Social Media Marketing

According to Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, the purchase decision-making process is about 70 percent emotional and 30 percent rational. If your brand isn't emotionally connecting with consumers, there's a good chance that you're missing out on a huge number of sales.

You may have noticed over the last few months that when you look at a person's LinkedIn profile, you're asked, "Does ‘Joe Blow’ have skills or expertise?" It's a blue box at the top of your screen, you can't miss it. Or you may have received an email telling you that you've "been endorsed for specific skills." This is a great feature on Linkedin, and here's why:

The potential for Facebook commerce has been a topic of much debate. eMarketer took a close look at this trend in its recent report, "F-Commerce: Evolving, Not Extinct," stating that "nearly every leading online merchant in the U.S. now has a Facebook page. The question is whether retailers can crack the commerce half of social commerce and use Facebook to go beyond awareness and engagement."

J.Crew's at-home catalog subscribers won't be the first to glimpse the brand's September issue: That honor will fall for the first time to J.Crew's Pinterest followers on Monday morning. It's a big

For omnichannel retailer QVC, social shopping isn't so much about the platform consumers are using (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.), it's about consumers talking with each other about shopping via word-of-mouth. For example, "I like that shirt, where did you get it?" That's social shopping, according to Alex Miller, the vice president of e-commerce at QVC. Miller was a keynote speaker yesterday at the eTail East conference in Philadelphia.

Expion today announced the results of its first-ever, in-depth F.A.V.E. 50 Social Retail Report, uncovering the first half of 2013 (H1 2013) as the slowest growth period for retailers on Facebook since 2011, marked by a decline in fan engagement and volume despite an increase in the number of brand posts published.  The report analyzed the top 50 retail brands performance in H1 2013, identifying two luxury brands, Tiffany & Co. and Victoria's Secret, as leaders in Facebook engagement across the retail industry.

When it comes to selling luxury via social media, some brands are far more artful than others, according to a new analysis of social-media platforms from L2's latest report. The report ranked some 250 prestige brands across 15 social media platforms. Swarovski is batting a thousand and present on all of them, followed by fast-fashion chain Uniqlo, active on 13. 

Amazon has quietly launched its own direct challenger to Pinterest with the debut of a feature called "Amazon Collections." It's a more attractive, image-heavy website where consumers can save, share and discover new products by browsing those others have saved. Like Pinterest, users create separate lists, called Collections, such as "Want List" or "Fashion," for example, and they can find and follow other users who share their same interests through the service.

I'll keep this post short and sweet. Recently Facebook finally did something right for us marketers by opening its network for #hashtags. Frankly, it's about time it did something right. Facebook has been losing ground as a marketing platform — well, maybe it was never even meant to be a marketing platform — but be that as it may, it's done much to disconnect brands from their hard-won fans.

Companies all over the world are using Facebook's simplified ad units to gain new customers or grow more exposure for their brand. Stuart Weitzman, a high-end shoe company, has used Facebook to learn more about how it's liked in other countries. With this data in mind, Weitzman enhanced its brick-and-mortar presence in Dubai and Mexico, among other places. Working with social media monetization firm SocialFlow, Stuart Weitzman learned more through Facebook about its popularity in other markets, and then expanded its presence in countries where the Facebook metrics were more positive.