ted paulson

Facebook, Twitter and Social Media Marketing

Facebook and Twitter see the highest adoption rate in social media marketing while customer reviews rank No. 1 for increasing sales and customer engagement, according to a study released Wednesday.

Retailers are revving up their social media marketing efforts as the past six months show aggressive adoption of the emerging trend with Facebook and Twitter leading the way, according to the report, “Community and Social Media Study,” conducted by the e-commerce consulting firm the e-tailing group and online customer review firm PowerReviews.

The findings come at a time when recession-strapped companies are increasingly looking to social media marketing as a more affordable way to promote their products and services as compared to standard online advertising, and as interactive marketing overall gains purchase on traditional offline advertising. (via www.internetnews.com’ Sept 17th, 2009 | by Michelle Megna)

The power of brand ambassador

The update web „2.1“

We see radical change in trade for the year 2009. One could easily get the impression that the advertising and media landscape are in for some serious trouble this year. Looking at the current numbers from studies of MediaEdge it is getting more and more difficult maintaining brand exposure via classical communication channels. At the same time there has been an immense increase in the usage of social platforms compared to the previous years.

The customers determine the selection of brands, which form of entertainment and which service they want to have. They thus force companies to become more authentic. Conversely one could get the impression the advertising world is dissolving into nothingness.  Therefore Social Commerce is experiencing a new dawn, not to a small degree because of social networks such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and CO. with all their power to connect to our consciousness.

And herein lies the very problem. Brands as well as media companies are in fact clueless as to how they can use the power of networks for their own benefit. A mere Facebook page here or a few Twitter notifications there, will not make the cash registers go wild! Social networking is a skill to be learned. Customers, (being far more street-wise) are way ahead of companies. Half-hearted attempts are immediately laid bare. The dreadful result being that a brand is disconnected from their target community! The whole process, while at first glance appearing to be simple, is not a quick, fast, slapped together solution, rather it needs careful planning and consideration.

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The New Social Engagement: A Visit to Zappos

Most Mashable readers have probably heard of the online retail company, Zappos. You may have learned of them via Twitter (Twitter) and count yourself among the 400,000+ people that follow the CEO, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay but who people refer to as Tony), or from a friend after she had one of the best customer experiences in her life.

No matter how you heard of them, we wager to guess that you did so through word-of-mouth. And word about Zappos has been spreading. . . . They did $3 million dollars in gross sales the day before our recent visit, and surpassed $1 billion last year. They are one of the companies forging a new era of business that emphasizes, in their words, “making personal and emotional connections.”

We visited Zappos recently, initially planning to have an hour with Tony and ended up spending the entire afternoon there interviewing not only Tony, but the in-house coach, the help desk coordinator, and many others. Once in the Zappos universe, we wanted to know, “What are they doing that is working? Why do they have a brand that is so well respected?” And, “Why does it feel so damn good to hang out with these people?”

Below are some of the lessons we gleaned from our time there. (via Mashable April 26th, 2009 | by Soren Gordhamer)