Social Media Marketing

Brick-and-mortar retailers badly want to tap into Facebook's 500 million users. Retailers realize that for a growing number of Facebook users, it's no longer just a website. It's a new platform, one of the "big new disruptors" in the online world, according to experts assembled at this week's Shop.org annual retail technology summit in Dallas.

Social promotions such as those offered by deal-of-the-day website Groupon are wildly popular with shoppers, but they might not be as big a hit for businesses, according to a recent study by Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. Groupon promotions were profitable for 66 percent of the businesses surveyed for the study, but they were unprofitable for 32 percent. More than 40 percent of the respondents indicated they would not run such a promotion again.

A Betsey Johnson store in California and a novelties e-tailer will each launch Facebook Places campaigns today. The location-based efforts represent the first-ever Places initiatives, marking the beginning of what promises to be a growing trend among Facebook marketers.

Brands that are only now establishing themselves on Facebook are playing a desperate game of catch-up. They're pulling out the stops to rack up what Facebook now calls Likes, social actions by which consumers express interest in a brand. To get Likes, they're going beyond ads and bartering for friendship with offers of exclusive content, discounts and special offers.

Since January, The Fresh Diet has seen its Facebook fan base swell to over 3,500 fans. Here’s how we did it:

Japanese clothes retailer Uniqlo has found a novel way of encouraging U.K. shoppers give the brand a big presence on Twitter — by reducing the price of clothing pieces every time someone sends a tweet about an item.

Though consumers turn to Facebook primarily to connect with friends and fill downtime, product discounts and "social badging" are the most commonly cited motivations for "liking" brands on Facebook, according to a survey from ExactTarget and Co-Tweet.

As part of its continuing efforts to shore up its online offerings, Sears says it is launching Sears.com Shoe Experience Website, a 450-brand emporium that it will push through social marketing efforts.

if you're not tweeting, blogging or streaming, don't feel stupid. You probably just have bottom-line accountability and don't want to waste money. Come to think of it, you're actually sounding pretty smart.
 But, you're probably receiving pressure to jump on the social media bandwagon. It's just that you're justifiably concerned that it may not yield measureable benefits. Like all direct marketing, approaching social media efforts from a strategic perspective will improve 
your chances.

RightSize Health & Nutrition, a cross-channel retailer of healthy meal replacement smoothies, knew the potential of Facebook for gathering fans (i.e., leads) for the products it sells, which rely heavily on user-generated testimonials for sales.