Author: flickfusion

Flick Fusion Video Marketing is a pioneering video technology company, specializing in creating, managing, and distributing dynamic and cost-effective online and mobile video products on the world's largest content delivery network. Each video is designed to help our clients reach and engage their customers with richer content and greater impact that results in increased sales and ROI. Data, photos, inventory, audio, music, and special offers are automatically combined to create compelling multimedia video solutions that are fast, easy, and affordable. We look forward to serving you.

Top 5 Emerging Brand Trends on Facebook

1.) Facebook Exclusives
2.) Facebook Places Experimentation
3.) Facebook Commerce
4.) Facebook Support Centers
5.) Facebook Giving

Field of Dreams may have popularized the notion that, “If you build it, they will come,” but in today’s Facebook  generation, brands are beginning to go where the masses are, instead of relying on the masses to come to them. With 500 million members, Facebook represents real-time access to the online mainstream.

For years, brands have been using their Facebook Pages to connect with customers. As Facebook blossoms, so too does brand ingenuity, and in recent months we’ve seen a surge in campaigns that inspire Facebook giving, incorporate Facebook Places and feature Facebook as a prominent part of product reveals and fan exclusives. Application makers are also building tools that small and big brands alike can use to sell their products and offer Facebook-tailored customer support.

What follows is a deeper look at how and why these five emerging brand trends are bubbling up on the world’s largest social network.

Via: Mashable

5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now

What’s the first thing young women do when they wake up? Check Facebook. How do enterprise employees pass the time at work? With social media. With so many studies highlighting ever-accelerating social media usage rates, the conclusion is obvious — social media is everywhere.

What follows are five of the hottest social media trends right now. Each are influencing our social, online and mobile behaviors in significant ways.

Entertainment checkin services are changing the way we watch television. Mobile loyalty applications are helping us connect the dots between our real-world shopping behaviors and digital rewards. A new breed of Q&A services are changing the way we search. Barcode scanning applications are making products social, and deal-of-the-day sites are giving us ways to save by recruiting our friends to the party.

1. Social Scanning

2. Q&A and Intelligent Information Discovery

3. Group Buying

4. Mobile Meets Loyalty

5. Checking-In to Entertainment

via: Mashable

Buick Is Creating Brand Ambassadors Via Twitter

In this article from Social Fresh. Automaker Buick is doing its best to create brand advocates in order to revamp and redefine its mature image. Just a quick disclaimer the author of the post is currently working as a Buick Brand Ambassador in Chicago on behalf of the brand.

In an effort to reinvent the brand, Buick knows they have a lot of work to do. They want to trade in the old fuddy-duddy grandpa image that has plagued the brand for the last decade for a hipper more modern brand impression.

In August, AdAge reported Buick was the fastest growing car brand in the US, but they are still struggling to rid the brand of their dated image. It is a large effort that General Motors has undertaken to broaden the appeal of Buick. And just as they have been doing with Chevrolet, they are reaching out to social media to help change the public’s awareness of the brand.

Via: Social Fresh

Stay up to date in this social media revolution — follow @dealerimpact on Twitter and Like our Facebook Page.

HOW TO: Avoid a Social Media Disaster

If there’s one thing that keeps social media marketers up at night, it’s the ever-present threat of a PR disaster. By now, every marketer is well-aware of how quickly dissatisfied consumers can turn to the social airwaves to vent about a brand. Nestle, BP, Domino’s, Southwest Airlines, and many other brands have witnessed the unbridled power of social media as a platform for disgruntled consumers to rally around an anti-brand cause.

1.) Create a Social Media Policy/Community Management Plan
2.) Have an Escalation Plan
3.) Plan for the Worst – Expect the Best
4.) Respond Quickly, Personally and Directly
5.) Don’t Play the Blame Game

Via: Mashable

Marketers are NOT spending their money where users are spending their time

Earlier this week, Nielsen released their latest report on where U.S. Internet users are spending their time online. Social media dominated all other categories at more than twice the time spent on the next closest category. It occurred to me after reading that report that social media is not where marketers spend most of their money. So, I wanted to look further into the difference between where users spend their time online and where marketers spend their budget. Here is what I found.

1.) Marketers are not fishing where the fish are
2.) Search dominates the marketing budget
3.) Email is used a third less than it was last year
4.) Destination not Acquisition

Via: Social Fresh

Why Some Companies Don’t Get Social Media

1. Senior executives don’t use or get social media. If you’re an older, hard-working senior executive, you probably don’t have the time to really check out social media.

2. There is no simple way to measure ROI. If companies are trying to apply traditional ROI metrics to social media, it’s a lot like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Social media is a different beast with “hard” and “soft” metrics.

3. Many companies cling to belief that if something ain’t broke, don’t fix it. With the global economy appearing to be in recovery mode, many companies have been able to stick with traditional marketing and advertising tools.

4. As Lee Oden also pointed out, many companies have a difficult time trying to understand that social media means they have to change their behaviour.

5. The social media ecosystem has done a pretty lousy job of putting the spotlight on social media “success”.

Via: Sysomos blog

Barry Diller: “We Spend Every Nickel We Can On Facebook” [Video]

If you need to know how Facebook is performing among large brands, look no further than some of the leading brand marketers who are singing praise about Facebook’s ad platform. In an interview with CNN Money, Barry Diller couldn’t speak highly enough about Facebook’s advertising offering. Diller stated, “Facebook’s great advertising. My company, which spends a huge amount on advertising, we spend every nickel we can on Facebook. They’re effective. The targeting of the audience is precise enough.”

While Diller doesn’t believe that Facebook will be able to replace traditional advertising, he also didn’t believe that Twitter would be able to attract brand advertisers, so it just goes to show that Diller doesn’t know everything. You can view the full interview posted below.

Via: AllFacebook

Advertisers to Spend $1.7 Billion on Social Networks in 2010

The latest numbers from eMarketer project that advertisers will spend nearly $1.7 billion in the U.S. on social networking sites in 2010. Worldwide, spending will hit $3.3 billion according to the report.

The numbers represent a significant bump up from estimates published by the research firm at the end of last year, when it projected $1.3 billion would be spent on the space in the U.S.

Not surprisingly, eMarketer sees about half of that money (in the U.S.) going to Facebook, with MySpace continuing to see a smaller share of the pie. Separately, the firm estimated that Facebook’s 2010 revenue would hit $1.2 billion in a report published last week.

Earlier this month, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that some of the social network’s biggest advertisers had boosted ad spending by 10x this year; a trend that’s apparent in the eMarketer report.

Via: Mashable

How Social Media Drives New Business: Six Case Studies

Businesses both big and small are flocking to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Foursquare. The fact is that a presence on these platforms not only allows companies to engage in conversations with consumers, but also serves as an outlet to drive sales through deals and coupons.

And while major brands like Starbucks, Virgin, and Levi’s have been participating in the social web for some time now, the rate of adoption among small businesses is increasing too. According to a recent University of Maryland study, social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. But as these businesses look to Facebook and Twitter to connect with customers, many are finding that some strategies work and some do not produce results. We’ll be exploring these questions at a panel on Social Media and Businesses at our Social Currency CrunchUp on July 30. We’ve found some local and national businesses using social media effectively, ranging from Levi’s to a creme brulee cart, whose case studies are below.  Some of these businesses will be sharing their experiences at the CrunchUp (You can buy tickets to the CrunchUp here).

Via: Techcrunch

Check out these great case studies they are quite interesting.

HOW TO: Avoid a Social Media Disaster

If there’s one thing that keeps social media marketers up at night, it’s the ever-present threat of a PR disaster. By now, every marketer is well-aware of how quickly dissatisfied consumers can turn to the social airwaves to vent about a brand. Nestle, BP, Domino’s, Southwest Airlines, and many other brands have witnessed the unbridled power of social media as a platform for disgruntled consumers to rally around an anti-brand cause.

1.) Create a Social Media Policy/Community Management Plan
2.) Have an Escalation Plan
3.) Plan for the Worst – Expect the Best
4.) Respond Quickly, Personally and Directly
5.) Don’t Play the Blame Game

Via: Mashable