Social media is on the rise and this article by PRWeb discusses the impact that social media has on the importance of decision-making.  Social media can help your business grow with a few key points that were found in the study.  Single Throw Internet Marketing offers social networking as well as other important internet marketing strategies to help your business grow.

Source: PRWeb

The Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), a global nonprofit research and education foundation and think tank, announced the results of the 2nd annual New Symbiosis of Professional Networks Study led by SNCR Fellows Donald Bulmer, Vice President, Global Communications, Industry and Influencer Relations, SAP, and Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of Leader Networks. The study — supported by quantitative data gathered from more than 100 senior business professionals and executives — benchmarks the impact of social media on enterprise decision-making.

This study extends the research Bulmer and DiMauro began in 2009 and 2010 focusing on professionals’ use of social media for decision-making. The 2010-2011 study examines the dynamics of trust that professionals have within their social media communities, as well as the value of engagement and collaboration to support decision-making and innovation across company operations for internal and external purposes.

Of the 114 executives who participated in the study, most were key decision makers in their respective companies that ranged in size from under 100 to over 50,000 full time employees.

Key Findings include:

* Social networks have evolved to become knowledge and communication networks, and access to thought leadership content is now the primary reason professionals visit networks and communities. Professionals are collaborating with each other through the thought leadership content they generate, curate or share. No longer is collaboration an experience between a limited number of people.

* While nearly all professionals surveyed (97%) use LinkedIn, the use of smaller (niche) professional networks are actively being used to find peers and content specifically related to the work that they do (by role, industry, geography, etc.). Professionals are finding the right mix of large open networks and private communities to support their learning, networking and decision-making activities.

* Professional communities are being used more frequently to inform business strategy and supporting new products and services (much more than in 2009). A majority (80%) of respondents are able to accelerate decision process and information/strategy development by participating in online communities.

* Endorsement (e.g. like, read, share, retweet) is at the center of collaboration in social media communities. “The Crescendo Effect” in social media environments has great impact on buying decisions. High quality content yields transparency and credibility.

“Business professionals are changing how they collaborate as a result of online professional communities and peer networks,” stated Bulmer about the study.

“Professional collaboration is changing from a small professional exchange into an interaction with content in more public ways,” added DiMauro. “The consequence of sharing content online is enhanced influence.”

To read the full article, click here.

This article by Mashable discusses the latest release from Facebook.  Real-time analytics will help a company see how the content is doing on their Facebook.  Social media has really taken off these past couple of years, and with some analytics with Facebook your brand could receive some great feedback.  Single Throw offers many different types of services for internet marketing and social media is one that is rapidly growing.  Take a look at the article and then contact Single Throw for all of your social media needs!

Source: Mashable

Facebook has released extensive updates to its Insights tool, which provides publishers who use Facebook plugins with analytics on how content is performing. Now they can see those analytics in real time.

The update enables publishers to get real-time distribution and engagement metrics of how the content on their site is performing on Facebook, meaning they’ll be able to optimize it for Facebook. For example, publishers will be able to see if a certain post is performing exceedingly well and could adjust its prominence. The metrics, of course, are exportable through the Graph API.

The update also includes a well-rounded look into content performance on and off Facebook. Publishers now can see the impressions, referral clicks and the most popular pages on their site. The Popular Pages view was expanded to include the top 100 pages that are getting the most likes, comments or shares.

What’s useful is that one can break down the analytics by Facebook plugin (Like button, Comments, etc.). Website owners with Like buttons, for example, will be able to see how many people saw the button, clicked on them, saw the stories that got posted through the Like button and how many of them clicked on it to come to view it on your site. It also provides metrics for the recently updated Comments plugin, enabling publishers to see the rate of comments taking place and from whom.

Users can see the granular information, such as how many “likes” included a comment from the user — only 6% on Mashable.com, I found (knowing that the comment functionality on the Like button doesn’t always work). I also was able to learn that the “likes” that included comments were more likely to get clicked on Facebook, which makes sense because it adds a personal voice from the user. What is interesting is that Insights also breaks out the shares that occur using the plugins and “organic” shares, which essentially is how many shares took places by users simply copy-and-pasting links to share or using the old Share button.

This is likely to bring some great insight to designers who implement Facebook’s “Like” buttons to see how its placement affects the click-through rates of the button.

Insights now breaks down interactions based on anonymized demographics, which may enable site owners to target specific audiences.

For the full the article, click here.

We recently helped out the home automation specialists, Savant Systems, build a brand new website! Check out this blurb from our case study below, or click here to read the full account!

In under four months, Savant Systems increased their website visits by 400%.  On average, Google linked 13,179 more visitors a week to the Savant pages, and pages viewed by visitors increased measurably.  These statistics seem as rapid and revolutionary as the introduction of the iPod to the music market.

Savant’s secret to Internet success is just as probable and accessible—they contracted Single Throw Internet Marketing, a talented and proficient group of Internet marketing consultants with a plethora of services the size of your mp3 library.

Savant Systems provides the height of technological chic by offering a luxury home automation system that works with Apple technology bringing your home into the future.  Savant provides services for individual homeowners and corporations.  Single Throw Internet Marketing unified this image of Savant with its web presence.

While the Internet is an indisputably powerful—some might even say marvelous—tool, it is also an unwieldy thing to manage.  Many businesses’ experience with the Internet is akin to the proverbial child laying a hand on the hot stove—they get burned, so they don’t try it again. As such, their websites are old fashioned and out of date; they do a poor job of reflecting their product or service.  They target the wrong clientele, and they don’t show up in a typical Google search.

If the Internet is a hot stove, the experts at Single Throw are wearing flame retardant suits.  They build websites from years of experience and research, and they’re quite eager to share their suits with you.  They did with Savant.

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Here at Single Throw, we’ve long been advocates of the use of social media as a marketing tool for businesses of all sizes.  Lately, we’ve seen a great rise in popularity of these tools among car companies.  Check out the article we found below, evidencing Hyundai’s use of social media.

“Hyundai has been getting a lot of attention these days as a company that cares about its customers, and part of this success can be credited to social media marketing. By integrating a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy with social media along with their traditional marketing, Hyundai has branded itself as an altruistic company that really does care about its’ customers. In fact – Hyundai has jumped ahead of every other car manufacturer in the critical customer satisfaction index (CSI) category. Here are a few examples how Hyundai is applying their social media marketing strategy in key parts of their business and how it is paying off.

Hyundai’s Assurance Program began in early 2009 when the economy was at its worst and unemployment was rising rapidly. The Hyundai Assurance Program promised that if you got laid off from your job, you could return your car and not even have to worry about honoring the rest of the note payable. The promotion was innovative but coming from a major car corporation was it believable? The attention the campaign received from the press and from many blogs and websites was skeptical. Hyundai began promoting the idea on Facebook and Twitter. They asked everyone to buzz and tweet about it and people responded with enthusiasm. The idea of social networking for business exposure is not new, but the strategy was extraordinary because it laid the groundwork for the campaign and gave it credibility. It was a brilliant way to market a promotion that really did work. Sharing this information on Facebook and Twitter turned out to be a big plus for the car company’s marketing campaign. Hyundai sales are up 6.2 percent through November 2009. This marks the eleventh consecutive month of year-over-year gains in retail market share by Hyundai. The Hyundai Assurance Program is without doubt one of the reasons their sales have increased this year while other car manufacturers have floundered.

Zafar Brooks, Director of Government Relations and Diversity Outreach at Hyundai, has a refreshing perspective on the value of social media when combined with corporate outreach programs. The Hyundai “Hope on Wheels” program fights pediatric cancer by funding cancer research programs across the country. Brooks understands the importance of authenticity and relevance in social media outreach, particularly on behalf of corporate charitable programs. He said: “Consumers are more sophisticated now — corporate social responsibility programs are no longer something that is ‘nice’ to do, but it’s expected of the company,” noted Brooks. “Simultaneously, consumers will smell-out what is not authentic — Hope on Wheels isn’t advertised, but is part of the news we share with our brand loyalists,” he said. “It is a part of our story because it is a part of who we are and what we are about. Social media should be authentic and organic.” Mr. Brooks added, “Brand leaders must align themselves with a cause that is consistent with corporate values so they can illustrate their relevancy. Leadership has to establish the priorities around which we stand and make it part of our messaging point.” Brooks concluded: “All social media should link together with a common objective to develop a program based on who we want to talk to about what we want to accomplish. Social media outreach must be part of a cohesive approach. Consumers will smell-out what is not authentic!”

Hyundai Aftermarket recently announced the launch of a new social media campaign. The goal was to give Hyundai owners a new way of finding content on the Internet about modifying their vehicles. The interactive social media campaign involves additional features being built into the Hyundai forum that owners can use effectively to get the word out about what they are doing to make their cars stand out from the rest. Twitter accounts and Facebook “Fan Pages” have been built so that owners can follow live updated news feeds about Hyundai Aftermarket as well. “Finding important and relevant information is not easy when you are unfamiliar with how to perform certain modifications,” said a Hyundai spokesperson. “Having a forum and website where answers to important questions are laid out for you, would help with modifying your Hyundai to its highest potential.” While the site has been branded as the “web’s most premier Hyundai forum” and currently is the oldest Hyundai forum on the internet, it has been designed for both the amateur and professional car enthusiast in mind. The site is built on the principle of being very easy going and helpful to anyone who may or may not know a lot about Hyundai’s. Users register for free and can partake in discussions about Hyundai Accents, Tiburons, Elantra’s, Sonata’s, Santa Fe’s and the all new Hyundai Genesis. In addition to providing great technical content, hyundaiaftermarket provides great off topic discussions ranging in everything from technology to music & movies to even food and health/nutrition.

Article Source

Misspelling is a pet peeve of mine. Sure, I’m as guilty of creating spelling errors as often as the next person – maybe more. But when push comes to shove, I know that in most instances – especially in the day of 140 character messages – we have one shot. And with call to action, that shot is truly critical. So I better look twice, or three times, at the message for misspellings and context.

Take this site for example:

Seems like they’re inviting the Guidos and Guidettes from Jersey Shore (the TV show, that is). Or simply a translation process gone bad? (The site seems riddled with typos.)

Sometimes misspellings may be in headlines or artwork.

At least they were consistent on this site – the Title tag uses “Acommodations”, too. While in this case it’s not a call to action, it is a missed detail - it’s what I came to the site to see. Does that mean they might miss an important detail about my reservation? It’s an error that can alter my perception of their services.

And take the headline of this post, for instance…Looks funny doesn’t it? Yes, it’s intentional, just to prove a point. Things can go wrong with technology. A spell checker might be turned off or ignored (they can be annoying). Or it might be missed in the art creation or development process, where spell checking is likely non-existent.

As Internet Marketing consultants, that means we have to be even more vigilant, ensuring we read, test and review thoroughly. Because we have typically just one chance to connect; to set the proper tone; to create or alter perception. A letter or word out of place can totally blow that chance.

Seems pretty basic, right?