Brands hope to use influencers to build their own influence and market their products and services. Brands save time by having the influencers organize themselves and manage their messaging, as compared to planning a social marketing campaign. Looking at this strictly as business, we are providing our services for below market value in most cases based on the dollar cost of the service/product being given. Social Media Strategy buzz cliques community influencers marketing Opinion pay-to-play trade tweetups uninvitedHave you experienced this? MORE >>

About half of the country’s largest retail banks spent more on advertising in the first quarter of this year than they did last year. And about half spent less. Reporting by Matthew Monk in this US Banker post outlines regulatory filings of the country’s largest retail-heavy banks ($50 billion+ in assets) that show that 11 of them have spent more year-over-year in Q1, and 11 have spent less MORE >>

Social media marketing has gone well beyond the hype stage and is now mainstream business practice. Influential voices like Olivier Blanchard and Jacquie McCarnan present formulas and methods for ROI calculation, while Steve Goldman contends that social media ROI can’t be measured in isolation, and Jackie Cohen reports that more than a third of CMOs still have no idea whether or not social media marketing is producing any ROI. 10 Steps to Finding the Influencers in Your Market by Junta42. ** 5 STARS. new rules for YouTube marketing by iMedia Connection. But 44.24 MORE >>

There is another set of marketing professionals who believe in doing their math, before launching any campaign on social media and setting out the KPIs and a target (in figures), which has to be achieved through their campaign. Facebook Social Media Twitter campaign CMOs Infographic KPI qualitative approach qualitative approach to ROI return on investment return on online investment shool of thought social media costTweet. With increasing competition in social media, almost everyone wants to grab a share of the “social&# pie. Infographic by MDGadvertising. MORE >>

Just because using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube require no money, the “cost&# of social media done right is far greater. Infographics Social Freshness Social Media Social Media Marketing Social Media Strategy business cost focus infographicOne of the worst things anyone can believe about social media as it pertains to business is that it’s free. With that said, is it worth the investment of time, sometimes money, and often emotional distress? For most, the answer is “Yes.&# (queue trumpets). An infographic is worth a few thousand words, they say. MORE >>