Social Media Marketing

Whole Foods and upstart natural meals brand Saffron Road are employing Facebook, Twitter and blogs to target Muslims for Ramadan, a month-long spiritual holiday beginning Aug. 1. 

After a running start, Google+'s growth may be slowing down a bit. A report from Experian Hitwise found both traffic and users' average time on the social network fell last week in the U.S.

One second is how long Google’s +1 plug-in drags down page load time, and that’s not “just” a second when research shows that 10 percent of site traffic is lost for every extra second a site takes to load. Facebook’s ubiquitous "Like" plug-in stalls page load time by approximately .2 seconds. This means featuring both plug-ins on a page adds c. 1.2 seconds to its load time. That translates to more than a 10 percent loss in visitors, and by extension, in conversion.

It’s time for e-commerce and video marketing professionals to tackle the next important question: When will Facebook Credits mature into a real opportunity for the rest of us?

Target has become the exclusive retail advertising partner for the launch of Mamiverse.com, a lifestyle, news and social media website for Latina moms and daughters. Target will actively engage with the Hispanic market through this English-language social network.

While most marketers have scrambled to assemble social media SWAT teams — hired to sit at company headquarters and monitor customer sentiment on the web — outdoor retailer REI is trying another approach.

Wildlife Works announced the launch of a new retail model that uses the power of Facebook to enable consumers to offset their travel, home use and personal lifestyle events that contribute to global warming. The Milyoni-powered Wildlife Works Facebook storefront allows consumers to easily offset their carbon footprints as well as purchase carbon neutral apparel without leaving the 750 million-strong social network.

Forrester Research Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru was on hand at the Retail Email Exchange symposium in San Diego last month to offer best practices for four current trends in the e-commerce space. Looking to debunk conventional wisdom, Mulpuru advised that things often turn out to be different than they initially appear. With that in mind, here are the four trends that Mulpuru addressed:

Google plans to accelerate the launch of its corporate account test program on Google+ after thousands of businesses signed up to test their luck on the quickly growing social networking service.

As Facebook defines the future of consumerism in America, chief marketing officers are scrambling to find unique ways to leverage the social network to drive sales. It's important to hook a customer, but to keep them engaged is another story — one that ultimately depends on how much business you can create on the most popular networking site in the world.