With all that negativity about today's job market, a bit of lightheartedness doesn't hurt, right? Well, looks like Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma City, has done so by creating THE dream job for a Twitter and Facebook power user who's a wino (no joke). more

Facebook has a checkered past when it comes to user relations. Members cried foul, for instance, when the social-networking giant launched the invasive Beacon system, and they later bemoaned certain aspects of the site's redesign. More recently, they decried the new terms of service that weighed heavily in Facebook's favor. ... more

Twitter has seen massive growth as an online communications tool, especially with the recent influx of celebrity personas (Ashton, Oprah) using it. But perhaps no celebrity has found more success with Twitter than Tony Hawk, who is using it to bridge both his real and his virtual communities. What are ... more

"For several months," says Lori Feldman in an article at MarketingProfs, "I've been asked almost weekly to help someone who's just lost a paycheck to find their next one." Sound familiar? When it first happens to our friends and family, we're very sympathetic—after all, we may be next on the ... more

You may have seen the YouTube video: a pair of Domino's employees gleefully preparing food in a shockingly unhygienic manner. Much to the horror of the pizza chain, the video went viral a few weeks ago. Even several days after the story broke, the first page of a Google search for "Domino's" still ... more

Clearspring Technologies, which has helped everybody from WaPo to UCSF bring their branded wares to the mainstream, has put out a new tool that tells you how popular your widgets are on social networks. The ConnectedAds tool can follow the movement of your branded widget across 80 different social networks, ... more

Mobsmacked: (adjective) That stunned feeling you get when your marketing efforts worked TOO well, and you can't keep up with customer demand. more

The social-media world can be a landmine. Luckily, it's fairly easy to be schooled in good Facebook manners. Check out this video on proper etiquette on Facebook, the "electric friendship generator." more

At a fraction of the cost of traditional media, 3M Canada not only generated immediate sales and new excitement around its Scotch Tape brand but also gathered invaluable intelligence about its target market and forged long-term relationships with consumers. more

Earlier this month, a doctoral student developed a way to post messages on Twitter using only the mind. The discovery could be a lifeline for people with paralysis, offering them a way to communicate when they cannot otherwise speak or move. more

Susan Boyle wowed the world when she recently debuted on "Britain's Got Talent." What are the lessons in her success for marketers? more

Social Notworking: (noun) The pursuits of those who spend their workday on Twitter. more

"Effective one-to-one marketing is more than just email," R.J. Talyor states in an article at MarketingProfs. "[Y]our subscribers and customers aren't always staring at their email inboxes. Rather, they're also posting, texting, watching, commenting, and they step away from the computer sometimes, too." Because of this, he recommends the development ... more

The news is out: consumers are changing their buying—and search—habits. SearchIgnite reports that users are taking longer to make purchase decisions online: the average time between when they click on an ad and convert on a marketer's website increased by 32.4% in Q1 2009 compared with Q1 2008. Ouch. In addition, ... more

In a post at the Brains of Fire blog, Spike Jones tells the story of Pizzeria Delfina, a San Francisco establishment that chose not to ignore its one-star reviews at Yelp. Instead, the restaurant printed up employee T-shirts with gems like "This place sucks" and "The pizza was soooo greasy. ... more

The iPhone and iPod touch positively swept the Engadget Awards, winning Gadget of the Year, Smartphone of the Year, Handheld of the Year, Portable Media Device of the Year, and, finally, a spot in Editors' Choice. So, what's this mean for you? It means you need to be ... more

Before you ask me to go to work for you, go to work for yourself. When you've implemented the suggestions above, I'm more receptive to helping you connect with your next job opportunity. But I don't have time or inclination to work with job-seeking networking spammers. Heed the lesson of the ... more

Fairytale Brownies cooked up a win-win strategy to satisfy both its bottom line and its costumers' preferences. It created magic with a brownie blog optimized for search and attuned to customers' deepest dessert desires. The result? Some very happy endings. more

According to an iProspect and JupiterResearch study released last year, search users prefer "blended" search results—in which results are potpourried with videos and other media—over standard (slightly boring) text-only search results. Blended results (Google's term is "universal search") work like this: If you've got a restaurant, a search on your restaurant's ... more

Small businesses need all the TLC they can get. Billing and invoicing online-solution provider FreshBooks knows that better than most. Its customer-centric focus is so fresh and refreshing, word-of-mouth has spread far and wide—and helped grow its user base 150%. more

When you plan an event, you pull out all the stops. So, too, should it be with your event promotions. Apogee Search's Brian Combs suggests in a recent MarketingProfs article to add paid-search marketing to your event promo mix. "With almost half of all Internet users now using search engines ... more

In last week's installment, we offered step-by-step tips to get you tweeting on Twitter. This week, we offer a few more advanced steps to take, based on Jim Sterne's advice in a MarketingProfs article. Incorporate these into your tweeting habits, and you'll be well on the way to becoming a Twitter ... more

Twitter isn't the first tool that comes to mind in the B2B marketing toolbox. But COOP Ale Works deftly used it to generate buzz among potential consumers of its specialty brews—creating a level of demand that retail establishments, such as bars, couldn't ignore. more

"I am not going to go on a rant [about] adding a 'share this,' 'follow me,' 'digg this,' or another technology to your email programs in order to drive cross-channel adoption of your email strategy," says Dylan Boyd in a post at the Email Wars blog. Instead, he wants to ... more

"Social media is cool!" proclaims Chris Brogan in a Pro article at MarketingProfs. "Blogging and podcasts are cool! We're so cutting edge! Twitter is like the future here today, and no one knows about it!" If you've noticed a certain facetious quality to his enthusiasm, his next line makes clear ... more