Want to know not just what companies are doing on the social web but how well they’re doing it?

We have brought you just the tool to measure and monitor brand engagement: for the first time ever, ENGAGEMENTdb ranks the world’s most valuable brands based on how they leverage social media to interact with customers.

Razorfish’s “digital outlook report 2009″ – http://www.razorfish.com/img/content/2009DOR.pdf

The following report contains statements that are forwardlooking, including expectations and predictions regarding future industry trends and developments. Actual results may differ materially from our expectations or projections. This report also contains opinions, estimates, and forwardlooking statements by industry leaders. Such statements are the personal opinions of the individuals quoted and should not be attributed to any other entity or individual. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon forward-looking statements, which speak only as to the date of this document. Except as required by law, neither Razorfish, LLC nor any of its affiliated entities undertake any obligation to update any forwardlooking or other statements in this document, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

© Razorfish, LLC. All rights reserved.

Razorfish’s “Fluent – The Social Influence Marketing Report” – http://fluent.razorfish.com/publication/?m=6540&l=1

I’m excited to announce the launch of Fluent, the Social Influence Marketing report from Razorfish. This is the first report of its kind which understands who and what influences consumers at different points in the marketing funnel.

The insights in this report are built on three pillars – a survey with 1,000 North American consumers, six months worth of real conversational data to frame the introduction of a new social index and the experiences of Razorfish Social Media Leads across the world who advise marketers in industry leading companies everyday.

The survey and conversational driven research also busts three myths about Social Influence Marketing.

1. That companies have figured out how to build their brands in social media. They haven’t. For example, six out of 10 consumers don’t bother to seek out opinions of brands via social media.

2. That television is dead. It isn’t. Consumers view TV ads as more trustworthy than ads on social networks. Marketers need to do more in the social realm, but they need to do it in a way that builds trust first. Brands don’t have the trust today.

3. That you cannot measure in the social web. Not only do campaign specific metrics matter and can be measured but we believe a SIM Score for the social web is extremely important. Think of it as the blood pressure for the brand in the social web. In the report, we introduce this index and show the SIM Scores of 5-6 brands in 4 industries. We also compare the online numbers to offline share of voice data to demonstrate how those two worlds are blurring.

Read Fluent, the Social Influence Marketing report and come back to the blog to share your thoughts, comments and criticisms. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be delving into the insights more deeply over here. And if you like the report, please tell others about it!

Fantastic video on the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman, remixed By the way, I did not create this video! Search on the names above if…
By the way, I did not create this video! Search on the names above if you want more info – they are responsible.

April 20th, 2009 | by Lon S. Cohen
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Lon S. Cohen is a writer and Director of Communications at @ALSofGNY. He is @obilon on Twitter (Twitter reviews).

There are plenty of strategies for approaching Twitter. It’s getting more complex each day, but in the end it can be boiled down to a few simple approaches.

From Twittering on behalf of yourself to Twittering for a company, playing the part of a classic character to being a robot, here are seven ways users approach Twitter.

Introduce yourself and tell us about your Twitter approach in the comments.

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http://searchenginewatch.com/3633223

There’s a lot of buzz right now about Twitter, which has emerged as one of the most popular social media tools. This three-part article is for those who are just getting started with Twitter or who simply want to know what it is and how it works. I’ll cover everything you need to know about setting up and using a Twitter account, and share some tools and resources to help you leverage Twitter to market yourself or your company.

Digital Marketing Guide: The Social Web
-by Abbey Klaassen and Beth Snyder Bulik

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135590

Isn’t the entire web social these days?

To an extent, yes. If 2008 was the year everyone — and their grandmas — joined a social network, then 2009 is the year those networks’ social graphs spread their tentacles beyond their borders to other sites across the web. Already it’s common for many sites, including major news sources and entertainment properties, to have commenting and sharing features. So we admit the social web is a pervasive concept. But there are several interesting newer developments at Twitter and Facebook, as well as in the widget space and the app world.

Jeff Johnson

Internet Marketing With, SEO, youtube, Myspace, Facebook, RSS Feeds and More…

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In early 2008 I spoke at the Secret Society of Traffic and Conversion Seminar for my friends Buck Rizvi and Brock Felt. The attendees paid thousands to be there but I’m sharing my 3 hour presentation from the seminar with you for free. I outlined the social networking and web 2.0 strategies that I personally use to drive tons of traffic to build my list and make more sales. I covered dozens of topics including, but not limited to, internet marketing, creating a sales funnel, search engine optimization (seo), myspace, youtube, squidoo, email marketing, wordpress, rss feeds, openx ad server, affiliate marketing, blogs, getting more traffic to your sites, social profile pages, social networking, social media, and more!

Pulled from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_optimization

Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, social news buttons, blogging, and incorporating third-party community functionalities like images and videos. Social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, but differs in several ways, primarily the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO.

Social media optimization is in many ways connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. In a similar way the engagement with blogs achieves the same by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogsphere and special blog search engines.

Social Media optimization is considered an integral part of an online reputation management (ORM) or Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) strategy for organizations or individuals who care about their online presence.

Another Resource: http://social-media-optimization.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/ – professional networking
http://www.facebook.com/ – social & professional networking
http://www.myspace.com/ – social networking
http://www.twitter.com/ – social networking