Your Half-Assed Social Media Strategy Is A Quagmire by Erik Sass

According to a recent survey of execs from 100 companies of varying sizes (ranging from under 50 to over 1,000 employees) aptly titled "Social Media Without a Parachute", 78% of respondents said their companies were using social media -- but just 41% said they had a strategic plan. It's alarming but not terribly surprising that half the companies using social media are basically flying blind. After all, we've seen this before: remember the invasion of Iraq in 2003? ...Read the whole story

  • Bazaarvoice Builds Apps On Social Platform Making Content Shareable, Searchable by Laurie Sullivan

    Bazaarvoice plans to release a product suite Monday that builds out on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace social network platforms with custom tools and apps. The SocialConnect Suite gives consumers a voice through rating and review, social sharing, and ability to syndicate content. The tools aim to drive sales, reduce returns, and boost success for search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns. ...Read the whole story

  • retail Golfsmith, Nike Team For Social Media Event by Sarah Mahoney

    "We've really ramped up our social marketing efforts and, like all retailers, we're trying to figure it out," Golfsmith's Matt Corey tells Marketing Daily. "This effort with Nike was one where we wanted to do something really unique, and we really hadn't leveraged our Facebook fans, to do something specific just for them." ...Read the whole story

  • Look Ma, No Hands: More Than Half Of Companies Say They Are Using Social Media With No Strategy by Gavin O'Malley

    While 78% percent of corporate respondents say their company is using social media, only 41% say they have a strategic plan in place to guide such activity, according to a new study from marketing firm Digital Brand Expressions. Of those companies that have some semblance of a social media strategy, 94% say that marketing activities are included in the plan; 71% said public relations were factored into the equation; and 55% say that they use social media for sales-related activities. ...Read the whole story

How Facebook Gets to 7 Billion by David Berkowitz

"Ubiquity" was one word that struck me when David Kirkpatrick, author of "The Facebook Effect," kept mentioning it at a Gotham Media Ventures breakfast panel last week. The other was "China." Those were the answers. The questions, if you summon Johnny Carson's Carnac, were, respectively, "What is Facebook's goal?" and "What is Facebook's biggest obstacle in achieving its goal?" ...More