Mediaboss Marketing

PHOENIX, AZ--(Marketwire -06/06/12)- In 2012, the business benefits of social marketing have, to a large extent, been well-documented. Most business owners, of companies big and small, are at least aware of some of the potential perks that come from maintaining a strong presence on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. Even so, new uses of social marketing avenues are being discovered all the time; a recent Huffington Post article cites one surprising example, specifically noting the ways in which a social media presence can attract the attention of more traditional media outlets, leading to a wealth of positive publicity. Despite the myriad uses of social networks, however, many owners of small businesses struggle to use social networks effectively -- but an educational company called Logix9 is seeking to change that.

Logix9 is a company devoted to providing educational services to small business owners, typically in the form of Web-based tutorials and videos. The company has long provided a wealth of tutorials, all focusing on different facets of digital marketing technology. As Facebook, Google+, and Twitter become more and more prevalent in the marketing community, however, Logix9 is focusing more of its tutorials on the savvy implementation of social marketing practices.

The company has just unveiled a new set of classes, solely devoted to the use of Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ for small business purposes. The classes are designed to teach small business owners how to efficiently and strategically use social networking to boost their sales and improve their bottom line, while simultaneously enhancing their online image.

Though Logix9 is focusing much of its attention on social marketing principles, it has not abandoned the other tutorials that have proven so essential to its curriculum. Logix9 clients can still obtain lessons in Web design and HTML. They can also learn about affiliate marketing, e-mail marketing, forum marketing, and more.

Logix9 is a company with small business owners as its core demographic, and as such the company seeks to make its services accessible to small business owners. The online tutorials can be taken according to the small business owner's own schedule.

Additionally, the new social marketing classes are designed to be beginner-friendly. The company has long prided itself in being accessible to novices, and the same holds true with its latest round of tutorials. Even those with no prior experience in online marketing can benefit from these new Logix9 offerings.

ABOUT:

An Internet-based educational resource, Logix9.com provides instruction to small business owners. This program offers a variety of videos that individuals can view on their own time, allowing them to fit learning into their already busy schedules. The training modules presented cover a variety of topics, including web design, Internet marketing (including social media marketing), ecommerce, and more. To benefit users, each skill presented by the Logix9.com system is developed in an effort to improve the bottom line of small businesses.

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Logix9 Helps Small Business Owners Leverage Social Media for Maximum Results

Software as a service provider Salesforce.com announced plans June 4 to acquire Buddy Media, a provider of a social media marketing platform, for $698 million in cash and stock, but a stock analyst warns that Salesforce faces formidable competition when Oracle unveils its cloud service offering later this week.

The Buddy Media platform allows customers to create and execute social media-based marketing campaigns that publish content, place social advertising in the right places and measure the effectiveness of those marketing programs. The Buddy Media acquisition, which is expected to close sometime in the third quarter of 2012, followsSalesforces acquisition of a similar company, Radian6, for $326 million in March of 2011.

In a conference call announcing the deal, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Salesforce looked at 10 different companies, but chose Buddy Media because it is the top performer in the social media marketing space.

Buddy Media is the No. 1 provider in this area. The more time I spent [with them], the clearer it was to me that we needed to buy No. 1, Benioff said.

As social media marketing gains traction, chief marketing officers (CMOs) are getting IT budgets that rival those of CIOs to spend on this new marketing approach, said Marcel LeBron, senior vice president of Salesforces Radian6 business.

Social has gone from this thing that [CMOs] are experimenting with to now being the central core of their marketing strategies, LeBron said. The big transition is that rather than focusing on how do I get impressions and reach and eyeballs and that kind of traditional view, its now all about engagement, about how you build relationships and connections with your customers.

But Trip Chowdry, a senior analyst at Global Equities Research, is quite bearish on the deal, writing in a research note that acquiring Buddy Media wont helpSalesforce compete against Oracle, which is set to announce on June 6 its own public cloud service offering.

The fundamental challenge for Salesforce is the multitenant architecture of its database cloud service, said Chowdry. In contrast, Oracles cloud is based on a virtual machine architecture, in which each client will have their applications running in their own VM. The virtual machine approach lets customers move their workloads back and forth between public cloud and private cloud environments as needed.

This is not possible in a multitenant database architecture. This feature is only possible if you have a VM-based architecture, he explained. The ability to move the data back and forth back and forth between public cloud and private cloudis a feature that large enterprises need, and they are asking for that.

As many as one-third of Salesforces customers, primarily the larger enterprises, may switch to Oracle to get that flexibility, Chowdry said.

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Salesforce to Buy Social Media Marketing Firm Buddy Media for $698 Million

SAO PAULO, June 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Fan Machine (www.thefanmachine.com) is a Cloud Social Marketing Platform that helps brands, agencies and advertisers to expand their fan base in social networks making it easier to get more Fans in Facebook through the use of easy-to-install applications, which require no technical knowledge to be used. The system is currently in Beta and is free to try.

VTEX (www.vtex.com.br), the leading company in e-commerce technology in Brazil, has signed an investment term to acquire a stake of The Fan Machine http://www.thefanmachine.com which has a development and research office based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and offers a portfolio of solutions that enables clients to enjoy social networks power in depth. In a very simple way, the platform allows clients to create promotions and contests in order to broaden and loyalize their fan base on Facebook. And, in May 2011 was selected by Facebook as the first Preferred Developer Consultant in Latin America.

The Fan Machine was launched Brazil in a beta version a month ago and already has lots of users. The company plans to set up a business in the country by Q2. Currently the social marketing platform is being used by over 2000 agencies and brands, like American Express, Cencosud, Turner Broadcasting, and many e-commerce sites and small business. The platform is currently available in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, with 7 new languages to come in the next months.

According to Mariano Gomide de Faria, VTEX's CEO, the acquisition has the purpose of expanding VTEX services. He states: "The Fan Machine cloud social marketing platform working alongside VTEX business model will add more value to our applications". VTEX believes that the social commerce real power has not been explored in full yet and has been compelled to bet in this market.

The Fan Machine CEO, Anton Chalbaud, considers Brazilian market very important for his company due to its fast-pace growth. He adds: "As Brazil has a huge and powerful market, where the social networks' have a big influence, it's certainly a perfect place for our company to grow in".

Consequently, VTEX and The Fan Machine joint forces in order to work together with strong projects to continue its expansion in the short term.

About VTEX:

Since 1999, VTEX has stood out for both its innovation (it's in our DNA!) and a commitment to the results of the client. A pioneer in commercializing software as a service (SaaS) in Brazil, the company has in its portfolio leading brands such as Walmart, Petrobras, Nokia, and Sacks, among others. VTEX currently offers an extensive portfolio of e-commerce products for small, mid-size, and large companies.

For more information please access http://www.vtex.com.br Facebook: fb.com/vtexonline Twitter: @vtexonline

About The Fan Machine:

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Brazilian Leading SaaS e-Commerce Platform eCompany VTEX Makes Investment in Leading Latin American Social Marketing ...

AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwire -06/04/12)- Harte-Hanks, Inc. (HHS), a worldwide multichannel, direct and targeted marketing company, announced today that its Mason Zimbler digital agency business has garnered three advertising awards for technology clients: two Business Marketing Association ACE Awards for social media on behalf of clients IBM and Sage HRMS, and one Killer Content Award, presented by DemandGen Report, for client Sage Fixed Assets.

The ACE Awards, which honor the best in business-to-business marketing creative, and the Killer Content Awards, which recognize business-to-business efforts that rely on content marketing strategies and tactics, were both announced recently in New York City.

"Using content and social media strategies in business-to-business marketing -- as well as lead generation and nurturing efforts -- truly defines and drives relevant, insight-driven conversations today," said Kevin Kerner, managing director, Mason Zimbler USA, a Harte-Hanks company. "Both IBM and Sage recognize how these drivers translate to new business and satisfied customers. Our ability to help them achieve business-to-business marketing and sales objectives is what has made these efforts so compelling in these two award competitions."

A description of the respective entries follows:

IBM, 2012 ACE Award for Social Media Lead Generation Campaign, presented by the Business Marketing Association (Winner): Mason Zimbler helped IBM implement a social selling program that included personalized Web, Twitter and LinkedIn pages for seven Public Cloud inside sales representatives. In six months, the program increased aggregated LinkedIn direct network size from 535 to 3,500, and increased potential impressions and reach of social-selling messaging from 54,000 to 1.3 million. It also triggered 10 orders on the first day of a 60-day free trial. As a result of the agency's initial program with the client, all 1,700 IBM North America inside reps have been trained in social selling. Within the target audience, the team collectively has made 50,000 LinkedIn connections and posted more than 20,000 tweets, and digital representative pages have received 100,000 visits in the past six months.

Sage HRMS, 2012 ACE Award for Social Media Lead Generation Campaign, presented by the Business Marketing Association (Honorable Mention): Mason Zimbler helped Sage HRMS build an integrated social media strategy that aligned social media marketing efforts with demand generation campaigns and leveraged specific social media channels, such as Slideshare, that were more relevant for business-to-business lead capture. The strategy triggered nearly 7,000 total Slideshare page views and more than 140 downloads in six months for Sage HRMS and its lead generation content; it drove top-of-funnel traffic from Sage HRMS social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to its website; and resulted in higher form submission rates from click-throughs that come from social promotions.

Sage Fixed Assets, 2012 Killer Content Award, presented by DemandGen Report: Mason Zimbler created content for Sage Fixed Assets that was leveraged on the company's blog and re-purposed for its lead nurture program. Mason Zimbler developed and used an infographic on fixed assets for the company's blog, a supporting traffic strategy, and influencer contact to produce extraordinary results: 444,151 potential impressions via the infographic, including mentions by top influencers, among them Daily Infographic, Guy Kawasaki and Alltop; more than 100 "social sharing" activities on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; and, upon infographic release, a 2,500 percent increase in new visitors to the Sage Fixed Assets blog and a 600 percent increase in average daily visitors over the pre-posting average.

"These campaigns and their results tell us how marketing dynamics are changing, with social and content leading the way to relevance and sales in business markets," said Gary Skidmore, president, Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing. "Our clients' commitment to success and the innovation of our Mason Zimbler team combine to show how insights and passion translate to results."

A full listing of 2012 ACE Award winners is available here: http://64.90.161.29/bmanyc/AceAwards2012/winners.html. A listing of 2012 Killer Content Award winners is available here: http://www.demandgenreport.com/archives/feature-articles/1157-demandgen-report-announces-killer-content-award-winners.html.

[Editor's Note: For campaign visuals from Sage HRMS, Sage Fixed Assets and IBM, contact Drew Hansen at andrew_hansen@harte-hanks.com.]

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Harte-Hanks: Mason Zimbler Wins Business-to-Business Content and Social Media Marketing Awards

Buddy Media sells social marketing services to large U.S. brands.

Salesforce.com, whose software helps corporate sales teams track customers and prospects, announced today that it is buying Buddy Media, which sells social marketing services. Salesforce will pay $689 million in cash and equity for the company, and it expects the deal to close in the third quarter.

Buddy Media, founded in 2007, helps such brands as Ford, Hewlett-Packard, LOreal and Mattel reach consumers on social networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The deal will enable Saleforce to combine its Radian6 social platform, which monitors conversations on social networks, with Buddy Medias technology, Salesforce says. Salesforce.com will deliver the first comprehensive marketing cloud that will allow customers to listen, engage, gain insight, publish, advertise and measure social marketing programs, the company says in a statement. Client companies connect to Salesforce.coms software via the web, hence the reference to its marketing cloud.

Buddy Media employs about 1,000 workers, writes Michael Lazerow, Buddy Media CEO and co-founder, in a blog posting. Salesforce.com is welcoming all current Buddy Media employees, and the company is committed to continuing to invest in the Buddy Media business, he writes. Buddy Media plans to continue to innovate and build new product. We plan to build our sales team like crazy. And we plan to continue our global rollout, which is just starting.

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Salesforce.com to buy social marketing specialist Buddy Media