Mediaboss Marketing

Withing 20 months of Apple launching the first iPad in the US, local tablet ownership hit 18 per cent, and is forecast to more than double this year to 39 per cent. Photo: Getty Images

THE rapid expansion in the use of social networks as a marketing tool has been underscored in a new survey.

Browsing for product and brand information has increased rapidly, particularly on Facebook, Nielsen's January online ratings report finds.

Among regular internet users, more than one in five shops or researches brands on social media platforms.

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The top categories included retailers, movies and TV, restaurants and bars, technology brands and charities.

The change in the way consumers shop and research products comes as the smartphone replaces other hand-held devices.

By the end of this year, 64 per cent of Australians are expected to own one, up from 51 per cent last year. BlackBerry's market share halved last year, to 4 per cent.

Within 20 months of Apple launching the first iPad in the US, local tablet ownership hit 18 per cent, and is forecast to more than double this year to 39 per cent.

The popularity of Facebook as a marketing tool continues to rise - 57 per cent of online Australians have clicked a Facebook ''like'' button for a brand or organisation last year, up from 46 per cent a year earlier.

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Marketing gets social

Written by Karen Kovacs Dydzuhn Wednesday, 21 March 2012 16:30

The proliferation of social media platforms is a by-product of ever-changing technology. Theres Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Tumblr, to name a few. However, Bill DeRosa, co-founder of Talking Finger, a social media marketing company, cautioned local business owners about utilizing social media unless theyre willing to invest time and effort.

The success of using social platforms depends upon how much you engage, DeRosa said at a recent business forum on social media marketing at Spadaccino and Leo P. Gallagher & Son Community Funeral Home. You have to be 100 percent committed.

Sponsored by the Power Network of the Monroe and Newtown Chambers of Commerce, DeRosas presentation was supposed to address the simple steps to social media, but he dispelled this notion at the outset of the morning workshop.

Not only do businesses need to commit to spending time on cultivating effective and appropriate social media platforms but they must also frequently post innovative and even quirky comments to keep people engaged.

In putting together a plan for social media, DeRosa recommended that traditional marketing tools, such as advertising, be integrated with a companys online presence.

DeRosa advised audience members to consider how their companies will use the data generated to build their businesses. When you build a synergy, social media creates a trust with traditional advertising and marketing, he said.

Clients get to know businesses through social media. In welcoming more than 50 business professionals to the workshop, Harriette Trevino, Power Network president and owner of Bulls Head Printers, said the networking group works because people like to do business with people they know, like and trust.

Building relationships

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Local businesses receive tips on using social media marketing; 'You have to be 100 percent committed,' they are told ...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., March 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Wildfire, the leading provider of social media marketing software with over 13,000 paying customers, today announced that veteran enterprise software executive Doug Laird has joined the company as its chief marketing officer. Laird will be responsible for leading all global marketing efforts for Wildfire, defining the global market strategy and vision, branding, product positioning and segmentation, and demand creation.

Laird has been instrumental in helping many of the world's most successful B2B and B2C technology companies define their categories, drive growth, and become market leaders. His track record of success spans fast-growing industries such as CRM, business intelligence, online trading, and compliance. Laird's background includes a deep understanding of customer relationship management, analytics, and community, three key elements of social media marketing as brands look to better use customer information to business advantage.

Laird joins Wildfire from business intelligence software company QlikTech, where as vice president of global marketing he helped the company grow its annual revenue run-rate from $80 million to $321 million in three years, leading Gartner to call QlikTech a "marketing juggernaut." Laird also oversaw marketing strategy and demand creation during the company's IPO in July 2010, which was one of the top three best performing technology IPOs of the past two years.

Prior to joining QlikTech, Laird held executive-level marketing roles at SAP/Virsa, Siebel Systems and Oracle. At Oracle, Laird reported to future Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff, and helped increase Oracle's database market share from 15 percent to 35 percent.

"Doug's background makes him an ideal fit for Wildfire with expertise in CRM, analytics, and community building, Doug has a very deep understanding of three key building blocks that will help us take social marketing to the next level," said Victoria Ransom, founder and CEO of Wildfire. "Doug is also an expert in helping enterprise software companies define categories and establish market leadership, and he will be instrumental as we accelerate our growth and continue our push into the enterprise. We are thrilled to have Doug join the team."

"As a long-time technology marketer, I believe that social engagement is the marketing model of the future, and Wildfire is in the best position to capitalize on this trend and serve the market with its volume and velocity model, focused on small and medium-sized businesses with rapid movement into the enterprise. I've seen this approach succeed time and again with the world's top software companies, such as Salesforce.com, and it's clear to me that Wildfire has the same scalable model that will allow us to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity," said Laird. "Wildfire is a thought leader that is ushering in the new era of engagement marketing, and I'm excited to join the team at this pivotal point in the company's history."

About Wildfire

Wildfire is the global leader in social media marketing software, with over 13,000 paying customers worldwide, including 30 of the world's 50 most valuable brands. Wildfire's Social Marketing Suite combines best-of-breed social promotion and advertising software, robust mobile and desktop page management, messaging and sophisticated real-time analytics in one complete platform. Wildfire's powerful and intuitive software allows creative marketers and non-technical managers alike to create social campaigns and pages, communicate with their social audience and measure social media performance. Brands and agencies such as Facebook, Virgin, Amazon, Target and Ogilvy as well as thousands of small businesses use the Wildfire platform to engage with audiences on major social networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The only social media marketing company to receive an investment from Facebook's fbFund, Wildfire has offices in California, Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Munich, and Singapore. For more information, please visit http://www.wildfireapp.com.

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Wildfire Hires Industry Veteran Doug Laird as CMO to Drive Growth and Leadership in the Social Media Market

PromoJam, a social marketing platform for the enterprise that allows businesses to create campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Myspace, has raised $1.2 million in Series A funding, the company is announcing today. The round was led by NYC-based Golden Seeds, and included participation from Band of Angels.

The L.A.-based company, which was started in 2008 by brother and sister team Matt MacNaughton (CEO) Amanda MacNaughton (Chief Marketing Officer), has grown over the years, now having served its social promotions to over 10 million users. Some of the companys clients includeNBC Universal, Clear Channel Radio, Hearst Publications, HitFix, Rock The Vote, Expedia, Avon, Warner Brothers Music Group, BlackBerry, Paramount Pictures, The North Face, and Rihanna.

According to co-founder Amanda MacNaughton, the platform stands out from the rest because of its cross-platform capability that lets clients run promotions both online and on mobile across the various networks it supports.

We have been building the business and our exciting client list relatively quietly, says Amanda. And its true you often hear of PromoJam in the greater context of the promotion being run, not the news about the company itself. For example, whenwe covered news ofdrummerTravis Barkerand turntablistDJ-AM(Adam Goldstein), who, back in 2009, were offering their then just-released second mixtape, Fix Your Face Vol. 2 Coachella 09, for free in exchange for a tweet, that came from PromoJam.

And when we covered Pearl Jams use of Twitter to promote their new song Just Breathe back in early 2010, that, too, was PromoJams work.

More recently, the company teamed withJunk Food Clothing and Saks Fifth Avenue on a social QR code campaign, where QR code images were used as part of a charity fundraising effort for St. Vincent Meals on Wheels Foundation.

Some ongoing promotions now include those for NBAs Dwight Howard (Facebook and Twitter), Rock the Vote (mobile), E! Entertainment, and L.A.s FOX 11 News.

With the platform, which is available both as a DIY solution or one that can be customized by PromoJam according to a businesss needs, PromoJam clients can create campaigns including sweepstakes, Facebook Like campaigns, coupon giveaways, flash sales, download promotions and more, while running those efforts simultaneouslyacross social networks, blogs, mobile phones, via QR codes, and via SMS text messages. If the content really goes viral, PromoJams scalable technology can handle the heavy load, while also helping its businesses collect customers information, like email addresses, for example, and track related analytics.

On the back-end, the company provides real-time reporting in a dashboard that shows the number of posts, increased fans and followers, clicks, shares, emails collected and other data, including the geographic locations of the programs participants to help businesses target key influencers and outreach efforts.

Amanda tells us the new investment will help the company expand the marketing software itself specifically, PromoJam will be adding support for more social network integrations in 2012, and the company plans to grow its sales and marketing departments, too.

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Social Marketing Platform PromoJam Raises $1.2M From Golden Seeds, Band Of Angels

As more companies in heavily regulated industries search for cost savings, greater efficiencies for dollars spent, and better matches with modern sources of information, they are aggressively shifting dollars from traditional advertising to digital and social media. These industries - which include pharmaceuticals and healthcare, financial services and insurance, alcohol and tobacco, and those that service government entities - have regulations that govern their marketing and communications, especially ones aimed at large numbers of consumers.

Compliance has always been a necessary extra step in doing marketing. Now, in digital and social media, where customers' actions, conversations, and feedback are visible and recorded publicly, these companies have the additional task of figuring out which regulations apply, and how.

It's not just one regulation or law that has yet to be interpreted for two-way digital channels, but many, and some are easier to apply than others. For example, sites created by companies and agencies serving government entities must be "508 compliant," meaning that they must be accessible to people with disabilities - through the use of screen readers, for example. Companies in healthcare and insurance need to ensure that their technology infrastructure, record-keeping, and privacy policies are compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

Public companies are subject to Sarbanes-Oxley and the associated requirements for disclosures, internal controls, and accountability. Pharmaceutical and healthcare companies must also abide by the Food and Drug Administration's requirements for "adverse event reporting" and other regulations that govern the adequate disclosure of safety and warning information, the presentation of "fair" and "balanced" information about prescription drugs and medical device, and what can or cannot be said or claimed about products (i.e., approved language only).

Why are these regulations and requirements challenging for marketers in digital, search, and social channels? The laws themselves are not new, but the interpretation of how to apply them is. In traditional forms of advertising, the guidelines are well established - for example, in TV commercials for drugs, companies must refer customers to the corresponding print ad in a magazine for further details. When advertising a product on a website, companies must link to the prescribing information (PI), which has all of the required details about dosage, side effects, adverse interactions, black-box warnings, etc.

But what happens when companies run search ads on Google or display ads on Facebook? How should they present warnings and side-effect information, given the extreme space constraints of the ads themselves? What should firms do when people write negative comments about their drugs or mention on social networks that they got sick from the drugs (i.e., "adverse events")? Are companies obliged to monitor the entire Internet or all social networks, blogs, and forums, and report all mentions of adverse events related to their products? And how could they possibly do so in the stipulated 72 hours?

Finally, what are the rules governing the new forms of personally identifiable information (PII) disclosed in digital and social channels - for example, the history of what sites individuals visited, the "social graph" of their connected friends, and what they searched for online - and how companies can use this PII to better target customers with marketing messages? Because the FDA has not published any definitive guidelines or interpretations for these new marketing scenarios, companies are forced to assess and interpret these scenarios themselves and act according to the level of acceptable risk.

However, many companies have taken the wait-and-see approach and deferred any action in these new and essential marketing channels.

Here are a few examples of ways companies in these regulated industries can use digital, search, and social media marketing techniques right now, while staying within the "compliance envelope":

Social media listening. Marketers can treat social media channels as venues for continuous listening rather than as places where they can push more ads. Because more people are having more online conversations more often, social media venues are rich sources of new insights that cannot be gleaned from traditional forms of market research like surveys or focus groups. Furthermore, in some cases these conversations have been archived for years, giving advertisers a historic perspective on particular topics.

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Search Marketing and Social Media in Regulated Industries