Mediaboss Marketing

This post was co-authored with Becky Ross and Shannon Gorman, both MBA students at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

Social media is an increasingly important tactic in companies marketing strategy and yet results from The CMO Survey continue to indicate that many companies manage social media as a separate activity. Asked how effectively social media is linked to their companys marketing strategy on a 1-7 scale where 1 is not integrated and 7 is very integrated, the average level of integration was only 3.9. Although we see companies planning to increase social media spending as a percent of marketing budget from 9.4% to 13.2% over the next year and 21.4% over the next five years, the level of integration has not changed in the past four years.

How effectively is social media linked to your firms marketing strategy? (1=Not integrated, 7=Very integrated)

We interviewed marketers across industry sectors for insight into what actions they are taking to improve social media integration. Here is what we learned.

When social media is integrated with the companys marketing strategy, the companys management of its customer and brand assets is seamless. Strategic elements such as segmentation, targeting, positioning, and all go-to-market activities reflect a clear and consistent understanding of the value the company offers to its customers and how the company seeks to capture value from attracting and retaining these customers over time. The result of social media integrated into marketing strategy is improved efficiency and effectiveness in all aspects of the marketing plan.

Sponsored by the American Marketing Association, Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business, and McKinsey, Inc., The CMO Survey collects and disseminates the opinions of top marketers in order to predict the futureof markets, track marketing excellence, and improve the value of marketing in firms and in society. To participate or for report downloads, visit cmosurvey.org.

Read more:
Christine Moorman, Becky Ross and Shannon Gorman: 12 tips for integrating social media into your marketing strategy

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) December 17, 2014

Every year, 10 Best SEO gives awards to companies in a variety of categories based on their own criteria. Since search engine optimization (SEO) is such an integral part of online marketing, online reputation management has become equally important, as well. Internet marketing businesses can benefit from agencies such as those listed in the top ten reputation management agencies as they focus on responding to negative reviews or take potentially damaging information off of the Internet. The following are three of the top ten online reputation management agencies of 2014 according to 10 Best SEO.

Ranked number three among online reputation management agencies is WebpageFX based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They offer their clients a complete package when it comes to internet marketing solutions, and they are known for their services in three main areas, which are creative design, UX & ecommerce, and revenue growth. WebpageFX has worked with more than 500 clients to boost their online profits so far.

SEO Image, located in New York, New York, is the number two contender for the top reputation management business. This firm prides itself on its ability to maintain clean and positive reputations for its clients. Clients with new websites can employ this firm to help encourage their customers to leave positive feedback and reviews in order to build a positive online image. If the company has reputation problems due to past issues, SEO Image will also work with them to overcome the existing image and build up a better reputation.

10 Best SEO's selection for the number one ranked reputation management agency is ThinkBIGsites.com, located in Huntington, New York. The reputation management firm knows very well that companies need to have positive reputations in order to garner new customers and keep existing ones. ThinkBIGsites.com helps firms curb negative comments as much as possible to maximize the strength of the company. As a reputation management business, ThinkBIGsites.com will even continue to work with all their clients after the websites are developed in order to maintain the positive reputation that it helped to build.

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Top Reputation Management Firms Selected by 10 Best SEO

Nafeez Ahmed On Media Censorship, 9/11, And ISIS
https://twitter.com/blacktowerradio https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Tower-Radio/308157709207443 http://wnrt.worldnewsradio.today.

By: BlackTowerRadio

The rest is here:
Nafeez Ahmed On Media Censorship, 9/11, And ISIS - Video

By Sisi Wei, ProPublica, Dec. 17, 2014

Every day since Nov. 17, 2014, ProPublica has been testing whether the homepages of international news organizations are accessible to browsers inside China. Of the 18 in our test, 9 are currently blocked. Below are the results. To test, we use GreatFire.org, a censorship monitoring service in China that launched in 2011. Methodology

Hover over the graphic to see dates. Click on a date to see more details.

Our automated tests run shortly after midnight U.S. Eastern Time, which is 1 p.m. in Beijing. They run on up to eight servers in separate locations in China, and can return one of four results:

ProPublica will continue to monitor news sites daily, and may add additional news sites in the future. Know a site we should add? E-mail Sisi Wei at sisi.wei@propublica.org.

Additional design and development by Lena Groeger, Mike Tigas and Yue Qiu.

ProPublica, with permission, used data from GreatFire.org, a free service that anybody can use to test if a website is accessible within China. Its pseudonymous founders are activists who created the site to highlight online censorship in China.

GreatFire.org runs tests only upon request. Historical test results are therefore not necessarily available every day. On Nov. 17, 2014, ProPublica began initiating daily tests for 15 international news sites, and on Dec. 5, we added three more sites for testing. We plan to continue testing and updating this database every day for the foreseeable future.

We chose the 18 sites in our test because of their status as internationally important news sites or because theyve recently run stories that led them to be blocked inside China. We are able to add more sites to the database. If you think you know a site we should be testing, let us know by emailing sisi.wei@propublica.org.

The most accurate test of censorship is conducted inside the censoring country, but doing so comes with a variety of risks. Continual attempts to visit blocked sites are detectable by the local authorities, and can therefore be dangerous political activity. ProPublica has spent the last year attempting to perfect a way to test censorship around the world using computers inside each censoring country. We have not yet found a testing method that would ensure participants safety, though we continue to look for a solution. In the meantime, were using the GreatFire service already available inside China.

Go here to read the rest:
Inside the Firewall: Tracking the News That China Blocks

The newly-released iPad port ofPapers, Please, Lucas Popes dystopian bureaucracy simulator, has had its pixelated nudity restored after Apple rolled back itsinitial kibosh, according to a tweet from Pope.

The 2013 game casts you as a border control agent for the fictional country of Arstotzka. As the game goes on, the rules governing whom you can and cannot allow into the country grow increasingly complicated, as do the means at your disposal for determining who is eligible. One of the tools added later in the game is a full body scanner, much like thosecontroversially instituted by the TSAin American airports in recent years. The scan is used to check for smuggled contraband.

Related:Have a bureaucratic holiday: Papers, Please coming to iPads on December 12

In the original game, a menu option toggles whether the people are revealed in their underwear or fully nude. When the game was submitted by Pope for iPad, Apple originally rejected the feature as a violation of the companys pornography policy, forcing Pope to remove the option.

Through subsequent conversations Pope was able to convince the censors otherwise. The feature has since been reinstated via an update, and can now be turned on from the options menu. The games rating has also been accordingly bumped up to 17+.

Papers, Please is available now for iPad only through the iOS App Store for $8.

Continue reading here:
Apple reverses censorship of pixelated nudity in iPad game Papers, Please