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Congratulations to @DanBarker – our reigning #TheDigitals superstar of the week : Who will be next?

https://assets.econsultancy.com/images/resized/0002/9139/the-digitals-superstar-badge-week-3-blog-third.pngIt’s been yet another busy week on #TheDigitals leaderboard, with over 6,000 of you tweeting and sharing some amazing content that you think is worthy of an illustrious Digital award. Thanks for all your tweets and contributions, we’re really building up a huge library of outstanding digital content. 

The familiar face of @DanBarker is still sitting proudly at the top of the board for a second week, managing to clock up an astounding 210 mentions in the last week! Well done again Dan – influence in action! 

So the question is: Who can knock him off the top spot and be our next Digital Superstar? 

TD Bank bets on Google+ as a search play

For all of the time and money companies are investing in social media, marketers continue to grapple with basic questions about ROI. Is the investment worth it? Can the potential pay-off ever be measured accurately?

Progress in answering these questions varies from business to business, but at least one company has decided that its latest investment in social is really an investment in search.

Three examples of the psychology of social networks influencing user behavior

As the social media landscape has evolved, marketers have focused on the trends and psychology of sharing.

However, as the market changes, there may be a tipping point as to how much media we actually want to consume and share. 

So how do social media platforms impact consumer behavior? And how and why do social media networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter continue to influence us?

Online retailers cash in on Valentine’s Day: infographic

Well, it’s that day again. Valentine’s Day is here yet again to the delight of retailers everywhere. No wonder, when online sales in the US and the UK have continued to rise year-over-year in the run up to Valentine’s Day and retailers have had to learn to scale for seasonal surges.  

The folks over at Rakuten, the online marketplace that’s quickly catching up to Amazon and eBay, shared a few stats and a lovely infographic (don’t say we didn’t give you anything for Valentine’s!) detailing the global spending trends surrounding this love-sick holiday. 

Australian marketers, why are you benchmarking yourselves?

Marketers, you are not normal. 

You may think you know what the average consumer wants, but the reality is that you do not have normal internet habits, you do not shop like the average consumer does and you do not have average social media knowledge. You cannot be a focus group.

This is the message that ExactTarget is attempting to get out in their new report, Marketers From Mars, which compares marketers’ use of email, social media and other channels against that of consumers – and is something Econsultancy has raised before as being an issue within the industry. 

Rubio Water: not every marketing opportunity is worth pursuing

Marketers have more channels than ever in which to hawk their wares, and combined with our 24/7, media-obsessed culture, marketers arguably have more opportunities than ever to reach consumers.

For better or worse, marketers are under enormous pressure to capitalize on these opportunities. But increasingly, it’s worth asking: just how many of them are really worth pursuing?

This is a question the marketers behind Poland Spring had to answer when United States Senator Marco Rubio needed a sip of water during his televised response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. Yes – he happened to reach for a bottle of Poland Spring. Rubio’s thirst-quenching move was likely seen by millions and, perhaps undeservedly, became one of the biggest highlights on one of the biggest nights in U.S. politics.

Social lessons from the traditional loyalty program playbook

Anyone who tells you a tweet is worth a specific amount of money is wrong. One source will tell you a tweet is worth 1/10th of a cent and another will tell you it’s worth $5. A Facebook Like, meanwhile, is valued from $8 to $137.84. With figures varying so wildly it’s easy to see this can’t be a reliable measurement because the number is inevitably based on opinion.

When you consider this premise, it’s not surprising that many brands aren’t getting the engagement they had hoped to see from social. According to ExactTarget, 51 percent of fans say they rarely or never visit a company’s page after “liking” them. And 71 percent of fans say they have become more selective about “liking” companies on Facebook.

Six examples of mobile marketing excellence

To celebrate the launch of our new digital marketing and ecommerce awards, #TheDigitals, I’ve rounded up six brilliant examples of innovation in mobile.

It follows a recent post that flagged up five great examples of social media marketing excellence.

To avoid any accusations of bias, these are all examples that fall outside the eligibility period for the current awards, but give an idea of the sort of thing we are looking for.

#TheDigitals are the new awards that recognise the best in digital marketing and ecommerce. Award entries must be submitted online before the deadline March 13, 2013.

Twitter: brands need to use humour to connect with consumers

Everyone who uses Twitter, which is presumably 90% of the people reading this, no doubt follows at least one or two comedians or spoof accounts that are there purely for entertainment value. 

And it’s this comic element that Twitter’s UK director Bruce Daisley believes brands need to tap into to develop more meaningful conversations with their customers.

At Bite’s Empty13 event, Daisley light-heartedly suggested that the UK is unique in that its citizens love to find humour in the darker side of life – so while we all enjoyed the highs of 2012 such as the Jubilee and the Olympics, we also love to revel in the troughs that lie in between. 

He gave the example of two of the most retweeted posts of recent memory. The one that captured the American public’s imagination most was Barack Obama’s touching image celebrating his re-election.

Can social identity improve ecommerce?

A recent Gartner press release suggested a major change in the way we might interact with ecommerce in within the next few years. Their prediction is that by 2015 fully half of retail customer identities will be based on social network identities. The report’s main thrust is on the impact of this shift on IT and security infrastructure, but what is much more interesting is the potential for a more direct connection between purchase and social identity.

The logic behind this potential growth is the frictionless “log-in with Facebook or twitter” option that allows customers to skip the laborious sign up or registration process.  But the obvious question that arises is:  What happens when social identity becomes purchaser identity? When you consider the potential meshing of purchase data with social data there appears to be a huge opportunity here for e-commerce sites to improve sales and build loyalty.

Google lays out its argument for brands to get mobile

It’s fair to say that Google has a vested interest in encouraging brands to make better use of mobile, but it can’t be denied that it also makes a very compelling argument.

At Bite’s Empty13 event this morning Google’s MD of UK and Ireland Dan Cobley spoke about the need for a mobile strategy and how the technology is changing the way brands communicate with their customers.

Kicking off with a stat attack, Cobley pointed out that smartphone penetration is now at 62% in the UK and is predicted to reach 75% by the end of the year.

He also predicted that mobile search queries would exceed the number from desktop by the end of the year.

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