March, 2010

Social Media Trends

Hi [FirstName],

Social media, or social networking, encompasses a variety of tools and technologies used to connect with people and businesses online. Last month I gave an introduction to bloging from a blog reader's point of view. This month I take a look at trends in social media as reported by Website Magazine. Next month, I'll continue my introduction to blogging, this time from a beginning blogger's point of view.

Dave Salahi

Back to top

How Are Other Businesses Using Social Media?

According to a survey by Website Magazine businesses are jumping on the social media bandwagon in large numbers. Their survey shows 82% of respondents planning to spend more time on social media this year than last year. However, the survey also shows that 41% of respondents aren't seeing a return from their social media efforts. This could be because it takes time to see results from any marketing campaign and maybe the results haven't fully developed yet. Or maybe some marketers haven't yet figured out the best ways of using social marketing.

Measuring Your Results

One of the advantages of marketing with social media is that it allows you to measure the results of your efforts more precisely than with traditional forms of marketing. Of course, this depends on setting up your social media campaign properly and then consistently monitoring results. An important factor is knowing who your market is and where they spend their time online. The survey found that "B2B [business-to-business] companies find less value in Facebook (35.5 percent) than their B2C [business-to-consumer] counterparts (47.5 percent) when asked if they "strongly agree" with the website's value to their company." Similarly, B2C companies had better success with YouTube than B2B companies.

More Info

Read the Website Magazine survey results. And, as always, if you have questions about any of the above please contact me at dave@artistic-webdesign.com or 949-362-0842.

Back to top

Free Webinar on Email Deliverability

Lyris HQ is offering a free webinar titled Email Deliverability 2010: What's New, What's True. The webinar will be on Thursday, March 11, 2010
10:00 AM Pacific Time. Topics include:

• How do recent updates to the CAN-SPAM Act impact your email deliverability?
• What is the new definition of spam, and why should you care?
• Why are good permission methods no longer good enough?
• How does search engine marketing play into the deliverability of email?

Register for the webinar.