Mediaboss Marketing

A poll shook up the political outlook in New Mexico... again. This time it was a poll by Public Policy Polling, a pollster with ties to liberal groups and the Democratic Party. But the poll also was in line with many other polls in the Senate race -- every poll since July has shown Martin Heinrich with a lead between 7 and 9 percent over Heather Wilson.

The Presidential race is murkier. It showed a double-digit lead for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, but did not include Gary Johnson, at the behest of the conservation coalition that paid for the poll. After double-digit leads by Obama for many polls, two straight polls showed his lead at just five percent -- including a July poll by PPP.

As The Word has said many times, the fact that neither the campaign is expending resources in the state is perhaps the best indicator that the state is closer to double-digits in favor of Obama than five points for Obama.

On to the Word:

Some of the gains in health insurance coverage can be attributed to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has required private insurers to allow parents to cover their children up to age 26. Even though the majority of the provisions in the federal health care reform dont go into effect until 2014, it is clearly having a positive impact, particularly for young New Mexicans, Bradley said.

A reader wrote about the irony of Wilson, a Republican, hoping for debates on publicly-funded PBS, a service that Republicans have voted to defund time and time again.

On Pearce's $7.48 million net worth:

Pearce's biggest holding was at least $5 million of stock in Trinity Industries Inc., an equipment rental company of which Pearce is president. His wife had a stake in Lea County Bancshares worth at least $1 million. In 2011, the lawmaker also reported selling an airplane that netted at least $500,000.

Just for kicks, ask a campaign worker what they think about campaign signs off the record over a beer. It will be fun.

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Morning Word, 09-13-12

By The Canadian Press

WATERLOO, Ont. - BlackBerry's instant messaging service has found a new home, nestled between BBL and bbq.

The term BBM is being added to the latest edition of the Collins English Dictionary.

Shorthand for Research In Motion's BlackBerry Messenger software, the dictionary is listing it as an abbreviation as well as a noun and a verb.

The company says making it into the dictionary shows just how popular BBM is around the world.

RIM (TSX:RIM.TO - News) says 70 per cent of its customers use BBM on a daily basis.

The company noted several recent references to BBM including Olympic gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt saying he had to thank a "few people on my BBM."

RIM says singers such as Tinie Tempah and Sean Kingston have also both mentioned BBM in their songs, "Miami to Ibiza" and the aptly titled, "BBM."

T.A. McCann, vice-president of BBM and social communities at RIM, says the inclusion in the dictionary recognizes its status as one of the world's most popular mobile social networks.

RIM is planning to release a new generation of smartphones early next year in a bid to regain ground lost to Apple's iPhone and smartphones with Google's Android operating system.

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BBM being added as a word to the latest Collins English Dictionary

BURLINGTON, MA--(Marketwire - Sep 13, 2012) - Awareness, Inc., provider of on-demand social marketing automation software, today announced results of its State of Social Media Marketing Survey, available in the report 'The State of Social Marketing Report: 7 Major Findings & In-Depth Analysis'.

The survey, which Awareness conducts bi-annually, was administered in July 2012 and received responses from 450 marketers from a cross-section of industries, company sizes and levels of social marketing experience. Survey respondents represented executive and senior management roles (45%), mid-level management (28%) and marketing support roles (15%). Content areas covered in the report include:

"Our State of Social Media Marketing report reveals that brands struggle to measure ROI, despite the volume of marketers with social media presence and experience," offered Brian Zanghi, CEO of Awareness, Inc. "Brands remain ill-equipped to tie their social marketing initiatives to business results. However, companies experienced in social marketing are applying new technologies to identify and segment prospects and buyers, such as social CRM and social marketing automation to drive business value."

Survey Findings

Overall, the report revealed that marketers have yet to tap into the full potential of social. Few are using key enabling technologies such as social CRM, which when adopted more widely, will be used to integrate social prospect and customer data with traditional sales and marketing data, providing a layer of insights that will help marketers be more effective and efficient in the social age. Only 16% of marketers who responded to the survey are currently using a social CRM, although an additional 21% plan to by this year's end. Socially mature brands are adopting Social CRMs faster -- brands with a social marketing budget of over $100,000 have a social CRM adoption rate of 44%, with an additional 26% who plan to use such a system by the end of 2012.

While 68% of marketers state they are interested in further expanding their social footprint, followed by an interest in publishing content more frequently, a full 50% see the need for tighter integration between social and the rest of marketing and 35% want better integration between marketing and the rest of the business. This metric points to a maturation of social marketing, as integration of social data with other marketing disciplines creates a more complete customer picture.

Savvy marketers are interested in measuring their effectiveness, by measuring ROI, brand effectiveness, and customer engagement. To measure revenue generation, marketers look to:

In addition to these key findings, the State of Social Media Marketing Report identifies top-level trends including the leading challenges faced by marketers, cited as proper ROI measurement (58%) and managing and growing social media presence (44%). More mature organizations cite their top challenges as measuring ROI (64%), full integration with the rest of marketing (41%) and integration specifically with lead generation and sales (32%).

"We expect leading social marketers to apply new frameworks and strategies to measure social ROI, including a growth in social prospecting and social scoring to turn the broader social web into a lead generation pipeline," says Zanghi.

The State of Social Marketing Report: 7 Major Findings & In-Depth Analysis is available for download here.

Link:
New State of Social Media Marketing Report From Awareness, Inc. Identifies Top Trends and Challenges Facing Marketers

Photo moderators for Facebook and other popular websites are contracted out, some of those negotiations even crossing international boundaries, according to article in The Daily Beast.

The Daily Beast launched an investigation on Facebook censorship after the popular social media website banned The New Yorkers page for containing a cartoon of a naked man and woman where the womans breasts were represented as two black dots.

Eventually, Facebook lifted the ban, calling it a mistake.

On first thought, the words Facebook moderators sound appealing. The site is so popular, so some form of regulation needs to be in place. Remember when users were exposed to image after image of women breastfeeding? People do not want to see that.

That being said, things are going to get tricky when Facebook employs a staff of moderators who hail from several different countries.

Those moderators are going to have varying codes of ethics, which will only lead to a confusing array of guidelines about whats permissible to post and whats not. In fact, moderators from the same country even could have different definitions of whats appropriate.

Finally, its understandable that The New Yorker faux pas occurred. The moderators have to sit there, sifting through photo after photo after photo, most of them probably tasteful. Then something slightly questionable such as The New Yorker cartoon pops up, and the moderators see reason to label it inappropriate. Also, the moderators probably didnt even realize the image was from The New Yorker. After clicking through so many photos, theyre probably not paying much attention to where those photos are coming from.

Looking forward, it will be interesting to see if Facebook comes up with any new tools to identify what content is and isnt appropriate. However, it seems unlikely that the company will ever be able to eradicate every inappropriate post on its site.

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EDIT: Facebook Censorship

'Don't use social networking e-mail id for online transctions' Symantec MD Shantanu Ghosh replied to a query on steps needed to be protected from cyber attacks Press Trust of India / Chandigarh Sep 13, 2012, 19:25 IST

Security software maker Symantec today advised internet users not to use e-mail ids being used for social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter for carrying out online banking or business transactions in order to prevent stealing of financial data.

"They (internet users) should be more cautious while on social networking sites. They should have separate e-mail id for social networking site and other e-mail id for carrying out transactions like banking," Symantec MD Shantanu Ghosh told reporters here while replying to a query steps needed to be protected from cyber attack on social networking sites.

"Cyber attackers then can try to get into your e-mail ids through malware on these sites and try to steal vital information like credit card information," he said.

He said not to click on any "untrusted" link in their e-mails or social networking site as it also poses threat of stealing important financial information of the user.

Ghosh also cited an example when a malware in the name of bollywood female actor Katrina Kaif video was received by internet users on their e-mail ids in India and later it was found that the malware was intended to steal credit card information of the user.

Acknowledging that the number of malwares in the cyber world has grown to millions in India in last few years, he also stressed on be cautious on framing a secure password for their e-mail ids to avert any cyber attack.

"Some users use e-mail password as wife's birth date or anniversary day or birth year and most of these details are available on their social networking site account and it can also be misused by cyber attackers," he said.

He added that small and medium business in cities like Chandigarh, Surat, Jaipur are facing the threat of cyber attack because of less spending by small entrepreneurs on security technology and growing use of internet.

"Small cities, including Chandigarh, are sharing good amount of malware activity...(because) these companies are not spending much on security technology which makes them vulnerable to cyber attack," Ghosh said.

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'Don't use social networking e-mail id for online transctions'