According to a new report from Forrester Consulting to understand how interactive marketers use customer data to drive communications, develop promotions, and deliver consistent customer experiences, speed of response resonates loudly with interactive marketers. Realtime customer insights and engagement across all channels are "the game." Given the velocity and frequency of customer interactions, interactive marketers are denied the luxury of timedelayed analysis and response.

According to a new survey from The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, designed to examine the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter, Facebook dominates the SNS space with 92% of SNS users using Facebook, 29% use MySpace, 18% used LinkedIn and 13% use Twitter.

According to MerchantCircle, new local ad offerings from Facebook are making inroads with local merchants and may put increasing pressure on Google and pure-play deals companies such as Groupon for share of local marketing budgets. With its huge consumer adoption, ease-of-use and low barrier to entry, Facebook continues to be the most popular digital site for merchants to market their business, though, overall, 66% are using the social network for marketing.

Ava L. Parker, president of LinkingSolutons, notes that a recent study of radio listening and radio formats found that minority ownership of radio stations results in more programming designed for minority audiences. The study, "Radio Station Ownership Structure and the Provision of Programming to Minority Audiences..." by Joel Waldfogel of the Carlson School and Department of Economics at the University of Minnesota, used station format, listening, and ownership data from 2005-2009.

According to Mintel Comperemedia, cash in the credit card industry is becoming the enticement of choice for membership, as 23% of credit card offers in January-April 2011 included an additional cash incentive, compared to just 1% during the same period in 2007. 59% of offers for new credit cards in the first four months of the year promoted some form of additional incentive to encourage potential applicants to sign up for a card, compared to 30% during the same period in 2007. Miles and points are still the most popular incentive, with 25% of offers during the period luring potential …

Nielsen takes look at today's American teen, raised in an age dominated by media choices like never before, from the Internet to cable channels to web connected devices galore.

According to a report from Forbes Insights, "Bringing 20/20 Foresight to Marketing," 52% of a group of marketing and corporate managers cited customer retention as their top current priority, followed by customer acquisition (38%), and customer profitability (29%), and these remain top priorities for 2012, as well.

According to the latest American Pulse Survey by BIGResearch, 89.9% of those who currently have a job say they are not counting on a salary increase next year to compensate for the rising cost of goods. In addition, confidence in economic policy to get the economy back on track has been declining, and most are worried the U.S. could slip into another recession.

According to a recent MarketTools study on travelers' flying experiences over the past six months, 43% of the passengers were not specifically "satisfied" with comfort aboard the plane, 41% were not satisfied with ticket prices and fees, and 34% were not satisfied with in-flight service.

According to the MerchantCircle quarterly Merchant Confidence Index for the second quarter of 2011, local merchants say that business optimism is holding steady, following the jump in economic sentiment in the previous quarter. The current MCI score is 63.2, similar to the score from the previous quarter of 63.5.