Twitter has brought a new phenomenon to the social media/micro blogging world. Companies, large and small, have been using Twitter and Facebook as marketing channels to run their campaigns. Some have greatly benefited from the use of these tools and others have destroyed the public’s opinion of their company. Loads of companies have made highly publicized mistakes, and here we will address three of them:

Just when you think you’ve seen it all…

If the idea of grown adults playing an online virtual farming game (and often shelling out real cash to do so) doesn’t surprise you, then check out FarmVille’s newest neighbor: Lady Gaga. Yup, the Pop Princess of Weird has partnered with online social gaming wizards Zynga to bring you the future of cross marketing. And it hurts so good.

Toronto-based “Engagement Bar” company Visibli recently analyzed over 200 million Facebook Fans to determine their engagement habits across different Fan Page types. “By tracking the number of Likes and Comments that each post received over time, we studied the resiliency of each Facebook post as well as the overall activity.” They found some interesting statistics about how long before content goes stale and who gets the most attention on Facebook.

How do you generate buzz around your new line of booze from bees? Turn to social media. Famous Tennessee whiskey makers Jack Daniel’s have launched a new Honey Liqueur blended with their well known whiskey. To get the word out, they’ve turned to Twitter and Facebook. Let’s look at their campaign…

Author, Speaker, and Twist Image President Mitch Joel, the so-called “Rock Star of Digital Marketing”, gave the keynote at Radian6′s Social Media 2011 Conference in Boston, MA. You can watch the full 50 minute Ustream keynote here, but below I have taken some notes from it that I found particularly interesting.

“I believe whats presently happening in business and social media and how people are connecting is fundamentally changing everything we know about business.”

Social media researcher Dan Zarrella has been conducting research on the best times to do your online marketing activities like blog, email, Tweet, and post to Facebook for close to 3 years now. In December of 2010 he released some of the results of his data analysis regarding timing in preparation for a webinar he was giving titled “Science of Blogging”. As I regularly get questions on this topic from clients, I thought it might be worth a formal blog about his findings. Studies and research such as Dan’s come out from time to time and may claim different specifics as to times and days (wednesday at 3pm has been thought to be the peak Tweet time for awhile now), but regardless of how this kind of data may help you plan your releases of information, you must keep in mind that every one is different. Every product, industry, service, company, and customer base has their own group norms and before you jump on board with what worked for someone else, you must take the the time to discover what is right for you and your community/audience.

With the recent launch of Google’s Airship Advertising, famous tire makers “Goodyear” are scrambling to close sponsorship negotiations with existing contracts, terrified of being locked out in favor of what may be a more profitable money maker from Google.

“We tend to take our time signing deals with stadiums as there just isn’t really any competition in the blimp messaging business,” says Bill Pmilb, Director of Dirigible Marketing at Goodyear, “We just never saw this coming – especially from an internet-focused firm like Google. They really caught us with our pants down on this one.”

The latest marketer to embrace Twitter’s Promoted “Trending Topic” ad space (at the estimated/rumored cost of $200k a pop) is single-cup-of-coffee brewing magnate Keurig (or more precisely Green Mountain Coffee Roasters who owns Keurig and many other popular coffee brands)… Brew Over Ice K-Cups is the newest Keurig product and so to launch it, Keurig and Green Mountain turned to Twitter, trusting their rabid fans would be eager to spread the coffee love. And for non-keurig users, theres always the cruise. Yup. They are giving away an Alaskan cruise to one lucky winner.

On the heels of our last post, How Do I: Make a Facebook Page for My Business?, we wanted to immediately address a very common question and concern that our clients have when it comes to Facebook: How do you control what people post on a Page’s Wall?

The thought of complete strangers posting negative comments or inappropriate material on a Page’s public Wall seems to be the first thing to pop into many business owners’ minds. So let me first say, that yes, you can delete any comment and even block individuals from ever posting to your Page again. But that should be a last resort action and not the first button you push.

With Facebook’s New Pages Overhaul now fully implemented, we decided it was time to update our old article about Creating Your Facebook Fan Page (and the subsequent Managing Your Facebook Fan Page – Basics) to better reflect the features and visual changes that you will now encounter.