View Points : Social Media Examiner

By Cindy King
January 1, 2013

Are you wondering what 2013 might look like for social media marketing?

If the changes seen in 2012 are an indicator, there will be a lot more change in 2013.

To get a grip on what the near future may look like, we tapped the knowledge of 21 social media pros.

Here’s what they had to say.

And if you’re curious, here were the 2012 predictions.

#1: Ecommerce and Social Media Grow Together

Viveka Von Rosen

I don’t know about the world in general, but I am fascinated with the movement of ecommerce and predict that it will continue to trend in 2013.

When I asked my personal ecommerce expert Gideon Lask (CEO and founder of BuyaPowa), he said one huge trend in ecommerce will be the continued empowerment of the consumer.

“No one telling the shopper what to buy, when to shop and how much to pay. Too many retailers are failing by not realizing that consumers want to do it on their terms. Time to give them the key to the car. Empower them and you’ll win loyalty.”

Continue Reading

By Phil Mershon
September 6, 2012

Small businesses can stand out in a big way with Facebook.

If you’re looking for some creative examples of Facebook pages from the small guys, look no further!

More than 1,800 nominations came in from our contest. These represent over 500 small businesses.

Our panel of Facebook experts carefully reviewed the nominees and finalists, analyzing their landing pages, engagement, reader involvement and creative use of promotions (among other things).

None of these businesses have huge budgets, yet they all have achieved amazing success. The following are the winners of Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Small Business Facebook Pages for 2012:

By Phil Mershon
June 22, 2012

***UPDATE: Congratulations to our winners! Stacie Walker won 2 tickets for her winning comment and Phil Mendelowitz won 1 ticket in the Twitter contest.

Want to win a free ticket to the largest online blogging workshop for businesses?

Social Media Examiner founder Michael Stelzner will be teaching a step-by-step course to help your business thrive with blogging.

And we’ve come up with a fun way to get you involved.

First, what is this event?

Blogging Fundamentals for Business is an online workshop that will empower you as a marketer and business owner to attract quality prospects, elevate your industry prominence and improve your sales with blogging.

By Nichole Kelly
June 6, 2012

Are you wondering if measuring social media return on investment (ROI) is important?

Do you cringe when you think about putting together another report?

You aren’t alone. But times are changing for social media and these reasons will show you why it’s time to get serious about measuring your results.

Do I Really Need to Measure ROI?

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room. Is ROI the right measure of success for social media?

There are many who would argue that a financial return doesn’t show the true value of social media for the organization. I would agree that ROI doesn’t paint the full picture.

However, the bottom line is that executives and business owners sleep, eat, and breathe ROI. It has been the measure of success since the beginning of their careers and while we can jump up and down and tell them it isn’t a complete picture, they aren’t going to believe it until they see it.

Therefore, it’s time to get serious about ROI, but that doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice other types of metrics that help to round out the story. You need both and this is why.