Mediaboss Marketing

GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: How social influence marketing is about to change your business by Mark W. Schaefer author of "Return On Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing."

Source: McGraw-Hill

The latest trend is not being set by advertising executives, creative teams, or marketing wizards. Its emerging from the powerful and passionate voices of consumers, and the companies that are finding and measuring their ability to create buzz.

Influence has been one of the most studied aspects of politics, marketing, sociology, and psychology and yet it has never really been measured in a statistically valid way. Until now.

People creating content on blogs, Facebook and Twitter is an action. Having a link clicked, or a message tweeted, is an effect. Finally, there is something to measure in this field. In fact there are billions of actions and effects to measure and compare every day!

In the online world, the ability to move an idea or opinion through an engaged online network creates influence. To the extent a company can measure content moving through this system, we would be able to quantify one sliver of influence.

And that is historically important. Influence has been democratized.

Some of the biggest and brightest marketers and brands like Disney

Mark W. SchaeferAuthor, "Return On Influence"

Essentially, this is creating an entirely new marketing channel to complement traditional methods. And it's cost-effective too. Early results from case studies show the cost per impression is as good, or better, than paid advertising and it is ORGANIC since it is being generated by people who already love the brands.

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Social Influence Marketing is About to Change Your Business: Author of 'Return On Influence'

Victoria Ransom is founder and CEO of Wildfire Interactive, the global leader in social media marketing software. Victoria and Wildfire will host a free webinar on March 2 at 10 a.m. PT, entitled Timeline for Brands: How to Make the Switch, further outlining best practices for brands in transitioning to Facebooks new Timeline format.

Facebook recently revealed big plans for the mobile platform, for instance, that the new Timeline format for brands will be available on mobile. Facebook also revealed that more than 450 million people use Facebook Mobile on a monthly basis, and more importantly, that mobile is outgrowing desktop use on the social network 2:1.

[More from Mashable: Pew: Social Media Not Yet Driving News Traffic]

For these reasons, Facebook has planned a variety of mobile-centric products, including last weeks announcement that brands will now be able to advertise in mobile news feeds through Sponsored Stories.

These game-changing trends mean that marketers need to get serious about mobile in 2012. Here are three new ways you can build mobile into your Facebook marketing plan.

[More from Mashable: 7 Tech CEOs Talk About Their iPad Obsession]

Timeline for brands is coming to the mobile platform in 2012. When you consider that brand pages on Facebook Mobile have had almost no functionality custom apps havent worked without a complicated hack-job, tabs havent translated, etc. it seems possible that Timeline for brands was launched specifically to enable brands mobile Facebook capabilities.

And since users' Timelines function on Facebook Mobile, Timeline for brands should be equally versatile, giving brands the ability to provide engaging mobile experiences for the first time.

Since nearly half of Facebook users access the site through a mobile device, your brands reach could effectively double if you mobile-optimize your social content. And because users will soon be able to experience the same workflow on their desktops as their smartphones, page managers will now be able to curate an identical experience for all users, regardless of viewing device.

Whether youre building engagement applications in-house or with a social marketing software vendor, make sure the applications are seamlessly viewable across all platforms and devices. Ideally, youll be able to design once and deploy anywhere. That way, you'll avoid messy synchronization issues, duplication of effort between creative teams, and working around multiple content channels.

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3 Ways Marketers Can Reach Facebook's Mobile Audience

Research by Mindshift Interactive says Club Mahindra, ITC, Taj Hotels, Oberoi Group and Pride Hotels are the top five companies actively involved in marketing on social media

Mumbai, March 19:

The travel and hospitality industry is going social with a vengeance to engage and network with travellers. According to a study, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are the most popular and effective social media platforms for marketing within the tourism and hospitality industry.

The industry uses these networks to review brands, locations and read user experiences, whilst also responding actively to queries and comments.

According to a research conducted by Mindshift Interactive, the top five hospitality players in the Indian market that are actively involved in the social media space are Club Mahindra, ITC, Taj Hotels, Oberoi Group and Pride Hotels.

Club Mahindra with 51 per cent had the maximum number of conversations, followed by ITC with 21 per cent and Taj Hotels at 17 per cent. Oberoi Group (8 per cent) and Pride Hotels (3 per cent) ranked at the bottom with respect to its presence on Social Media.

The increased dependency on social media by travellers is growing faster than the travel industry itself. India's travel category garnered the second largest share (42 per cent) of total Internet visitors in Asia, with 17.8 million average monthly unique visitors in the first quarter of 2011. With the digital media ecosystem in India evolving rapidly, the number of Internet users is expected to cross 546 million users by 2016, a report by KPMG said. Continued growth in internet penetration and mobile device access is expected to drive consumption and bring about a 360 degree approach for marketing.

Brands today are spending almost 20 to 30 per cent of their marketing budgets on digital and these figures are expected to grow with years to come. Hotels present on the social media platforms are beginning to understand their consumer's better, said Mr Zafar Rais, CEO of MindShift Interactive.

With over 63,467 fans and an engagement ratio of 14 per cent, Club Mahindra leads the presence on Facebook. Club Mahindra leads the Twitter presence with 7,159 followers and effective engagement.

Oberoi Hotels has over 10, 879 fans on Facebook with an engagement ratio of 3.5 per cent. ITC has over 15,402 fans with an engagement ratio of 2 per cent. Taj Hotels has integrated their campaigns such as Mlange - Vote for Art and Marathon For A Cause with social media. The Twitter presence of Taj Hotels is as @TajMahalMumbai with 2,444 followers.

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Travel and hospitality sector ramps up social media marketing

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Mzinga (http://www.mzinga.com), the leader in social intelligence solutions, services and analytics for business, and Pandemic Labs, the nations premier social media marketing agency, today announced a partnership to deliver social technology and services solutions to customers.

Pandemic Labs has been committed to the strategy behind social media marketing longer than most agencies, and as part of that commitment we have always been at the forefront of technology that allows us to create marketing success, said Matt Peters, Co-Founder & Creative Director of Pandemic Labs. Through this partnership, we will be able to enhance our best-of-breed social media marketing services with the comprehensive social features available in Mzingas platform, OmniSocial.

Today, enterprises of all sizes recognize the opportunity and value of establishing effective, rich customer, employee, partner and brand experiences, for global business through the use of social technologies and strategies. Mzingas social software and the services of Pandemic Labs will help enterprises increase revenue through collaboration, improve customer loyalty and gain insight into employee performance to increase competitive advantage, ultimately driving more sound business decision making and growth.

We are thrilled to add Pandemic Labs to our growing repertoire of trusted partners to bring full-service social strategy solutions to the market, said Mike Merriman, Director of Strategic Services, at Mzinga. The work Pandemic has done with large brands like Au Bon Pain, The Ritz-Carlton and others closely aligns with our customer base to deliver best-in-class social solutions and agency services to customers.

Mzinga OmniSocial is an enterprise-class social software and analytics solution that enables businesses to foster networking, collaboration, engagement and knowledge sharing to glean insights that drive better business decisions and previously untapped levels of productivity and innovation.

About Pandemic Labs

Pandemic Labs is one of the nations leading social media marketing and analytics agencies. Founded in 2007 by young visionaries Brennan White and Matt Peters, Pandemic Labs works with a diverse client base, ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. They have worked with high-profile brands such as The Ritz-Carlton, Au Bon Pain, Puma, DIRECTV, Canon, Courtyard by Marriott, and The Wild Foundation. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Pandemic Labs currently manages social media marketing campaigns in more than 20 countries and six languages.

For more information on Pandemic Labs visit http://www.pandemiclabs.com.

About Mzinga

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Mzinga and Pandemic Labs Partner to Deliver End-to-End Social Experience Solutions

In 2008, Rupp Arena marketers faced a thorny problem: How could they keep pace with an increasingly sophisticated concert market?

Back then, the nation was in the throes of the golden age of blogging. What would come next? And how would Rupp market itself to the changing social media climate?

In retrospect, the answers seem obvious: Facebook. Twitter. And others, including Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, Vimeo and Eventful.

But concocting a social media strategy is neither intuitive nor foolproof.

Rupp Arena's response to the challenge it faced has succeeded to the point that it was recently ranked No. 5 on a list measuring the social media power of venues nationwide. On the list by trade publication Venues Today, Rupp was up in the stratosphere, along with media-savvy giants including Los Angeles' Staples Center and The Roxy.

How did Rupp do it? And how can other organizations build a social media base that can adapt to changing media platforms?

The Rupp Arena marketing team composed of Sheila Barr Kenny, marketing director; Paul Hooper, graphic design/social media; and Matt Johnson, graphic/Web designer started with a blog on Rupp's Web site. But Kenny said that soon, it "became apparent that Facebook was where people were spending the most time."

But going from zero to a fully developed social media strategy is more than simply starting a Facebook page and tossing in an occasional Twitter post.

For Rupp, casting a social media net is a finely calibrated combination of Web site, blogging, Facebook and Twitter. The real-time nature of Twitter lets members of the marketing team visit campuses to hide event tickets and give clues to their locations even as students are searching.

"The strategy was to keep it active, but not so active that it was inundating people," Kenny said.

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Rupp Arena a leader in social media marketing