The digital marketing and e-commerce community Econsultancy has released a June 2010 report on Social Media and Online Brand Monitoring Trends. The free briefing (membership required) contains an overview of market trends, tips for best practice, new statistics and useful resources.

Do you remember when the cable and satellite television network A&E was the place to go for higher brow entertainment and historical documentaries? I do. And many of us still associate A&E with the sepia toned tint of the past (they do own the History Channel after all). Perhaps thats why they are trying so hard to rebrand and reprogram themselves as HBO has done with high quality dramas and reality based shows (they even acquired the rights from HBO to rerun Sopranos episodes). But winning over the audience is only half the battle. Someone has to pay for all of that production and reinvention (Gene Simmons and Dog the Bounty Hunter don’t work for free you know), someone like advertisers. So how do you show media buyers and ad planners that your new face is the place to sell? With a smart ad campaign of your own of course!

A recent report from White Horse conducted in March 2010 on Business to Business (B2B) marketing found that B2B marketers are adopting social media marketing tactics at a much higher rate than previously expected. Research revealed that 82% of B2B firms are engaged in social media, not far behind the Business to Consumer (B2C) firms participating at an 86% level.

A recent study of social media usage by market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that “60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a fan or follower. And an impressive 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of”.

A new behavioural study, commissioned by Lloyds TSB Insurance, reveals that the average attention span is now just five minutes and seven seconds, compared to more than 12 minutes a decade ago. What does this mean for you and your web videos?

Now that you know HOW to Create Your Facebook Fan Page, lets talk about the basics of managing it. If you are familiar with Facebook and have a personal account, managing your fan page will be fairly easy. If not, I’ll walk you through the basic steps and share some advice.

According to the BIA Kelsey Group, viewers engage more after watching a video, with clicks for more information increasing by 30-40% and phone inquiries by 16-20%. Web video is a proven selling technique and is far cheaper than traditional advertising.

Videos help sell products even when customers don’t watch them. Shoppers who viewed the videos bought at a higher rate than those who did not view, but based on multivariate testing, visitors who did NOT watch the videos converted at a significantly higher rate than those who saw the same product page without the option for video viewing.