@BasilPuglisi

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Facebook Ad Campaigns – Are They Working?

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A World Obsessed with Facebook

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJXOavGwAW8]

With so many potential customers on Facebook, Facebook ads should be a profitable and beneficial to your business. With over 850 million users, and 225 million of those in the United States, there is quite an audience to target through the use of Facebook ads.

How Facebook Ads Work

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhn0-MrDR18]

The Facebook Ad Marketplace

Like other online advertising options, Facebook ads are a type of marketplace where the user bids on how much they are willing to pay to reach their prospective consumers and how much they will pay if those consumers take action.

Facebook has become a common place for businesses who are using customized Facebook Fan pages to increase the amount of fans on their page, thereby increasing their consumer base. Fans are simply customers waiting to happen. So how do you make sure you are getting a good ROI from the investment on the ads?

Basic Marketing 101 – ROI

To determine your ROI you should take your gross profit, subtract the capital spent on your Facebook ad campaign, then divide by the expense. This should give you a good comparative measure in which to determine which of your marketing expenditures are most effective for your business.

Has Anyone Had Real Results from Facebook Ads?

If you watched the video above, you heard from Bob Ford, a representative for Papa John’s Pizza. He describes how an ad placed on Facebook increased their Facebook fans by 130,000 fans overnight with a one day engagement ad.

Starbucks ran their own event on Facebook ads for World Aids Day and had an overwhelming 950,000 people who agreed to attend the event. Alex Wheeler, a Starbucks PR rep shares, “I think it (Facebook) is really effective because its part as the content experience that people have on Facebook. They can interact with it. They can actually participate. We can have these shared ideals with our customers.”

The Value in a Facebook Ad as Part of Your Marketing Campaign

The ultimate benefit, just as the Facebook developer in the video states, is that Facebook itself provides not only the venue to advertise to direct demographics, but that its very nature encourages other Facebook users to share the content with their network. This means that with an effective Facebook ad campaign, many of your connections could be made for ‘free’ in the form of users who willingly share your content with others. This digital version of ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising has proven to be highly effective for some.

“The conversations are happening, with, or without the brands participation.”

Do you want to be a part of the conversation?

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#SMWF: How Hilton Does Social Media

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Hilton has one message from their industry that rings true into their social media campaigns. Hospitality is social. If it isn’t, the execs at Hilton think it should be. Their studies into how social media integrates with travel accommodations has shown:

  1. Those who travel often are commonly also active on social media networks.
  2. Those who use these channels do expect their favored businesses and locations to be listening, available, and willing to respond via these networks.
  3. Those using these venues are not only interested in deals, but often also travel advice, and to deal with customer service issues.

Hiltons Wide-Reaching Social Network

Hilton has made finding information on an incredible variety of things on social networks of all types, quite easy. They regularly post interesting videos on YouTube that show a myriad of benefits for choosing Hilton accommodations when you head out for your next vacation.

Check out this video about a spectacular special drink created by one of Hilton’s own bartenders at the Hilton Hawaiian Village® Waikiki Beach Resort.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZJbW5uBY]

Not only does this create an interest in this location and its amenities, it also builds upon true customer engagement by giving them a real taste of what to expect on their next trip, but also a familiarity that many can appreciate.

None of the above even takes into account that not only does Hilton engage their customers with this type of open information but they have also effectively engaged the employee. It looks like Hilton has taken the proactive stance that many other businesses have by utilizing their current staff to share the big picture through social media networking.

@HiltonSuggest

Social Media Guru for Hilton, Vanessa Sain-Dieguez, helps implement training for their employees on how to use social media to help take care of their customers. In a comprehensive study on using social media with their guest, they noted one very important issue, customers do not just expect their favored businesses to be ‘listening’ to them, but they also expect them to act.

A highly active Twitter account known as @HiltonSuggest stays on the lookout for those who Tweet messages like:

Although none of these Tweets specifically mentions Hilton, @HiltonSuggest still doesn’t mind offering immensely helpful suggestions based on exactly what folks are looking for in the Twitterverse. Also noticable is the fact that not all of the blurbs thrown into the Twitterverse have hashtags, which shows that Hilton is really listening, the replies show that they are also willing to act, even when it doesn’t mean a direct consumer experience for their industry.

It turns out that dbmei author had written an article that had personally touched him and his family, and yes Hilton was behind it! Check it out here.

Defining Social Media in the Hotel Industry

A panel co-hosted by HVS Executive Search and ESSEC Business School Paris was held on February 7th, 2011 to discuss what the rise in social media means for the hotel industry. Attendees were students, hoteliers and other staff, all of whom declared they are active on at least one social media network.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhg4vug1yZM]

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Express Yourself with Prezi.com

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One of the biggest problems public speakers and businessmen face is how to make their presentation sharp, concise and informative without making is dull and uninspiring.

There is a tool that can help do just that. It is called Prezi.com and it enables a speaker to make video presentations that are unique, informative and entertaining.

Developed by the Hungarian architect, Adam Somali-Fischer, in 2001 as a visual aid in presenting architectural designs, the interface enabled zooming in and out of elements on the screen. Since there was no zooming interface at the time, each presentation had to be coded individually.

In 2007, a Budapest University professor managed to convince Mr. Somali-Fischer to develop a publicly available ZUI (zooming user interface) and in 2009 Prezi.com was launched.

Using cloud based presentation software, any text, video or image can be put together into frames. The designer then decides what is important in this image and how close he wants to get to it. For instance; zooming into the dot above the letter “i” will reveal an image that can grow larger and larger, filling the screen. Designers can pan and zoom between images, add music and sound effects.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=2NsKNL7LJOI&NR=1]

Unlike PowerPoint, another presentation interface, Prezi allows map layout and nonlinear navigation. It can show complex systems in a cognitive and mind mapping kind of way. Although the interface is cloud based it allows subscribers to work offline and save the presentation to their computer on Windows, Mac and Linux.

The designer can pan and zoom, can import media from other sources: videos from YouTube, PDFs and images and create a storyline that will engage the audiences. The presentation can be displayed online and offline and he can collaborate with others, in real time, with Prezi Meeting.

Prezi is a ‘freemium’, meaning customers can use it for free, but they must publish their work on the Prezi site. The Prezi Pro which is the paid option allows subscribers to work offline and they can make their presentations private. Plans start at $59.

The World Economic Forum is using Prezi as part of their media strategy. TED Conferences curator, Chris Anderson, used the interface in his presentation in 2010, as did the British newspaper The Guardian in their new World Map graphics on their site.

Prezi is now available as an iPad app. Now you can create, collaborate and present on the go. There are also publications to help navigate the program.

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Increase Your Facebook Friends and Fans?

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Just as with Twitter followers there are two approaches you can consider. You can add those who are willing to Fan you in exchange for you fan’ing them regardless of their niche or industry, or you can utilize tools and services that offer more targeted fans and friends for Facebook. This means you can either cultivate them organically, or use paid services who will do so for you.

Paid Facebook Friends and Fans

Increase Your Fans offers a great many social media network increasing options. For Facebook Fans they have a larger variety of options than most similar sites. Although this may be the more expensive in options, one centralized site can take care of most of your social networking needs, while supplying you with two important elements in Facebook fans, live users, and niche targeted ones.

Fans Galore is a similar paid Fan site. This site accommodates custom orders and while also in the pricey range, are also worth the extra funds to cultivate a useful Facebook Fan page following.

Fan Page Hookup offers a much more affordable, and a significantly less targeted crowd to be added to your Fan Page.

Free Facebook Friends and Followers Exchanges

Let Us Follow provides an open community of many different industries and interest with users on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more. Site users simply follow members to receive auto-follow backs, effectively growing your network with real users and not clones you may sometimes get with paid accounts.

Hey Gorgeous may have an odd name for a Friends and Followers service, but they have an effective method worth signing up for so that you can gain:

  • 250 Free YouTube Views
  • 50 Free Facebook Fans
  • 50 Free Twitter Followers

Hey Gorgeous does require that you show them where you shared their links on your social networks. Easy work for such a great benefit.

Increasr also offers similar exchange options as users sign in with their Facebook page and “Like” other pages. This generates reciprocal “Likes” for their sites.

Unique Alternative

Wildfire App allows users to create Fan generating content such as sweepstakes, contest, and more interactive events that can bring you natural followers who are already investing some interest in your industry.

There are tons of ways to increase your Friends, Followers, and Fans quickly and efficiently, or slowly and organically. The options here are truly great places to begin.

About Like and Fan Methods  

There are different schools of thought about this, some believe that paying for fans has perceived, others believe that generating real fans is the only value, then there is the middle ground and likely the best alternative. Find ways to target fans using paid services so that part of the likes or following is creating a unique exposure that is similar to advertising and may generate value, while also making the page seem more likable as the quality user does not feel like they are ting an interest into a site with only 30 likes, reducing the perceived value.

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“Privacy” is a great way to stay unemployed, unconnected and extinct [Opinion]

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Social Media does not create a brand, it takes the brand (or character impression) and carries it. Just like in the “old” days when you worked in a community and everyone knew everything about you anyway, social media has played into the global business revolution.

“Privacy is for old People” but perhaps we misunderstood “old”? It was my interpretation, it was for people who try to “network” the “old” way. Keep sending out those paper resumes, no really keep doing it, in the mean time those that are out in the digital space that have embraced transparency are taking all the job leads and finding and creating careers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexGCUPlUeA]

“Think Digital, Act Social”, this is the best way to find a career and not a job. Your resume starts with one word, Google! This is what almost 90% of hires will go through before they get a job or enter into their career. The power of LinkedIn is not just in its ability to connect, it’s in the uniformity that the professional social tool provided.

A resume was traditionally put on a piece of paper that had a million different formats, was presented in infinitely different ways and contained a variety of info that could range from too little to too much. The paper resume then needed to be mailed, emailed, uploaded into a system that could scrape keywords, if you knew how and where to put them.

LinkedIn created a space that provided basic continuity in your digital resume, then provided you the flexibility to be different without losing the Education, Experience, and transparent influence.

If your concern is privacy, then good luck, your “old” way of thinking is what has you unemployed or in a dying industry.

Here lets show you a example of why this is so important and relevant.

  • Position: Writer
  • Duties: On a regular basis produce a variety of articles on subject “A” that people want to read to help increase site/paper/blog readership.

How will you apply? How will you be evaluated?

  • Traditional Applicant: Resume with impressive samples, clean resume, quality education, phone numbers for references.

vs.

  • Digital Applicant:  LinkedIn Account, this includes a good work history, quality education, samples of articles from the connected blog. The impression that you understand digital, with 500+ LinkedIn connections, a Twitter account with 3,000 followers a Klout score that shows that you influence people in a call to action style with your tweets/articles. A Facebook page that shows who you are as a person, Spouse? Parent? Sports Fan? Alumni? Hobbies? the things that provide comfort about the applicant being hired is of good and cohesive character to the organization. How about the power of say 12 “Recommendations” on LinkedIn from people who you can see are reputable, professional and also of good character.

If you’re going to spend money on mailing paper resumes or email spam, you might want to consider target marketing ads on Facebook or LinkedIn, as you’ll only pay for who you target when you know they have looked at you.

Why this matters?

Social Media transparency is better than the traditional background check, this gives you a look into what has been legally off limits and even though you may say it doesn’t belong as part of the hiring process, the data shows that it clearly is! Now consider the business model, the writer with the traditional resume path only tells they can do the work, the digital resume can show you that they can do the work and generate revenue!

How?

Writers generate content to create readers, the first shows they can create content that people might be interested in, the second using the digital resume shows that they CAN and DO produce followers and views for their content. If you’re an online media source, like a news paper gone digital, you NEED the second writer more. Advertising revenue is about “eyes” the more eyes you get on your content the more valuable the ad space is, the second writer shows that they can generate more “eyes” or views from the start.

Now the same can translate to PR positions, Sales, Business Development and any position where reaching people is important. Then imagine you’re a prospective employee that can show a following or influence over 50,000 people across the social networks that drives 10,000 clicks or views a month, you’re on your way to being your own business. Big brands got to their ivory towers on the shoulders of their employees being representatives in their communities, social media is an extension of that practice.

This is why it’s important to “Think Digital, Act Social”. Having transparency allows you to show value by using digital means to display who you are, the professional and the personal. Things like video, websites, social sites create a foundation that then allows you to act social by reaching out in both traditional networking and digital networking methods.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5e-6psDk8U]

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Jeff Pulver’s Second #BRANDSconf Kicks off This Month!

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The second Jeff Pulver’s #BrandsConf will be kicking off on November 9th, 2011. BrandsConf helps businesses to explore the options for ‘humanizing your brands’ as well as the possible effects this can have on your business.

In recent times, many businesses on and off the web have begun to find that utilizing Facebook and Twitter as a part of their business marketing plan has helped to firmly establish their presence on the web. This provides a new challenge in a business’s marketing campaign. Do you need to need a person, or a team of them to help establish and maintain your brand in the social world?

Views From BrandsConf on Humanizing Brands

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What to Expect at #Brandsconf

Instead of just standing by and watching those who have achieved success and trying to learn from them at a distance, Jeff Pulver has invited them to attend #Brandsconf  and participate in the vital discussions held there.

You will hear from some of the most creative and innovative thinkers who will share their personal knowledge from the inside of several types of business segments. Since brands can transcend business elements, Jeff Pulver’s hope for #Brandsconf is to have a wide variety of industries represented.

With the same tradition practiced in the #140 Conferences and events, panels will run for ten to twenty minutes and presentations will remain ten minutes long.

Exploring a wide range of topics with the best practices for corporate branding, everyone should be able to come away with a new insider perspective in their particular industry.

About Jeff Pulver

Jeff Pulver is a top-notch entrepreneur who grew up in Kings Point, New York.  Graduating from Great Neck North High School, some of his early accomplishments include the founding of Spreadsheet Solutions Corp. that marketed macros and add-ins for Excel and Lotus.

In 1995, Pulver cultivated an interest in Internet Telephony. During this time, he was a systems administrator for the Cantor Fitzgerald firm. In 2003, Business Week listed him as a tech guru. Co-founder and shareholder in Vonage, a voice-over-ip provider, Pulver also invented a device known as CellSocket. Cellsocket could make and receive cell voice calls through standard telephones.

Pulver also helps to organize the #140conf, or 140 Character Conference, and is an investor in many startup companies.

Guest Speaker Ryan Osborn (@rozzy) – Director of Social Media at @NBCNews

In the summer of 2010, Ryan Osborn was named the first social media director at NBC News. With earlier beginnings as an aspiring journalist, he went from a page on The Today Show in 2002, to reaching the rank of Director of Social Media. However, Osborn does not have the typical view of how to utilize social media.

Osborn concentrates his efforts on Facebook and Twitter in the form of extended storytelling editorials from NBC News, instead of using it solely as a marketing tool. Osborn knows his organization well and knows the specific personalities that make it function smoothly. He believes that if you tell the right story, it will market itself. Having discovered Twitter in 2007 at a SxSW conference, he carried this knowledge back to The Today Show and began a feed. Ryan brings loads of vital social media marketing knowledge to  #BrandsConf .

Please help share awareness for the event by sharing the Twitter hashtag #BrandsConf

Want to attend? Enter Discount / Coupon Code “dbmei.com” to save 10% OFF, special discount for dbmei.com readers.

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New Google Newsletter and Mobile Adwords Features

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Google Adwords launched new features in September 2011. These new features are geared towards making site clicks and even subscriptions to site newsletters or blogs easier to accomplish. Being able to get signed up to internal site options from the external source of a Google browser could go a long way in increasing traffic for those who utilize these methods.

AdWords Subscribe Option

Adwords now provides an option to allow Google search engine users to subscribe directly from a PPC ad. The option to subscribe to newsletters or email lists can be displayed on top or side ads.

All ads are displayed with “Privacy Info” that lets the viewer know that information shared in the input boxes will be shared with the advertiser.

Mobile Landing Pages

A recent study found that 61% of mobile browsers are not likely to return to a site that does not provide a good mobile experience. In response, Google initiated a shift in their policy that will now reward mobile sites with good optimization. Users with good mobile optimization who promote their sites with Google Adwords will now receive better performance. The ads created will drive traffic at a lower cost if they directly link to your site that is optimized for mobile users.

How Will This Affect Me?

If you are a business owner, whether or not you use Google Adwords, the time to optimize your site for mobile users is now. Even without the use of Google Adwords to promote a site, knowing that over half of mobile browsers will never return to your non-optimized site should be enough to push you into sprucing up your site to accommodate users on mobile devices. Getting rid of flash heavy content is a great step towards optimizing for mobile usage.

How Do I Optimize My Site for Mobile?

Google has offered a few suggestions to help you get your site optimized for mobile usage.

  • Keep the layout and design simple
  • Prioritize your content
  • Use markedly mobile features
  • Make your site easy to convert

If you want to know how well your site functions on mobile devices, grab your device and load up your site. If it is frustrating for you to navigate, you may want to make the changes required to encourage mobile use of your web pages.

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Summify Your Social Media Networks

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Keeping up with the most vital information in your industry was never made easier than with the inception of so many options in social networking. However, if you, like many others, find reading your Facebook and Twitter feeds to be increasingly more difficult as your network grows, it may be time to consider some of the options in news feed aggregation.

What is Summify?

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/15436623]

Integrated Ease

Instead of actually trying to keep up with lightspeed tweets and Facebook shares, the best thing you can do to save time, energy, and frankly frustration, is to head over to Summify and use their one-click integration options to log in via Twitter, Facebook, or Google.  You can choose to use only one network, or you can easily collaborate all three with a few more clicks.

From there you can configure how your summary is generated or you can sit back and wait for it to arrive in your inbox.

Inbox News Updates

Summify will determine by taking notice of your “Likes”, your trending topics, and the information in the industries you have the most influence, and make a daily progress report for you that is sent directly to your inbox. Users can choose to have this sent several times per day if desired.

Top tweets and the most often shared content will also be displayed along with those users names. See others in your fans or followers networks who have showed the same interest and utilize quick one-click buttons to add them to your network instantly.

View it as an email or as a webpage. Using the webpage option will give you far more interactive options.

Benefits of Summify

A very obvious benefit that makes Summify different is that this update will be sent to you per your desired frequency and will require no more effort on your part to configure than your original choices.  However, when you receive your emails you are given the chance to further refine your selections. Further benefits include:

  • Time Saving
  • Filtering Unneeded Info
  • Multi-Account Capability

When you receive emails from Summify you should open your articles from there. When you do, you are given the option to select a thumbs-up, or a thumbs-down option. Selecting the negative will prevent this type of content from being aggregated for you in the future.

Who Uses Summify?

Summify has seen a huge jump in user numbers in the last three months. Currently ranked at #5069 in the US, this aggregation option is beginning to be used widely on mobile devices due to its smooth compatibility with most options.

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SMX: What Makes Mobile Marketing Beneficial?

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Mobile marketing changed its definition in the early 2000’s when the original meaning, which was marketing on the go, changed into mobile search marketing, which are in essence, marketing techniques carried out over a mobile device.

SMS marketing is an advertising technique that involves the collection of mobile phone numbers to add to a messaging platform database. These numbers are collected so that when a special promotion or offer becomes available, the number list owner can send out a mass message to what they hope will be future repeat customers.

SMS marketing relies on opt-in users due to practices established by the Mobile Marketing Association to help prevent unwanted messaging, similar to the protection offered by the Federal Do Not Call registry. The fact that SMS messages are commonly read in the first four minutes after receipt means that this form of marketing is highly convertible.

Social Networking

Social networks are also playing a huge part in how consumers find desired products and services even while on the go. Studies show that 1/3rd of Facebook users access the social network via mobile devices. The same study showed that 56% of mobile users find local business information via the company’s website, while 55% of them find them through other social networker’s recommendations.

A New Digital World

If we thought SMS marketing was impressive, then came the smartphone. A new world of marketing was then opened in many new forms.

  • MMS – Multimedia message service
  • Mobile Web Marketing
  • In-Game Marketing
  • Mobile Marketing via QR Codes
  • User-Controlled Media

Ever-Changing Media

So exactly what is changing about mobile search marketing? For one, it has become infinitely more complex than the simple SMS original formats. Mobile search marketing is unique not only in its format, but also in the way that it approaches the consumer. Traditional forms of marketing can be a combination of intrusive versus elusive.

Intrusive methods include telephone marketing, television advertising, and even door-to-door sales. Although intrusive methods have shown their own positive statistics about effectiveness, many elements such as increased crime rates, new laws and regulations, or increasing costs have made the intrusive forms of marketing much less lucrative in recent years.

Elusive methods are the most effective and can include in-game marketing, user-controlled media, or mobile web marketing. This type of marketing is effective in the sense that the advertisements are usually an ‘in addition to’ or bonuses. For instance, users can play the free game on their phone, or they can purchase the nearby advertisement option to achieve ‘pro’ status on the game. Users can utilize a particular browser and that browser may support and advertise their own series of media, apps, or programs.

Mobile Marketing on the Rise

Although some marketers still argue that mobile queries constitute too little of an overall end-result to make the campaign effort worthwhile, it is a notable fact that Google’s mobile query share has grown over five times in the last couple of years. Mobile search continues to grow at an accelerated rate than traditional search options.

As with any advertising campaign, offline methods should also be considered to garner online conversions. Case studies also show that 37% of consumers admit to using mobile devices to search for more knowledge about a product or service advertised via radio ads, newspaper, or outdoor methods such as billboard advertisement.

There may be no time like the immediate present to gain pioneer advantages and initiate your mobile testing and paid search campaigns right away.

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Social Networking Statistics in Latin America

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Although Latin America makes up only 8.2% of the world’s population, they are the second largest consumer of social media.  The online behavior of Latin Americans is evolving right along with the rest of the world, but in many cases, a bit faster. The most popular social network by Latin America users is Facebook, while the most popular social network by time on site in Latin America is Orkut.

Latin American Social Media Statistics

  • Argentina and Brazil are currently among the world’s leading countries for Google+ usage.
  • Latin America has 118 million Facebook users with Bogota, Buenos Aires, and Mexican all holding top ten positions on this particular social network.
  • One-quarter of time spent online in Chile and Argentina is expended on social networks.
  • Latin America has 8.6 million LinkedIn users.
  • Users in Argentina spend 9 hours per month on Facebook; this is second only to users in Israel who boasts the top slot for user engagement.
  • There are over 55 million Twitter users in Latin America.
  • 14% of all Facebook users are Latin American.
  • Orkut is still the leading social network in Latin America by choice even though some statistics might show otherwise. Orkut has been a dominating social site since 2006.

Recent studies conducted by Synthesio show that social medias are also beginning to take on significant potential for agencies, consultants, and brands in Latin America.

How do Latin Americans Use Social Medias?

Although Latin Americans, like any other global population, uses social media to maintain cultural, regional and familial ties, the Synthesio study also shows the other elements most enjoyed by Latin American social networkers.

A social network named Sonico was created in 2007. This site was displayed in only Spanish or Portuguese. Unfortunately for Sonico, US competitors quickly overwhelmed it when they introduced their sites in the proper language formats.

Are Politics a Factor?

A ComScore survey showed that in April 2010, the Venezuelan audience on Twitter increased by 4.8% when Hugo Chavez joined the social network himself. The Brazilian campaign for president in 2010 also caused a frenzied deluge on social networks when candidate and subsequent winner, Dilma Roussef, acquired the services of the same web agency that had represented President Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign. The day that Roussef made an appearance on TV to send a message to her compatriots, Twitter messages peaked at over 90,000 during the period of 24 hours.

In the past year, Latin America’s social networking markets have seen an 88% gain in user engagement. Statistics like this should show us why it is so vital to incorporate social media marketing into every advertising campaign created for anything from the smallest startup, to the world’s largest enterprises.

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