And it’s important to create a fresh flow of new content for the social media team to promote.  . Social media marketing is the current "hot" marketing technique that marketers are turning to. recently attended the one-day Gravity Summit seminar on social media marketing. The speakers from Sony, Sprint, and Yahoo presented excellent examples on how major brands can generate attention for a product by using social media. And, representatives from social media marketing agencies described how they help clients plan, implement, and monitor a social media marketing campaign. MORE >>

Marketing Trend #2: Increased use of quality, targeted content (textual and video) that tells a company's story well and engages the prospective customer. free) search engine optimization (SEO) content targeting. While the economy in 2009 looks challenging for most companies, the outlook of marketing executives is rather bright and upbeat. Deborah Kania and her team at Brightworks Interactive have just released results of their survey of marketing executives' plans for 2009. Marketing Trend #5: Increased use of analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics) to spot ways to improve ROI. MORE >>

However, a stock trader on CNBC asked Brian McAndrews, aQuantive CEO, what I thought was a more interesting question: When will all content go digital so that everyone will be a measurable viewer or reader? Microsoft has announced their largest acquisition ever -- buying the digital advertising systems of aQuantive for $6 billion. Most reporters were asking how this acquisition fits into Microsoft's strategy. McAndrews very confidently said it'll be 5-10 years. As someone who has been in direct marketing for a long time, I only have only one thing to say: finally MORE >>

This means publications can spend less time trying to sell overpriced (or under-tracked) ads -- and more time creating compelling content. Seth Godin talks about how difficult it is to sell advertising -- especially advertising in media that are not trackable and cannot demonstrate an ROI. My first career was in radio and TV -- two of the most un-trackable media there are. did what I could to fix this problem with our reach-and-frequency software, but their problem is too big for most advertisers to deal with. It's a win for advertisers, readers, and publications MORE >>

Topics include: 1) Design and content tips to improve your ability to convert web visitors into leads. We all know that marketing is a process -- a never ending process of generating awareness, interest, leads and, of course, sales. Periodically we need to step back and review our online marketing strategy to make sure that our day-to-day tactics are the best uses of our resources. Michael Ortner at Capterra has written a short, but very valuable free e-book for online marketers about the best ways to generate traffic, leads, and customers. MORE >>