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According to a new poll of U.S. marketers conducted by Gartner, corporate websites are ranked as the top digital activity for marketing “success” — beating marketing on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Social media marketing, however, ranked as the next most important activity, equal in importance to online advertising.

The survey, conducted in November and December of 2012, polled a relatively small sample of 250+ marketers from U.S.-based companies with more than $500 million in annual revenue

Design, development and maintenance of the corporate website was cited by 45% of survey respondents as contributing to marketing success, with marketing on social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter cited by 43%. Digital/online advertising was also cited by 43%

social media is becoming a skill, not a job. Companies like Intel and Dell and IBM are leading the way in broadly distributed social participation, giving thousands of employees the opportunity to win hearts and mind in social and with smart content.

This decentralization of social communication has widespread ramifications for social media management software vendors, as it puts additional emphasis on triage and workflow tools.

The days of one social media manager handling Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the rest is coming to a close (as is the era of the one or two person content marketing team) and the same way all of us have a corporate email address and phone number, we’ll all (or nearly all) have a role to play on behalf of the company in social and content marketing, eventually.

The research firm expects the market to grow from $151.14 billion this year, to $256.44 billion by 2017

“The future for the television is social through integration of social interaction on the television. Broadcasters are developing and enriching social TV integration; they are targeting the tune-in customer, engagement and their loyalty to boost the rating and they are also discovering the social TV challenge,”

Currently Europe grabs the largest slice of social TV market revenue

While the finding that trust in ‘traditional’ push marketing techniques (such as banner ads) is at rock bottom in the online world isn’t a surprise, the chart doesn’t make hugely encouraging reading for proponents of social marketing which also languishes near the bottom of the trust index, just above the mobile apps channel. Text message communications were the least trusted, while online banner ads barely rated above spammy SMS in the trust stakes.

The relatively low trust in social marketing tallies with a recent Gartner report that found U.S. marketers ranked spending on the corporate website as more likely to result in “marketing success” than spending on social media sites such as Facebook.

“professionally written online reviews” still carry a huge cachet — at least with U.S. consumers. European consumers are far less trusting of the publishing industry, however (55% vs 33% split on that category).

The impact of social media is harder to measure than, say, the effectiveness of banner ads, because social media are often used to build brand loyalty. A person may see an ad or promoted social media message but choose not to click through, then search for the product later, and finally make a purchase on a third, fourth or fifth visit to the company's website. While social media didn't have a direct hand in the click-through and sale, it did have a hand in how the brand made a conversion.

Too many brands - GM included - rely on likes (which can be artificially inflated) and direct click-throughs (which don't always result in sales). And while the industry is making strides to help brands better measure what they get for their social media buck, there is still a ways to go, Chou said. Social marketing by brands "is just terrible right now," he observed. "I can't tell you exactly what it should be, but I can tell you it sucks right now. People just shout."

Right now, marketers can’t easily measure a follower who doesn’t click on links or interact directly with a brand’s Facebook page or Twitter feed. That will change as social media tracking gets better.

Whoever invented the term "social media" didn't do the world a favor because, while that's the accepted term now, it's completely wrong, and I believe it's part of what drives this disconnect. Social media is not really media. I think of it as a channel, more like a telephone than a TV commercial. And when's the last time a CEO asked, "How are we monetizing the telephone?" And has a CEO ever threatened to not invest in phones because the company can't make money off of them?

Truth is, companies monetize the telephone quite well, and if you don't think so, take away your company's phones and see what happens to your top and bottom lines. Likewise, companies can monetize social media, but they have to stop thinking about it as a way to market products and start thinking about it as a way to communicate and build a brand.

Formal research typically takes months and requires healthy investment and long planning cycles. Smart companies are trading in highly rigorous research for quick, nearly scientific data collected through social media platforms.

Altimeter Group recently studied the internal goals in corporate social strategy. The top priority stated by 48% of companies was “Creating ROI Measurements”. Hypatia Research showed management’s expectations of the return on social communities are rather low. Research by Chief Marketer shows that the number of likes, friends & followers are the most used metrics by 60% of U.S. B2C and B2B marketers.

There exists great controversy about the use of ‘reach’ metrics.

Popular measures are the 3F’s (friends, fans & followers).

paid social media advertising will increase from $4.6 billion this year to $9.2 billion in 2016

"native" ads running on social media sites—contextual promotions that are baked into sites in a customized fashion—will total $1.53 billion this year while growing to $3.85 billion in 2016

During that time, BIA/Kelsey prognosticates, social display ads will grow slightly slower, lifting from $3 billion to $5.4 billion. It's the first time the 25-year-old company has broken out social native versus social display spend.

Unwelcome news for marketers in France who aim to appeal to people on social networks: A majority of those consumers find such ads unpleasant, useless and poorly targeted.

Sixty-eight percent of web users polled said they found advertising on social sites “intolerable, “ and 59% said it was pointless because it did not reflect their interests or buying habits.

Moreover, ads on these sites seemed to be less effective than most other kinds of online advertising. Only 19% of web users polled by IFOP and Generix said they had ever bought a product or service as a result of seeing an ad on social media, compared to 60% who had made a purchase prompted by an email.

Traditional marketing — including advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications — is dead. Many people in traditional marketing roles and organizations may not realize they're operating within a dead paradigm. But they are. The evidence is clear.

First, buyers are no longer paying much attention. Several studies have confirmed that in the "buyer's decision journey," traditional marketing communications just aren't relevant. Buyers are checking out product and service information in their own way, often through the Internet, and often from sources outside the firm such as word-of-mouth or customer reviews.

Second, CEOs have lost all patience. In a devastating 2011 study of 600 CEOs and decision makers by the London-based Fournaise Marketing Group, 73% of them said that CMOs lack business credibility and the ability to generate sufficient business growth, 72% are tired of being asked for money without explaining how it will generate increased business, and 77% have had it with all the talk about brand equity that can't be linked to actual firm equity or any other recognized financial metric.

A new survey by Initiative questioned some 8,000 web users age 16-54 in Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, U.S., and U.K. to find out how they were influenced in purchase decisions by social media interactions. The results are kind of amazing: A huge 99% of the "top 10%" of influencers reported that their friends quiz them before making a big purchase. This top 10% has a disproportionate influence on the opinions of others--because 72% of them access content in print, online and mobile form more than once a day, compared to just 18% of the bottom 10% of influencers. 

A different study, by Market Force, underscored the fact that brands are leveraging social media to promote themselves. Embedded in the study were stats on the power of the average user to spread brand-related messages: 81% of U.S. respondents said posts from their friends directly impacted their decision on purchasing something, and 80% or respondents said they'd tried new things based on suggestions of friends.

This is a big departure from the static print ads and traditional TV spots of the past. Initiative's study even included advice for brands to move well beyond the thinking of a traditional 30-second ad spot, and push out additional material like behind-the-scenes footage...all to drive discussion and lead to more online chatter that will lead to brand discovery. It also suggests that brands build a team of "relevant social influencers" to spread new ad campaigns and stimulate dialog.

One of the most common mistakes made when designing social applications is focusing immediately on rich, heavyweight interactions rather than lightweight ones. All the best social experiences online map closely to how offline social experiences work: offline, people build relationships slowly, one lightweight interaction at a time.

Every now and again we have more heavyweight interactions, such as family dinners, big nights out with friends, birthdays, anniversaries, family vacations and so on. But if we hadn’t built the relationship through many lightweight interactions over time, we’d have no interest in the heavyweight ones. The aggregation of many lightweight interactions is very powerful. It builds deep relationships, and helps people curate parts of their identity.

It takes months and years to build relationships with people, and they all are built on many lightweight interactions over time. And people build relationships with brands in the same way as they build relationships with people: slowly, one interaction at a time. Just as we don’t suddenly become best friends with someone, we don’t suddenly fall in love with a brand – so build products that support lightweight ways for people to interact and show the aggregations of those interactions over time.

There’s no denying that email is showing signs of decline — the number of visitors to web-based email sites fell 6% in 2010 compared to the previous year, and email engagement declined at an even greater rate, according to a report from digital analysis company comScore.

In response to these changes, brands are quickly adapting by combining email, social media and even mobile marketing tactics.

successful brands are doing just that — cross-pollinating email marketing strategies via email clients, social platforms and mobile devices. Ultimately, brands still find email effective because it’s inexpensive and universally accepted by people all over the world.

Having a thousand quality fans that do something is better than having a million followers that do nothing.

Instead of spending all your efforts on selling your product, develop and foster relationships with your community by providing relevant and useful content available to them at their point of need. Understand what your customers want and give it to them.

People who are active on social media are there because it’s a way that they can engage with their friends, family and favorite brands. As a marketer, you have to think about how you use Social Media personally, and then adapt your marketing strategy so that it fits in. When you go from looking at pics of your friend’s kid, to responding to another friend’s event invitation, a post screaming “SALE! SALE!” will stick out like a sore thumb.

Instead, post things that are conversational, or things that are just fun or lighthearted. Remember, this is a platform to build your brand’s identity and personality. People should want to do business with your company because they respect your values, admire your culture or appreciate the hard work you do to create your products and services.

What are Ways You Can Use Social Media to Market?Show images of creative uses/applications of your product. It’s still featuring your product, you just aren’t saying “LOOK AT MY PRODUCT!!!”Ask questions about things relevant to your product or service. If you sell real estate, start a dialogue about your worst moving experience or simply ask: “What does your dream house look like?”Post free advice. Position yourself as an expert. If you clean carpets, maybe you could post about how to get pet stains out of your conference room carpet. You’re not killing business for yourself, because people will still come to you when they don’t want to do it or they will refer you to friends. DIY people will find the tips anyway so they might as well be from you.

The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 year age bracket.

The 45–54 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic on both Facebook and Google+.

Keep older users in mind when using social media, particularly on these three platforms. Our age makes a difference to our taste and interests, so if you’re focusing on younger users with the content you post, you could be missing an important demographic.

say ads that are disguised as content have higher click-through and engagement rates than intrusive banners because they’re contextual and have quality conte

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.

45 percent found promoted tweets misleading, while 57 percent and 86 percent said the same about sponsored stories and video ads, respectively.

a recent study by Shareaholic found that post-click engagement with Facebook posts trailed far behind the results delivered by YouTube, and also lagged behind Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Shareaholic examined six months’ worth of data from more than 200,000 websites reaching more than 250 million unique monthly visitors

YouTube drives the most engaged traffic. These referrals have the lowest average bounce rate (43.19 percent), the highest pages per visit (2.99), and the longest visit duration (227.82 seconds).

video watchers are especially receptive to links within video descriptions that complement the audio and visual content they just consumed.