"I know I have said it a million times in speeches, articles and in person," writes Dylan Boyd at The Email Wars blog, "but telling someone 'thanks' is one of the best things that you can ever do for your email campaigns." He was particularly impressed by the follow-up he received ... more

When McDonald's launched its specialty coffees earlier this year, its banner ads inviting consumers to "McCafé Your Day" were all over the Web. Great branding, but does such online advertising send customers to local establishments? The short answer: When combined with search, it does! According to Christa Hoyland, editor of QSR Web, Google research ... more

In late October, Twitter launched its Lists feature, which might just improve your life in a panoply of organization-friendly ways. The new feature helps you sort your own contacts based on personal relevance, but—maybe more importantly—it also provides you with ready-made groups of people to which to target your messages. ... more

Get this: 8 in 10 smartphone users say they have trouble accessing content from their handhelds. What's more, they swear they'd spend at least $9 more per month on purchases if the products they wanted were easier to find. The stats come from a survey of both US and UK smartphone ... more

In a video at TED.com, Israeli conductor Itay Talgam gives a spirited 20-minute talk on what modern leaders could learn from great conductors. Interestingly, a lot of the principles he presents in the video can apply to nourishing a social-media campaign. Here are some of his words of wisdom that can cross over ... more

Few things are as irresistible as a mobile game that lets players rack points up during waiting-room or bus-ride lulls. But if you're a brick-and-mortar shop, or a restaurant, there isn't much incentive for throwing another branded version of Tetris out into the ether. What to do, what to do? Solution: Hook up ... more

"Looking for a way to punch up your email campaigns and get subscribers more engaged with your site?" Julie Waite asks in a recent post at the Bronto blog. "Product reviews may be the answer," she says. "Implementing product review functionality on your site can help seal the deal and convince ... more

In a recent post at the Online Marketing Blog, Adam Singer summarizes Charlene Li's keynote at Search Engine Strategies San Jose last summer. Co-author of the business bestseller Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, and a MarketingProfs presenter, Li examines the intersection of search and social media. According ... more

Kevin Nalts, a marketing director who produces hi-lar-ious videos on YouTube under the handle nalts, once joked that after cutting a bazillion notches into his belt, he still has no idea what makes a viral hit with users. And that's the accepted wisdom: Creating a truly viral video—something people want to ... more

"It's certainly not unusual that a stand up comedian like Tim Washer would be producing absurdist viral videos," notes AdAge. "What is surprising is that the IBM communications executive is doing so for his straight-laced corporate employer." Washer's first mini-mockumentary for the conservative company was called Mainframe: The Art of the ... more

Hoping to position Lufthansa as bigger than just a German airline, digital agency Profero has helped it create MySkyStatus—a tool that has brought Lufthansa's branding catch-phrase, "passion for precision," to life in a hands-on way. "Communications needs to have a use," explains Profero's Wayne Arnold in a recent article at Adweek. "Saying ... more

Last summer, Morgan Stewart of ExactTarget quizzed 2,400 people on their attitudes toward marketing and made an interesting discovery. "70% of consumers who visit Facebook at least once a month and are a 'fan' of at least one company or brand, don't believe they have given those companies permission to ... more

What makes Twitter so useful is also what makes it difficult to navigate: everyone is spewing what they think, all the time, about anything imaginable. This is good for tracking brand buzz, because when you run a search on Twitter it's like being clairvoyant: the opinions are there, raw and ... more

Research coming out of Penn State reports that 20% of tweets—those wee messages published on Twitter—are brand-oriented. And not the way you'd naturally expect. While researchers originally thought they'd find lots of brand engagement in the form of product reviews or referrals, what they discovered was this (hold on to ... more

New FTC guidelines will affect marketers who use blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the like for word-of-mouth and viral campaigns, starting Dec. 1. more

For the small-business owner, getting your name out via local search is a must. And to many marketers, that means optimizing for Google's universal results. After all, Google is the leader of the search-engine pack these days. But as David Mihm points out in a recent article at Search Engine ... more

According to The Wrap, ABC has chosen an unorthodox way to promote a new comedy on its fall schedule—by keeping it hush-hush. "The network is offering the sneak peak of '[Modern Family]' only to members of a special online fan base it's built called ABC Inner Circle," writes Josef Adalian. ... more

It's not just the recession; the digital revolution has wreaked havoc on traditional music retailers, who can rarely match online juggernauts like iTunes or eMusic on price or convenience. "As of April," reports Amy Kaufman at The Wrap, "there were 185 record stores in the LA area, down from 259 ... more

"If you're interested in building a flourishing online brand and website that generates links and traffic organically as part of your Internet marketing efforts, it's important to develop an active base of subscribers and fans," says Adam Singer in a recent post at the Online Marketing Blog. Here are a ... more

Women with children at home are more likely to use Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter than average adults, according to a newly released survey. They're big on word-of-mouth, and some 15.3% maintain a blog. more

The sun is setting on the tyranny of business cards—that stack of stiffs that seems important as you add to it again and again, but which you never really get the chance to sort through later. Well, hail and farewell!  One application precipitating the demise of these paper dinosaurs is Bump, which pretty much turns ... more

Spending on word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing slowed in 2008, nevertheless increasing 14.2%, to $1.54 billion. It is on pace to increase another 10.2% in 2009, placing WoM among the fastest-growing advertising and marketing segments. more

Here's a juicy tidbit to chew on: One of the reasons Facebook is such a force in the social scene is that it makes it easy to catch up with friends without actually having to talk to them. Yep, you got it: Your Newsfeed outfits you with their latest photos, blog ... more

"Back in the day, I was into punk rock," says David Meerman Scott in a post at his Web Ink Now blog. "It was loud, it was NOT disco, there was a culture surrounding it, and the cult-like followings for the bands were intense." And even if you didn't share ... more

Last week, we showed you some cool makeup vids as an example of how viral videos can rack in the mega-bucks. This time, we offer a sample of how a consistent, useful and compelling online video campaign can serve your brand amazingly well. Consider "Will it Blend," a fascinating online ... more