask the same questions about infomercials and print advertorials, with similar results.

We’re not saying native doesn’t have a place in a marketing mix. We’re saying, that’s not the most effective way to build a brand.”

Of course, there are issues with self-reported surveys, especially one that requires participants to be honest about their views about something as divisive as advertising.

the results also conflict with joint research by Nielsen and Facebook that found that overall, social ads—those served to Facebook users whose Facebook friends are fans of, or interacted with, the advertised brand—generated a 55 percent lift in recall over non-social ads.

“Engagement rates with sponsored stories are substantially higher than other ads on the site, and typically, [people] engage with things they find relevant and interesting,” Bruich said. “We do not see any evidence that they negatively impact people’s experience on the site.”

It’s also worth noting that Harris showed respondents generic examples of sponsored stories, not examples of actual sponsored stories people are served on their own Facebook news feeds, where the ads are aligned with their personal experiences and preferences.

a new survey due out today by Harris Interactive for MediaBrix, a social and mobile ad firm, says otherwise. Harris asked online adults what they thought about three native ad formats—Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, Sponsored Stories on Facebook and video ads that appear to be content. According to the survey, a majority found the ads negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand being advertised.

People had the strongest reaction to sponsored video ads, with 85 percent saying they

negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand. Sixty-two percent said the same of Promoted Tweets and 72 percent of Sponsored Stories. The survey also revealed that 45 percent found Promoted Tweets misleading, while 57 percent and 86 percent said the same about Sponsored Stories and video ads, respectively.

eliminating likes at all is perilous because they are essential to attracting advertiser dollars. “It's not in Facebook's best interest to proactively solve this problem," Corson-Knowles said. "Facebook's revenue is directly proportionate to the number of page views the site gets, and banning 1 percent of users who are deemed bots will cost the company a lot of missed ad impressions." 

Nine out of ten smartphone searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.) 24% recommended a brand or product to others as a result of a smartphone search

Local Information Seekers: Looking for local information is done by virtually all smartphone users and consumers are ready to act on the information they find. 95% of smartphone users have looked for local information 88% of these users take action within a day, indicating these are immediate information needs 77% have contacted a business, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business

Purchase-driven Shoppers: Smartphones have become an indispensable shopping tool and are used across channels and throughout the research and decision-making process. 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, finding more product info to locating a retailer 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase, whether online, in-store, or on their phones 70% use their smartphones while in the store, reflecting varied purchase paths that often begin online or on their phones and brings consumers to the store

Reaching Mobile Consumers: Cross-media exposure influences smartphone user behavior and a majority notice mobile ads which leads to taking action on it.71% search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68%) to online ads (18%) to mobile ads (27%) 82% notice mobile ads, especially mobile display ads and a third notice mobile search ads Half of those who see a mobile ad take action, with 35% visiting a website and 49% making a purchase

Make sure you can be found via mobile search as consumers regularly use their phones to find and act on information. Incorporate location based products and services and make it easy for mobile customers to reach you because local information seeking is common among smartphone users.  Develop a comprehensive cross-channel strategy as mobile shoppers use their phones in-store, online and via mobile website and apps to research and make purchase decisions.  Last, implement an integrated marketing strategy with mobile advertising that takes advantage of the knowledge that people are using their smartphones while consuming other media and are influenced by it.

The growth of mobile is key to this shift, as it continues to drive both digital and overall growth of time spent with all media. In contrast, time spent on desktops and laptops is plateauing.

Time spent with mobile (that is, via smartphone, tablet or feature phone) has come to represent more than half of TV’s share of total media time, as well as nearly half of digital media time as a whole. The bulk of mobile time is spent on smartphones, at almost 1 hour per day, but tablets are not far behind.

The average UK adult will spend more than 8.5 hours each day consuming media in 2014. Of that total, 3 hours and 41 minutes will be spent online, on nonvoice mobile activities or with other digital media, eMarketer estimates, compared with 3 hours and 15 minutes watching television. The total reflects simultaneous media consumption—for example, if someone uses a mobile device for 1 hour while watching television, it counts as 1 hour for each activity.

time spent online (that is, via desktop or laptop computer) is barely growing at all. Online time will reach 1 hour and 52 minutes this year, a mere 4 minutes more than 2013. In fact, in a broad sense, media consumption time is flat with one exception: mobile.

This year, for the first time ever, the amount of time UK consumers spend with digital media (desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones) will surpass the amount of time spent viewing television

Tablet time will total a bit less than smartphones, at 44 minutes per day.

This year, tablet penetration is expected to reach 38.2% of the total population, well short of smartphone penetration.

eMarketer’s “time spent” estimates reflect blurring lines of media consumption. As in other markets, UK consumers are accessing traditional content on nontraditional channels—for example, television programming viewed on a tablet. In many instances, this may “count” as time spent on a digital device, but it reflects the fact that consumption of television content actually is rising thanks to a variety of nontraditional options that users have for watching TV and TV-like content.