[Posted by Alexis Karlin, Digital Marketing Specialist, Neolane, Inc. and Mickael Bentz, Product Manager, Neolane]

[Posted by Mathieu Hannouz
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

Addictive, creativity filled, inspiring, entertaining, and actually pretty darn useful.  These are all words used to describe Pinterest, the newest social media craze that so many are talking about, including Mashable, Conversational Marketing, and country music star Taylor Swift.  Although this visual pin board is currently filled with recipes, fashion ideas and dream travel destinations, it has fantastic potential for businesses.

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[Posted by Mathieu Hannouz
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

Over the past year, B2C and B2B companies made strides in working to figure out how to turn “likes” on Facebook into qualified leads by gaining more information about who their fans are and how to engage with them in personalized, one-to-one dialogues. In the process, a few companies stand out not only in terms of creativity, but also in moving the bar in term of how brands communicate with customers and prospects over social media channels.

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[Posted by Ed Hadley
Senior Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

Following my post on what 8 famous writers and poets would think of Twitter, it seemed only natural to write a follow-up post about what my favorite fictional characters would use Twitter and its 140 characters.

Without further ado, I give you nine intersections between fiction and followers, heroes and hashtags, protagonists and profiles:

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[Posted by Ed Hadley
Senior Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

As a past student in the interdisciplinary American Studies program at a liberal arts college, I learned to make connections between seemingly disparate concepts.  That’s probably why, on the bus this morning, I started writing about what my favorite writers and poets would think of Twitter, were they alive today.

Here are eight fun intersections between writing and tweeting, fiction and followers, poems and memes:

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[Posted by Mathieu Hannouz
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

I recently read a research report from Gartner’s Kimberly Collins that examined “Five Ways Social Media Will Revolutionize Marketing.¹” It caused me to reflect on how social media has quickly matured into a robust and pervasive technology that has fundamentally changed the way people and brands communicate.

But as relatively mature and robust as social media has become, we still see brands struggling to develop strategies and best practices that take advantage of the power that social media introduces.

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[Posted by Ed Hadley
Senior Marketing Manager, Neolane, Inc.]

According to Mashable, Facebook has begun testing a new feature that allows users to group individual email notifications (e.g. friend requests, comments, etc.) into a single daily summary email.  While it might seem like a minor feature—and one that Facebook is gearing toward power users—the implications are fairly significant from a marketing perspective.  Why?  It gives Facebook’s 750 million+ users greater control over message frequency.

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[Posted by Erin Collins,
Marketing Intern, Neolane, Inc.]

There are some obvious analogies that can be made between dating and social media marketing. Both involve efforts to “engage” (in some cases, quite literally) the other party, and each requires adherence to some ground rules (or even “The Rules”).

However, there are some places where the analogies fall apart – with that, here are four dating rules that absolutely don’t work in the social media realm.

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[Posted by Alexis Karlin
Digital Marketing Specialist, Neolane, Inc.]

With more than 175 million users, few can argue that Twitter isn’t a valuable resource for tracking everything from consumer sentiment to the latest business trends.  Despite high traffic on this content-rich site, it is often underutilized by sales and business development professionals.  With more users becoming active each day, Twitter can serve as a treasure trove of information.

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[Posted by Erin Collins,
Marketing Intern, Neolane, Inc.]

If you take a walk down any busy street, you’re likely to see an abundance of iPhones, Blackberries, Droids, and the like. Marketers have without a doubt grasped the importance of engaging smartphone users, but a growing phenomenon has been left relatively untouched: foursquare. Launched in 2009, this innovative application allows users to “check in” at a vast number of locations using their phone’s GPS capabilities and even compete with other users for various rewards. With more than 8 million users worldwide, and roughly 35,000 new users signing up each day, any marketer would be foolish to let the marketing potential of such a promising opportunity go to waste.

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