A new report by L2 measures the mobile competence of the top 100 “iconic prestige brands” with Sephora emerging as the winner. The report looked at mobile sites, apps, marketing, and innovation & integration for each brand, and grouped them into categories of genius, gifted, average, challenged or feeble based on the evaluation. Only 14 brands were classified as “gifted” or “genius” in the study results. Read →
With yesterday’s sensational headlines about a hashtag gone wrong, things weren’t looking so good for McDonald’s yesterday in the world of social media. But was all the hype justified – did the #McDStories really spiral out of control with negative backlash? This morning I spoke with Rick Wion, McDonald’s Director of Social Media, to look at the facts behind this Twitter campaign, and to see what lessons social media managers can learn from the #McDStories Promoted Trend. Read →
This year’s Super Bowl XLVI, hosted by Indianapolis, will feature a social media command center for the first time in Super Bowl history. Opening today and running through the Super Bowl on Feb 5, the command center will monitor digital fan conversations via Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms. Read →
Having the right ‘voice’ is key to establishing an effective and engaging brand presence in social media. But what about when your corporation needs multiple voices – for distinct products with their own respective fan bases? Hershey’s provides a great example of this – North America’s largest chocolatier has Facebook pages for many of its brands, including Hershey’s Syrup, Hershey’s Kisses, Jolly Ranchers, Reese’s and more. Read →
Larry Page just announced that Google+ has reached 90 million users – but how many of them are active users? Read about Google+ growth and check out the latest social networking stats on the #RLTM Scoreboard. Read →
A new report from the CMO Council asks customers and marketers what it means when a customer ‘likes’ a brand online. Not surprisingly, these two groups had somewhat different ideas about why customers choose to ‘like’ or engage with a brand online. Read →
Audi is running a new promotion on Foursquare, where fans can check into ski resorts to unlock the new ‘Audi Winter Ride’ badge and gain 20% off “anything in the Audi collection.” The campaign is designed to encourage Audi’s presence on Foursquare and engage potential Audi consumers in the right market. Read →
New research from Chadwick Martin Bailey looks at why customers scan QR codes and what they expect once they do so. According to the study, half of smartphone users have scanned a QR code at least once. Read →
For those of us who work with social media every day it is easy to forget that, when it comes to enterprise social media adoption, many companies are still on the learning curve. A new research report released by InformationWeek shows that the majority of enterprise users have deployed internal social networks, but are struggling to get employees to use them. 27% do not have any kind of external corporate presence on a social network, only one in four have a policy for responding to customer complaints on Facebook or Twitter, and one-fourth block employee access to the major external social networks. Read →
If you’re going to start a Twitter war on behalf of your brand, you’d better make sure you have some key weapons in your arsenal: a simple, easy-to-understand story, a fair and just cause, and an army of fans ready to fight for you. Yesterday, Walgreens started a Twitter war with Express Scripts, a prescription drug insurer–around a fairly complicated issue. Did fans show up for the fight? Read →