Mediaboss Marketing

Summary: The merger will combine SMB search marketing, social marketing, email and public-relations services into one platform by late 2012.

And so it begins. One of the key tips that I discussed on last weeks Small Business Matters webcast (10 Online Marketing Tips for Small Business) was pretty simple, Keep things integrated.

So, it was with interest that I read today about cloud marketing and public relations software company Vocus plans to pay $169 million to buy iContact, which offers an integrated email and social media marketing application that is hosted in the cloud.

The reason I think this is extremely interesting is that tools such as iContact (and Constant Contact and HubSpot) really speak to the need to keep things simple. Social media can be a time-suck, so the extent to which small-business owners can keep things better integrated, all the better. Anyway, I speculated out loud that we would see some consolidation in this space. Lo and behold.

Under the deal, Vocus plans to buy iContact for $91 million in cash, $9 million in common stock, and $79 million in redeemable convertible preferred stock. The iContact technology will allow Vocus to extend add email and social media management to the Vocus service, which focuses on search marketing and social marketing.

The iContact platform is supposed to be integrated into the Vocus offering late in 2010; at that time, iContacts roughly 70,000 customers will have the option of keeping their standalone product subscription or upgrading to an even more integrated SMB marketing suite.

iContact has been around since 2003, when it was founded by two students from the University of North Carolina, Ryan Allis and Aaron Houghton. It is based in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Vocus has its headquarters in Beltsville, Md.

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Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green technology and corporate sustainability issues.

Writing publicly about what the high-tech industry is actually doing to help itself and the world get greener or more sustainable is one way I figure I can contribute more meaningfully to said effort. I am also a big OMG-kind-of-fan of smart leadership, which is why the goodly folks who publish this blog let me go on about this topic and why I am always on the hunt for forward-looking business management ideas.

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SMB online marketing marriage: Vocus pays $169M for iContact

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Hearsay Social, the leading enterprise social marketing platform, today announced the addition of several of the world's largest financial firms to its customer roster, including Northwestern Mutual, the "World's Most Admired" company in the life insurance industry in 2011 according to FORTUNE magazine with over 6,000 financial representatives; Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a Fortune 500 provider of financial services with 2,200 representatives; and California Casualty, a leading insurance provider. Also the social platform of choice for Farmers Insurance Group, Hearsay Social now powers compliance and marketing for the top social financial services and insurance companies on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Hearsay Social was also recently named the sole social media strategic partner of SIFMA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Leading Financial Firms Standardize on Hearsay Social

Northwestern Mutual announced today that it has standardized its more than 6,000 FINRA-registered representatives using LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter onto the Hearsay Social platform. Northwestern Mutual uses the full suite of Hearsay Social offerings:

Hearsay Social also announced today that Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a Fortune 500 provider of financial services, and California Casualty, a leading insurance provider, have selected Hearsay Social to provide regulatory compliance and social marketing success for their employees on social media.

"Our partnership with Hearsay Social gives us added peace of mind that we're compliant with regulatory requirements which allows us to focus on maximizing the power of social media at a local level," said Kyle Marie Woods, Marketing Strategist at Thrivent Financial.

Thrivent Financial, a faith-based, not-for-profit financial services organization serving nearly 2.5 million members, understands that compliance is of paramount importance when engaging on social media. Thrivent financial representatives using Hearsay Social will cover a range of products and services, as well as focus on community engagement and philanthropic initiatives.

"Financial services professionals see great promise in using LinkedIn to make them more productive and successful," said Jennifer Grazel, Head of Category Development, Financial Services, at LinkedIn. "Hearsay Social's solutions enable those professionals to connect and leverage their networks to build their business and get the insights they need to be better at what they do."

The Hearsay Social Compliance Module provides complete compliance and coverage for all firm employees on all major networks, no matter their point of access. The platform allows advisors to use social media to build their books while meeting FINRA and SEC regulations on advertising, monitoring, and record retention.

Hearsay Social today announced new capabilities:

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Hearsay Social Powers Top Financial Services Firms on Social Media

27-02-2012 13:06 nyouworld.com Fabrice Kerherve and Dr. Howard Moskowitz join forces to bring their business and marketing expertise to Nyouworld!

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Fabrice Kerherve and Dr. Howard Moskowitz Discuss Social Marketing and The Science Of The Mind - Video

According to the company's this integration offers brands unprecedented ability to design, publish, optimize and manage campaigns, giving marketers control over paid, earned and owned social media. More than 160 social metrics are aggregated from earned and owned channels while analysis of paid and earned media comes in real time to help brands reach the optimum audience each time.

"Integrating a brand's ads with its content is key to maximizing engagement through social media, yet powerful ad management had been a missing piece from social marketing software suites," said Victoria Ransom, Wildfire CEO. "We are delighted to partner with Adaptly to bring their innovative advertising optimization technology to our customers. We evaluated many solutions in the market and Adaptly was the clear leader, with a best-in-class technology that is science-based, data-driven, and results-focused."

Through the solution brands can:

• Target the most valuable audience segments
• Enhance social performance from newsfeed, brand pages and promotions
• Obtain an real time view of social media
• Optimize campaigns across social media

Nikhil Sethi, Adaptly CEO said, "We are excited to partner with Wildfire, to bring together paid, owned, and earned media. Integration of our proven ad optimization technology with Wildfire's results-driven platform allows brands to both improve the customer experience through smarter, more relevant advertising and drive significantly better results."

The platform is in limited beta currently; some early adopters have seen fan bases double and reductions in cost-per-fan by up to 49%.

Tags: Adaptly, social marketing, social media tools, social networks, Wildfire

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Wildfire, Adaptly partner for social marketing solution

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/624cdf/hospitality_market) has announced the addition of Elsevier Science and Technology's new report "Hospitality Marketing. Edition No. 2" to their offering.

Written specifically for students taking marketing modules within a hospitality course it contains examples and case studies that show how ideas and concepts can be successfully applied to a real-life work situation. It emphasises topical issues such as sustainable marketing, corporate social responsibility and relationship marketing. It also describes the impact that the internet has had on both marketing and hospitality, using a variety of tools including a wide range of internet learning activities.

New UK and international case studies that prepare you for work in a global industry Activities for each chapter that will assess your understanding and marketing knowledge A new inside cover feature that links real-life marketing campaigns to the book's case studies

Key Topics Covered:

Part A: Introduction: Introduction to hospitality marketing

Part B: Pre-encounter marketing

Marketing research

Understanding and segmenting customers

Competitive strategies

Developing the offer

Locating the offer

Pricing the offer

Distributing the offer

Communicating the offer

Part C: Encounter marketing

Managing the physical environment

Managing service processes

Managing customer-contact employees

Part D: Post-encounter marketing

Managing customer satisfaction

Relationship marketing

Part E: The marketing plan

Marketing Planning.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/624cdf/hospitality_market.

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Research and Markets: Hospitality Marketing. Edition No. 2 2011 Shows You How to Apply the Principles of Marketing ...