Most online retailers talk only about themselves on Facebook. Those days are about to end. According to research compiled by data-driven social media marketing company Argyle Social (a sponsor of this blog, and the software that we use for social communication), 65-66% of 566 online retailers surveyed only post content about their own company on their Facebook pages. With the release/forced march of the new Timeline format, Zuckerberg’s brigade is mandating an end to the “me” “me” “me” era of Facebook communication. Brands want to be successful, period. MORE >>

Marketing a business can be a time consuming job. When it comes to using a professional, you can generally break businesses in to their traditional sub-groups. Small businesses do it themselves, medium sized businesses retain consultants, and big businesses employ part or full time marketing professionals. It’s also fair to say that big business, when employing professionals, recruit a mix of experienced and new recruits, whilst medium sized businesses look to experienced professionals who have been through the employment -> self employment cycle. Is your business growing steadily? MORE >>

This guest post is by Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing. Remember the first time you realized that you’ve actually got traffic? Suddenly, you aren’t blogging to an empty void—real people are consuming and engaging with your content! Or are they? That’s when you begin to wonder … why isn’t anybody leaving a comment? This can be a frustrating challenge for bloggers, and some blogs never get past it. There are blogs with readerships in the hundreds of thousands with barely a handful of comments per post. Odds are you don’t want that to be you. You want people to read and interact! Be awesome. MORE >>

Ready for some social media awesomeness? American Express has created a new promotion where you sync your AMEX card with your Twitter account.  When When you tweet using customized hashtags (that’s the text that follows the # sign, such as #soshable) you’ll get a discount/coupon off of the associated product that you’re purchasing. Just Just tweet and save money on the things you love! Check With this, coupons are a thing of the past. No printing, no paper, no problem!  To register your Twitter with your American Express card,  click here. Social Marketing AMEX Social Media Spending Twitter MORE >>

South by Southwest is often called spring break for nerds – a place filled with techies and marketers looking for the next big thing. So it may come as a surprise to you that my biggest takeaway from the conference was maturity. No, not the conference attendees, but rather the social media landscape. The atmosphere at the conference was that social media has matured from a cute trend to a part of business as usual. For example, companies sent more “suits” to the conference than in past years; and the space’s biggest publication, Mashable, was in acquisition talks with CNN for $200M. MORE >>