Focused market research is imperative for building of brands and foundation for market research is laid down by market intelligence. In broad terms, market intelligence collates three types of information- business, market and competitive. For distribution of information, social media is playing a huge role. Thus integration of marketing intelligence with social media monitoring and digital space opens up many channels of opportunities to address specific business issues and enhance performance significantly. However, this requires intense understanding and customization of data. Also, digitization of field resources poses certain challenges. On a concluding note, the authors, Stephen Dale and Melissa Chue are of opinion that market intelligence should ultimately serve as be the backbone of any organization and more investment should be made to expand digital resources and data. Read more:- http://www.marketing-interactive.com/events/intelligence-bedrock-good-market-research/

Social media is no more just the place to catch up on old school friends and college buddies; it is now being used for diverse activities. People, nowadays, are using social media to look for products and services, research and review companies and ask for recommendation from friends. Social media has now become the place for branding, opening channels of communication with customers, building loyalty, being transparent and establishing goodwill. Reaching out to customers is far less expensive on social media enabling marketers to achieve higher marketing ROI. Digital marketing has replaced traditional marketing techniques as consumers these days are more tech savvy and active on social media. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/social-media-advertising-roi-01247591

Social media, due to its immense popularity, is being used for branding. It is paving a way for small businesses to compete with their bigger counterparts. Social media has led to consumer empowerment thus allowing them to interact with one another, ignoring the established channels of marketing. Adopting a mobile strategy is critical for marketers, and almost every individual in today's world possesses a mobile phone. Social media can both strengthen a brand or lead to its demise. Companies should be able to quickly adopt new strategies in response to consumer preferences to be successful. Read more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7953-social-media-branding.html

Social media is the key to this digital world. It is the easiest means to connect with stakeholders, market your brand and build relationship with customers. Also, as the time progresses, the social media trends, innovations and challenges are also progressing. Each new day brings new opportunities. So, being updated of the current trends helps businesses to respond dynamically.

Brittney Ervin has made a list of 10 current social media stats that businesses today need to know, in her article at business2community.com. Some of them are:

• Instagram’s Per-Follower Brand Engagement Rate is 4.21%, Higher than Any Other Social Network
• Tweets with Images Receive 150% more Re-Tweets
• 53% of Americans Who Follow Brands in Social Are More Loyal to Those Brands
• 37% of Twitter Users Are Under the Age of 30
• Google+ Has Over 300 Million Active Monthly Users

To know more such trends and understand how to make use of them, please visit the following link:

http://www.business2community.com/social-media/10-social-media-stats-you-might-not-know-but-should-01245250

According to the recent survey by ING, 81% of PR professional feel that they can't do their jobs without social media and 58% of them admit that they feel safe in using social media. This shows how much social media impact public relations. Ronn Torossian (Public Relations Executive and CEO of 5W Public Relations), discussed about how social media is changing the working of PR. They are:

• More direct contact with people
• Creating unique and engaging content
• Integrating services
Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/public-relations/impact-social-media-pr-01245327

Marketing without social media is impossible nowadays, as it was found that over 72% adults use social media. Marketers are also utilizing B2B and B2C markets. But, marketers are also of opinion that it is harder to measure the benefits from social media. Mark Gadala (digital marketer), in his article talks about some social media tools that will help marketers to measure social media marketing and also help in accountability.  To know more, follow: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/markgadala/2015-05-30/3-targeted-tools-roi-driven-social-media-marketing

Businesses cannot ignore the impact of daily mobile use and mobile purchasing, especially given the fact that 85% of Americans surveyed said that mobile devices are important in their everyday lives. Mobile app is the perfect platform for reaching to a larger audience. The mobile-oriented services like Whats App, We Chat and Facebook Messenger are now achieving the top social media ranking spots. To know more, please read this article by OREN LEVY (CEO of Zooz) at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246430 

The increasing importance of digital marketing is forcing every organization to use digital marketing. Here are some tips for organizations which are planning to use digital marketing:

·         Hire someone who has knowledge about digital marketing or learn how to use digital marketing.

·         There are various ways to analyze digital marketing, but some of them may suit you or some not. It is important to keep on trying new ways.

·         The best type of digital advertising reaches its audience by consent. Maintain a link between consistent efforts and spamming.

·         Try to make your advertising, mobile-friendly because mobile revolution is the next revolution.

·         There are various tools that allow for a do-it-yourself approach and leverage content across platforms.

Read more at: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051215/dos-donts-digital-marketing.asp

A business is identified with its customers. And to attract and retain customers, social media marketing is a must. But, unplanned or not well organized social media campaign is as effective as having no campaign at all. Therefore, it’s important to plan an inventive and comprehensive social media campaign.

Nina Zipkin, in her article at entrepreneur.com has shared few tips to help build up your following and your brand via social media marketing campaigns. Some of them are:

• Make your tweets stand out
• Inspire action
• Stay top of mind
• Share your feedback
• Veer off the beaten track

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/240295

Many brands consider social media and content marketing as two different fields with no relation at all. But, what they chose to forget is the fact that social media marketing cannot function without content. Their synergy leads to better engagement on social media and thus, better social media marketing campaigns.

Brett Relander, Founder of Launch & Hustle, in his article on entrepreneur.com gives three tips for bringing social media and content marketing together. They are:

1. A/B test content for effectiveness with your audience
2. Optimize content for specific social media networks
3. Tap your audience for ideas

To understand them in detail, visit the following link:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245306

E-Mail marketing has been into existence since long. On the other hand, social media marketing is doing wonders these days. What will happen if we combine these two mass marketing mediums?

The answer to this question is given in the following article by Thomas Miller at socialmediaweek.com. In this article, the author tells us the reasons why this integration is important and also suggests 8 ways to do so. Some of them are:

• Put social icons in your emails
• Create dedicated email campaign
• Add “Retweet This!” in your email

To know more, visit the following link:

http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/8-skillful-ways-integrate-email-marketing-social-media/

According to Gideon Kimbrell (CEO of InList.com, Founder of Syragon), for developing a successful multi marketing strategy an organization need to follow some steps: • Take a decision with influencers or consultants who have experience. You can also choose social media influencers for posting information.
• Have complete knowledge about your customer’s behavior, which can be used in making marketing strategy and use CRM
• Business earns loyalty by engaging customers, so use high visibility placements.
• Asses your present and potential customers value.
For building a good marketing strategy, an organization needs to focus on the customer. Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245360

In today’s world, online presence of business is a must have factor for its success. For this, each business has multiple social media accounts. Management of these social media accounts and thus, social media campaigns by businesses requires alignment of people in correct positions, budget, time and the goals of the organization. This in turn, enhances the output as well as presence of the business.

This article by Linda Philips, social media strategist, on socialmediatoday.com lists out the following must have tools with their benefits that businesses must have to manage their social media accounts efficiently:

• Buffer
• Social Hunt
• BuzzSumo Alerts
• SumAll
• Social Count
• Social Oomph
• Postplanner

To know more, visit the following link:

http://bit.ly/1KmzSW6

There is devastation all around. People are dying, missing and injured. Telephone lines have crashed. This is what Nepal looks like since April 25, when a 7.9 magnitude earthquake had hit the country.

With almost no other means of communication with the outside world, Social Media, served as a lifeline in this tragic earthquake’s aftermath. It had enabled information sharing via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This has helped people trapped there to get help and people elsewhere to know about the status of their near and dear ones. These websites are also helping to locate people via features like Facebook Safety Check and Google Person Finder.

To know more about how these networking sites have come out as a savior, visit the following link at thehindu.com:

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/social-media-pitches-in-for-nepal-quake-aftermath/article7143425.ece

According to Mike Proulx (Executive VP-director of Digital Strategy), social media marketing is also known as advertising. Social media marketing is also called paid marketing, as brands have to pay for showing the messages to target audience. Dick Costolo (Twitter), say that out of 20 tweets 1 is an advertisement. Brands are using social media for marketing as it more automated, targeted, instant, shareable and optimized. There are several ways to use social media marketing for advertising which are as follows:

• Open your wallet
• Play Blackjack
• Show Restraints
• Measure what matters
• Connect the dots
Read more at: http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/social-media-advertising/297841/

According to Monica Zent (CEO & Founder of Foxwordy), social networking just takes a quarter of all time spent online to reach more than 75 percent of all internet users. Social selling, basically, is engaging with your target audience via social media. To leverage the power of social selling you must understand your stakeholders (customers, investors, clients, business partners etc.). Once you find your target, you need to engage with them and for building long term relations, you need to be credible. This strategy helps to generate 50% more sales. Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244293

Social media is becoming popular. Social media answers millions of users nowadays. These users want their personal news feeds and timelines is full of interesting content. Digital media marketing analysts have conducted numerous studies on what kind of content performs best on social media platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter.  Answer? Photos and videos. Pinterest, despite being new in social media field, is actually the second-largest social media traffic referrer behind Facebook. To know more about the reasons why images will increase social media research, follow: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/2015-04-04/6-reasons-why-images-increase-your-social-media-reach

User Experience, also known as UX has become important and it impacts everything from app design to social media. UX designers work with digital marketing teams and this will only increase in 2015. Digital marketers will benefit when working with the UX design teams as it will provide loads of ideas that revolves around how they position the product for sale and marketing. Tara Lifland (Content marketing manager), writes in her article about why UX is important and where. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/2015-03-26/5-reasons-why-user-experience-important

Technology had an impact on customer service. Social media have augmented the voice of the customer and created a space for dialogue and discussion among consumers. The key to win customer service in this landscape is intelligently using the technologies. Forrester Customer Index, which was published last year showed that companies with a strong focus on the customer experience has gained in performance accounts to 43 percent, while those that did not focus on outcomes had a drop in performance by 33.9 percent. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/seven-ways-technology-is-changing-customer-service-in-2015-66154

Marketers use thousands of tools and techniques to deliver their messages. It is forecasted that $2.3 billion will be spent on email marketing this year. Interesting content is one of the top 3 reasons why people follow brands on social media and 90% of consumers find custom content useful, 78% say organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. Liga Bizune (blogger and public relations manager at Mailigen), writes in her article link about some email trends that will define email marketing in the years to come. Read more at: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/27328/top-six-email-marketing-trends-you-need-to-keep-pace-with