Expert Community Manager with the Focus Expert Network, a network of thousands of leading business and technology experts who answer questions and post thought leadership content. Few phenomena have ever spread as far and grown as rapidly as social media; obviously, this has tapped into something essential to our nature. What is it? The answer may come from the email marketing field. According to a recent study by email service provider Aweber, four simple words virtually guaranteed to get an email opened are: “You are not alone.”. That is what has driven social media adoption. aaker. MORE >>

Asking “Who in their right mind would predict the death of Facebook given its ever increasing dominance?,&# Geoff Livingston proceeds to do just that, arguing that it’s only a matter of time before Facebook’s increasing cluttered interface, confusing privacy settings and other issues allow an as-yet-unknown new competitor to eat the leading social network’s lunch. It’s hard to overstate the impact of Facebook. Having long ago passed MySpace as the most popular social network, Facebook recently replaced Google as the most-visited website in the U.S. As A.J. MORE >>

While acknowledging that Facebook may have limited use in b2b marketing , Leyl Master Black nevertheless offers “tips for creating a powerful presence on Facebook that will engage a business audience&# such as becoming an industry resource by sharing blog and webinar content, expanding beyond your wall using ecommerce or lead generation promotions, and “lightening up&# through the use of humor, quizzes and polls. Facebook is an extraordinary phenomenon. Depending on the day, it’s either the #1 or #2 most-visited site on the web. It’s inspired a movie. Always. MORE >>

Pinterest is doing a great job of driving traffic, leads, and sales,” Jesica Meher outlines six benefits of Pinterest, from generating inbound links to integration with existing Twitter and Facebook accounts. Given the widespread adoption of social media marketing practices, the “if” and “when” questions seemed to have now been resolved by most midsized and larger companies (and a lot of small companies as well). However, as the posts and articles highlighted below show, plenty of questions remain, such as how much should we budget for social media? MORE >>

Linkedin Leveraging: How to Tap Groups for Traffic, Leads & Sales by KISSmetrics. Stating that “We already know that LinkedIn is more effective at generating leads than Facebook or Twitter. Ways to Generate Leads from a LinkedIn B2B Company Page by Social Media B2B. Cohen details a handful of techniques for generating B2B leads through LinkedIn, among them testing free banners (“Want to test some new creative ideas? How can individuals use LinkedIn most effectively, whether for personal branding, job seeking or networking? Marketing with LinkedIn. MORE >>