Enterprise service provider Oracle has just purchased Vitrue, a cloud-based social marketing platform that integrates brands with major networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, as well as emerging platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Klout. Social media marketing is definitely hitting the main stream with this one.
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews. 
Many forms of media are passive. People watch television; they read newspapers; but on social media sites, they talk. That’s why marketers can’t just broadcast a message to reach their audiences on the social Web – they need to get in on the conversation.
Recently, brands like eBay, Marc Jacobs, and 20th Century Fox have turned to a social media experience platform called BumeBox to get their customers talking about them on Twitter. Here, BumeBox CEO (and former Zappos employee) Jon Fahrner explains how to host a branded social media event.
Spotify announced a global partnership with Coca-Cola that leverages the beverage company’s scale and reach to expand the digital music service to new markets. “I can’t think of any brand that has the same amount of ubiquity in the world as Coke,” said Spotify founder Daniel Ek.
Tomorrow evening at 6:00 PM (GMT) the chocolatiers at Cadbury UK are welcoming springtime with an “Introduction to Chocolate Tasting” Google Hangout on Air. As if the stacks of Creme Eggs at the check-out stand weren’t temptation enough.
There are a lot of ways to begin planning your social media campaign, but our friends at Simply Business have put together a really cool step by step guide to figuring out which platforms and accounts you want to use on your way to social media success. The steps are easy, you start at the “Start”, and you move through the chart answering yes or no — games always make decisions a whole lot more fun.
YouTube viewers have to sift through an estimated 60 hours of content that are uploaded every minute to the site. To get a share of the page views, which totaled 4 billion in February, brand marketers have to be creative. After interviewing the experts, Mediabistro’s AvantGuild found 10 ways to make a YouTube channel stand out from all the rest:
Just because you can travel the world with the click of a mouse doesn’t mean you should. To stay competitive in a global market, brands need to back their social media efforts with a strong presence in the real world. At a Social Media Week panel on social marketing for global markets, a panel of experts shared their best practices for marketing with RenRen, Mixi and other international networks.
For online publishers who want more subscribers, it helps to think outside the inbox. There are now 100,000 Facebook fans of JackThreads, the members-only fashion site for men; and Thrillist, a free daily email offering tips on local food, shopping, and entertainment. Social media manager David Pessah told Social Times he’s always looking for new ways to repackage content on Facebook and emerging platforms like Pinterest and Oink. Here are some of his best strategies.
This week, Groupon is hiring a senior manager of social media, while Street King is on the hunt for a director of social and digital media. Polyvore is seeking an account executive; Lippe Taylor needs a social media marketing account executive; and BLiNQ Media is looking for a sales director. Get the scoop on these jobs below and find more social media gigs on mediabistro.com.
I grew up in the nineties, the dawn of digital culture.
For me—and for many others born in the late eighties and early nineties— the Yellow Pages brand was irrelevant; I never understand why people would spend ten minutes leafing though a thick and cumbersome book with flimsy pages to find a restaurant or plumber when the same answers were easily searchable online.
But those born only a few years earlier than me remember a time when the Yellow Pages was more than just a useful doorstop or oversized paperweight, when the brand was an iconic symbol for finding information, not unlike the Google brand of today.
As we move into an increasingly digital world, brands like the Yellow Pages face extinction, since the services they provided have been optimized by internet search engines.
In an effort to remain relevant, the Yellow Pages has moved online, extending their platform to mobile applications and social media sites like Facebook and YouTube.
“Find, review, and share business listings on Facebook” invites the new Yellow Pages Facebook application.
The app, which can be installed for free on your Facebook browser, allows you to search for people and companies, just like the Yellow Pages book. Users can search by business name, keyword, or location, and the program is integrated with Google maps. Users can also read and write customer reviews and bookmark searches for reference later.
The Yellow Pages App is also compatible with the iPhone, the iPad, Blackberry, Android, and the Windows Phone 7, making it easier for people to access local information without having to lug around that thick yellow book.
@Amanda Cosco is a freelance writer, content queen & social media girl genius. To learn more about her, visit her professional blog here.
