For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Navigating The Twittersphere

How To Market On Twitter

by Nate Elliott, November 19, 2009

Successfully engaging with consumers on Twitter requires both the right overarching strategy and a series of small best practices. Interactive marketers must ensure that consumers can find their brands' accounts, confirm that they are legitimate, and . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Case Study: The NHL Uses Tweet-Ups To Energize Its Fan Base And Reach New Audiences

by Nate Elliott, November 4, 2009

To create excitement around the start of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the National Hockey League (NHL) worked with fans to organize a series of tweet-ups that took place simultaneously around the world — energizing more than 1,000 fans directly and . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

How Europeans Search

by Shar VanBoskirk, Rebecca Jennings, October 30, 2009

Many European online consumers start at search engines when doing product research, especially in the UK and Germany, and consumers across Europe exhibit a high level of trust in natural search engine results. However, European consumers are wary of paid . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Developing Social Marketing Skills

Draw On Existing Core Marketing Skills To Improve Social Marketing Efforts

by Sean Corcoran, October 21, 2009

With 82% of US online adults active with social technologies, social marketing has become an essential part of any marketing organization. Moreover, social marketing requires new skills from marketers and their organizations, placing pressure on managers . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

How To Work With IT To Get (Most) Of What You Want

A Guide For Interactive Marketers As They Collaborate With Internal IT Groups

by Neil Strother, October 15, 2009

Many interactive marketers find their interactions with IT to be positive, but others struggle with conflicting team priorities, slow response times, or differing communication styles. To successfully engage with IT, interactive marketers must: 1) define . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Sidewiki: Dealing With Google's Land Grab

Your Best Defense Is To Build Your Own Social Site Features

by Josh Bernoff, Sean Corcoran, September 30, 2009

Google announced Sidewiki, a product that allows users of Google's Toolbar to share their comments on any Web site. Just as we predicted, this endows all Web sites with social features and commentary. Mass adoption will take years, and Google needs to . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Rich Search Ads: Too Early For Most Advertisers

by Neil Strother, September 30, 2009

Some search marketers are experimenting with new ad formats — what Forrester calls rich search ads — that can include product images, promotional videos, and interactive forms. But search engines have limited access to trials of rich search ads to a few . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Social Media Marketers: Don't Ignore IM

by Christine Spivey Overby, September 18, 2009

Instant messaging (IM) is one of the most widely used activities among European online users. IM usage is not just restricted to youths and teens but is also popular among older age groups such as 35- to 44-year-olds. IM users are also more active online . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Case Study: Social Media Helps Toyota Communicate Complex Attributes Of New iQ

by Rebecca Jennings, September 9, 2009

Faced with the challenge of communicating the complex, advanced features of a new vehicle — the iQ — Toyota supplemented more traditional online and offline marketing with social media activities that focused on an attempt by two drivers from agency iCrossing . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

The Broad Reach Of Social Technologies

by Sean Corcoran, August 25, 2009

Social technologies continue to grow substantially in 2009. Now more than four in five US online adults use social media at least once a month, and half participate in social networks like Facebook. While young people continue to march toward almost universal . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Brands Should Reach Gen Xers Through Word Of Mouth

by Nate Elliott, August 25, 2009

The once "ambivalent" Generation X — adults ages 30 to 43 — has become a mainstay of the workforce. This generation has adopted social technologies and is highly vocal as nearly half tell their friends and family about products that interest them. Brands . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Europeans' Social Networking Use Accelerates

by Rebecca Jennings, August 12, 2009

While uptake of social media activities overall has increased slightly in the past year, online European usage of social networks such as Facebook and Bebo has grown significantly — around 30% now engage with social networks regularly, up from 18% last . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Aligning Your Agencies For Social Marketing

by Emily Riley, August 11, 2009

Social marketing is on most interactive marketers' minds, but few have the in-house expertise necessary to create and fully execute a social marketing strategy. Interactive marketers consequently turn to multiple agency partners, each with their own strengths . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Best Practices: Mobile Marketing

As Mobile Campaigns Spread, Plan And Measure Them Appropriately

by Neil Strother, August 6, 2009

Mobile marketing is gaining momentum, even in a down economy. One in four US interactive marketers is currently using mobile, and nearly half of these (47%) will increase mobile spending this year. Even with marketers using a wide variety of tactics, . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Case Study: RIM's Simple, Goal-Oriented Approach To Mobile Marketing

by Neil Strother, August 6, 2009

Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the popular BlackBerry devices, has used a simple approach to its mobile marketing effort as it tries to capture growing interest among consumers for smartphone devices. The campaign demonstrates other best practices: . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Case Study: Bing Mobile Campaign Syncs With Target Audience

Microsoft Matches Audience Habits In Interactive Search Engine Ads

by Neil Strother, August 6, 2009

Microsoft demonstrated a keen understanding of mobile marketing best practices when it launched its Bing for mobile campaign in conjunction with the kickoff of its new online search engine. These best practices include matching the campaign with your . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Consumer Advertising Attitudes Rebound

A Customer-Guided Approach Will Further Ad Relevance

by Shar VanBoskirk, July 13, 2009

Consumer attitudes toward advertising improved in 2008. US adults find ads more conversational, helpful during the purchase process, and less disruptive. This result is due to marketer improvements in interactive campaign execution and optimization. But . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Video Contest Checklist

How To Choose The Right Premise, Prize, And Promotion For Your Contest

by Nate Elliott, July 7, 2009

User-generated video contests help marketers listen to and energize users and provide them an inexpensive source of promotional video content. But contests can require significant time and money and don't always succeed. Interactive marketers who plan . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Social Media Meltdowns: What All Marketers Should Know

Online Preparedness Isn't Just For Online Marketing Campaigns

by Rebecca Jennings, July 1, 2009

Increasing numbers of consumers are engaging in conversations about brands online. Interactive marketers must realize that while they no longer can control what people publicly say about their brands, they can minimize the damage if these conversations . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

Why Consumers Subscribe To Financial Services Emails

Understand How To Find New Email Subscribers And Keep Their Interest

by Julie M. Katz, June 24, 2009

Marketing emails from financial institutions have grown substantially. Despite this growth, consumers remain skeptical about financial services emails. To counter the skepticism, email marketers should increase the amount of information and control consumers . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Go Big Or Go Home Advertising

How To Make A Big Impression And Cut Through The Clutter With Display Marketing

by Emily Riley, June 19, 2009

Online users see more than 1,800 online ads per day, which is an increase of more than 250% since 2004. How can online brand marketers make a big impact when they are competing with so many other advertising messages? The key is to develop a Go Big or . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Community Launch Checklist

Creating A Pragmatic Approach To Launching An Online Community

by Jeremiah K. Owyang, June 18, 2009

Online communities are a powerful way to connect with customers for marketing, support, and developing consumer-driven insight. Unfortunately, many brands launch community efforts without first doing the legwork of developing a strategy, following the . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

The Practicalities Of European Social Media Marketing

How European Marketers Should Use Social Media To Reach Consumers

by Rebecca Jennings, June 10, 2009

As European marketers look to ramp up their social media spend, a few innovators are providing some best practices for how to use social media for a variety of objectives. A number of key learnings are already emerging, for example, that the use of multiple . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Bing: The Next Big Search Thing

Microsoft Introduces A User-Centric Approach To Search

by Shar VanBoskirk, June 1, 2009

Microsoft's new "decision engine," Bing, changes the search game, not by catapulting Microsoft ahead of Yahoo! and Google but by introducing a new user-centric way of finding and displaying relevant search results. Forrester expects Bing's concierge approach . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Reaching Moms Through Social Media

by Rebecca Jennings, May 15, 2009

Most moms are active social participants, especially those with very young children. They're at least 50% more likely than average online Americans to create social content and join existing communities online. Yet these busy social communicators — responsible . . .