One of my favorite thinkers concerning things web-related is Avinash Kaushik.  His most recent blog post contains the text of a speech he gave to a gathering of Canadian marketing executives. The point of it is that we fail to take advantage of the promise of Internet marketing because most of us find “shout” marketing and interruption advertising to be more comfortable.  It is brilliant.  It is controversial. It challenges us all.  I just really like it.  Take the time to read it here.  Send your comments.

Spinning off this recent article that lists the Top Eight Social Media Campaign Management Tools I thought I’d add two more that I like and make it an even 10 tools that can really help social media marketers better engage their audiences and track results. There is a always a great deal of movement in the industry as new services launch and existing ones change hands or get acquired. My hope is that this list will still be accurate at least 17 seconds after I publish it.

1. WildFire
Wildfire allows you to create quizzes, contests, coupons, virtual gifts etc and distribute them to social networking sites. It also allows user to send multiple updates to different and multiple social networking sites.

2. Awareness Social marketing software
Awareness Social marketing software is a enterprise class tool which has wider perspective of social media marketing. It integrates all the social networking sites control like updating on multiple account and engaging with people. Further, it also has comprehensive ROI measuring features embedded in the system. It is mainly targeted to bigger enterprise (meaning that is on the more expensive side).

3. Buddy Media
Buddy Media also allows multiple account management from twitter and facebook . In addition, they have included lots of case studies from large brands. They allow users to manage and monitor campaign as well.

4. CoTweet
CoTweet gives more like a dashboard experience where you can view all the updates and schedule tweets. User can even track keywords and monitor the brands. It recently was acquired by ExactTarget so it will be interesting to see how that integration plays out.

5. Hootsuite
Along with CoTweet, Hootsuite is one of the more popular tools for managing accounts from one dashboard. Users can integrate multiple account from different sites (like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin ), view their streams, track their statistics and schedule to multiple accounts. Recently, they have even included the people management part where different person can be given different roles.

6. ObjectiveMarketer
ObjectiveMarketers has the inclusion of almost all the important sites from Twitter to YouTube. It also allows easy status updates to multiple account, branding the landing page, tracking click statistics and managing users role. It has also recently added some brand monitoring part to it. The most interesting feature of it is the ability to brand landing pages using customizable frames. Their tracking goes farther than most at helping to generate ROI statistics.

7. Socialtalk
Similar to all the above services, Socialtalk integrates Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and MoveableType. Allows multiple channel updates and work-flow management, scheduling and other features. SocialTalk is geared towards businesses where there is a matrixed approval process that posting activity has to pass through before it can go live.

8. Buzzom Premium
Buzzom Premium is also one of the most useful tool in social media management. It has comprehensive twitter activity monitoring dashboard, integration of sites like (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Fan Page and MySpace). User can easily schedule messages to these sites and even plan the whole campaign in an excel sheet and just upload. Recently, it has added a brand tracking facility which allows user to track keywords and engage with people. I like their Twitter follower management features that seem better thought out than most others.

9. Involver
Involver offers dozens of off-the-shelf but customizable Facebook apps that can really increase the types of interactions that you can offer through your Facebook fan pages. The have a basic free level and then two additional levels of paid access. I particularly like their photo gallery tool and the app for creating and sharing coupons.

10. ScoutLabs
Scoutlabs is my preferred tool for social media monitoring. The key to Scoutlabs is that it is not trying to do too much but what it does do it actually does very well and it is easy to use. It makes it easy to create searches that weed out all the irrrelevant results. It also has work-flow management tools so that a team of people can collaborate on engaging the online conversation around a brand.

Hope these help you out. Let me know of others that you think belong on this list. 10 does not have to be the magic number.

Social media is a major force not only amongst marketers and their peers who find the topic fascinating but amongst our actual audiences too. Nielsen’s Q1 2010 Consumer Confidence Survey, Q1 2010 @Plan reports and Audience Measurement tools are citing some striking facts that paint an even more dramatic picture of our immersion into social media than we might have thought.  I was particularly surprised by stats such as 21% of U.S. adults own or publish a blog or that 2/3 of global consumers refer to online product reviews when making a purchasing decision.  The complete excerpt is below:

• More than two-thirds of global consumers seek online product reviews, recommendations from discussion forums or social media sites when making a purchase decision.
• 40% of global consumers would not buy Consumer Electronics, 22% would not buy Telecommunications Services and 19% would not buy Gaming Devices without consulting online reviews.
• 21% of U.S. adults online publish or own a blog.
• 55% of U.S. adults online have 1 or more social networking profiles.
• 75% of the active U.S. Internet households visit a social networking site (May 2010). Globally, it’s 74% (April 2010).
• Social media websites had a unique audience in the U.S. of 148.2 million visitors (May 2010).
• U.S. consumers spent an average of 6 hours, 13 minutes a month using social networking websites (May 2010). Globally consumers spend an average of almost 6 hours (April 2010).
• Facebook is the #1 social networking site in the U.S., with a unique audience of 125.2 million visitors (May 2010).
• The average U.S. worker spends nearly 5.5 hours a month visiting social networking sites at the office (May 2010) and much of that time is spent visiting Facebook.
• Twitter has a unique U.S. audience of 19.1 million visitors (May 2010), growing more than 1,520% in the last two years (May 2010 v. May 2008).

Consumers are contributing and sharing online:

• 20% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Movies
• 18% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Television Programs
• 16% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Music
• 14% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Books
• 13% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Websites / Internet Content & Services
• 12% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Household Products (food and beverage)
• 12% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Restaurants or Bars
• 11% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Computer Hardware/Software
• 11% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Electronics
• 9% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Online Shopping
• 8% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Video Games
• 8% of U.S. adults online provide frequent advice on Household Products (non-food)

I am most surprised by the propensity of our consuming audience to contribute to and create content online.  I did not think the numbers would have climbed this substantially over the last time I had seen a similar report.  Which of these observations do you find most interesting?

Foursquare, a location-based micro-blogging service that launched in 2009 seems to be on the verge of relevance. In preparation for their marketing push at SXSW they announced that they have added 500,000 new members bringing their total to somewhere in the 1 million area. Additionally, they are launching a free analytics service for business owners so that could create interesting marketing opportunities for businesses that are based on foot traffic. I’m rooting for them because this could become a very interesting marketing medium. This recent article in the NYTimes explains the new analytics service in some detail with examples of how some of the beta-testing businesses have been using it.Foursquare users use mobile apps to tell the foursquare community where they are and what they are doing.  However, from the business perspective, users are checking in when they come to your location which gives you some information that you can leverage.  For instance, some businesses have found that is interesting to be able to message formally frequent visitors to get them back.  Others have been able to learn more about what messages have been driving their customers to them.  In a nutshell, any business can see the registered customers and prospects around them and look for ways to reel them in or make their experience more enjoyable.

Here’s a screenshot of the kind of stats that they are planning to share with businesses:

Foursquare recently beta-tested this tool with 30 businesses and is planning to expand the beta round to 500 in the coming weeks.  If the user-base grows, this could become useful resource for marketers.  As it is right now, it’s just on the verge of  earning our attention.  Stay tuned and share any information you learn about this service or any of its near-competitors.

The concept of marketing to people based on where they are at any given time took a big leap forward as Facebook and Twitter recently announced the introduction of geolocation features to accompany user posting activity on their services.  Combining their efforts with those of the already established players in the space such as Yelp, Foursquare, Latitude, and Gowalla, it seems that 2010 will be a year of great experimentation for this feature.  Time will tell whether marketers and application developers can make this feature useful enough to consumers that they will want to enable it.  However, it seems likely that we will soon see software platforms that allows us to monitor social media for people who are nearing our location and message to them thereby combining real-time search with real-time marketing.

We are only a baby step away from a day when a retail store can monitor the locations of it fans and followers and send them a little announcement of a special they are running today on that brand of running shorts you like to buy from them. Or perhaps your favorite restaurant by the sea can know that you are driving nearby and message you that the sunset looks great tonight and you have to come see it from their deck. Used well, this capability could be appreciated by consumers and could create additional reasons for users to want to fan and follow their favorite businesses.

However, it is not difficult to imagine this capability being over-exploited in intrusive ways such that users will flock to their account settings to turn it off. Not mention the fact that letting the world know where you are at any given point in time has its own drawbacks to our precious anonymity and privacy. I’m intrigued by these new capabilities and will be anxious to see how they impact our digital lives in 2010.

I’d be eager to know your thoughts on geolocation features in social media.

• I have often written that your social media marketing has to focus on the needs of the audience first. However this recent article by Clay MacDaniel cites research by Razorfish and She’sConnected.com are indicating that a primary reason for consumers to fan your company or brand is to receive promotions and discounts.  Let’s take a look at some ways that you can find a balance between social media marketing that attracts the attentions of your audience and social media marketing that pushes sales messages to them.

Nail a need. Make your offers highly targeted.
If you are involved in social media marketing you can use the information that you gain from constantly monitoring and engaging in the online conversation around your brand to generate offers and promotions that are specific to the needs being expressed by your audience. For instance, let’s say you are monitoring the social conversation around your restaurant and you find that the health-conscious portion of your audience often comments favorably about the dietetic options on your brunch menu. You could develop an offer that is specifically designed for them by offering a discount to a local spa or free admission to a local fitness event as part of a package. In fact, if you are monitoring the sites that your health-conscious audience frequents, you can use those sites to help get the word out. The advantages here are many:

• Higher redemption rates of more specific offers with lower overall promotion costs
• Generate fan loyalty in your audiences by speaking directly to their needs
• Generate promotions and discounts that add value to your brand rather than cheapen it.

Test and monitor. Use the channel to refine your offer strategy
The immediate data that you gather from distributing offers online affords a great opportunity to test and tweak different aspects of it. What if you change the value, make it time sensitive, make it referral-based, or make it a contest? You may notice that some promotions generate interest but lower redemption rates whereas others get less click activity but generate better sales.

Keep the balance. Make the largest volume of social media marketing about engagement with your audience’s interests.
This is the tricky part. Your audience wants to be rewarded for their loyalty but they don’t want to be barraged and bored by your endless series of offers. Whats the right balance for you. Is it a deal of the day or of the week? If you have 6 specific audiences that you can monitor online do you make sure you offer at least one promotion to each audience each month? The right fit will become apparent of you continue to track things like your rate of new followers, click-through rates on all your posts, how often your posts get passed along or commented on, and the engagement of your audience off-site. Your primary emphasis should continue to be on creating the force of attraction that draws them into your social media marketing with a generous sprinkling of offers and promotion to keep them active.

Be specific, keep testing and trying, and don;t overdo the promotions and you will find that social media channels can help you get those sales messages out in new, cost-efficient, and effective ways.

We were told the earth would move, lesser devices would be swallowed into the yawing chasms of hell, the newspaper industry would be uplifted to glory, and our lives would forever change. Yet Wednesday’s announcement of the new Apple iPad leaves me saying, “That’s it?” It’s a big iTouch with a 3G plan. Neither a phone nor a computer it’s greatest potential lies in the hopes that enterprising developers can figure out something cool to do with it using apps. We’ve been Jobbed by Apple’s PR and marketing machine.

What is the prevailing opinion out there? Anyone seeing more potential in this than my admittedly snarky views suggest?

For a short while this past week, there was an accidentally revealed document floating around the web that shows some potential upcoming developments in Facebook marketing…and they are definitely ideas that will make business page owners very happy.  The document itself is no longer anywhere where I can link to it but there is this useful article about it on the Inside Facebook site.  Here’s the high points:

1. For page owners, Facebook will track impressions and interactions relative to each post. Right there in Facebook you will be able to see how users are interacting with the content you post which will greatly enhance your understanding of what to post that best suits your audiences preferences.

2. Facebook seems to be planning to offer ad targeting based on a function they call “Real Time”. It’s not completely explained yet but the supposition is that you will be able to target based on the content of the audiences posting activity. So if I post an update about a concert I went to I may be served ads that relate to the artist, venue, genre or anyone else that finds that subject to be defining of their audience. This could be very interesting.

Both of these changes indicate that Facebook is taking a harder look at the needs of marketers on their service. If they continue to make wise choices like the ones listed above I think they will allow marketers to better use the platform while not intruding on the basic experience of their users. In fact, in both of these cases the net result could be a higher quality experience for the Facebook users. Hope to see more about these in the near future.

“What are other people doing and what’s really working?” We got a sneak peak at some of the valuable information in The 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report from MarketingSherpa. The accompanying chart shows us which social media marketing tactics are most often used and considered most effective by our marketing peers.

There are several tactics not listed here that I wish were.  For instance, apps, games, contests, and communities come  quickly to mind.  However it is interesting to see that blogger relations is considered so highly by those surveyed.  Many companies lack the resources to put consistent effort behind this but information like this might change their reasoning.  I also think that many of these tactics tend to be excuted in tandem and are probably most effective when that is the case.  Also, the greatest amount of effort tends to reside in simply creating valuable content and communications that can flow out into the social media arena.  Once you have done that, it is much easier to leverage it across multiple tactics.

The number of U.S. Internet users aged 65 and older increased more than 55 percent between November 2004 and November 2009, according to data from Nielsen. The measurement firm estimates that 17.5 million seniors are now online, compared with 11.3 million five years ago.  What is also interesting to me is the fact that they list online activities like Facebook and YouTube as popular things to do.  Here is a chart from Clickz showing the top 10 online destinations of Internet users 65 and over in November of 2009: