People are more likely to trust information coming from people they know. Therefore, the folks at Google have come up with a new type of search engine that includes your personal online social networks.
In the tutorial video below, Google show you how their new social search engine works by giving an example of “getting to know Zurich”. In the video, Google outline that in the past, one can search and find information on Zurich on the usual travel site. But with the new “social search”, your friends on Facebook, Twitter, …

Time really flies. It’s already the second month of the new year and many of you know that this year is going to be the year of social media marketing. From my previous post, we know that SMEs will devote more marketing budget to social media instead of traditional media. But where will the money go? Well, in this post, we will explore some of the avenue where social media budget will flow to this year.

While more and more companies are trying to break the ’social media code’, many seem to understand that consumers no longer find it exciting to friend a brand with just a single click of the mouse on the brand’s Facebook page. If that is the case, why are there so many companies trying to increase spending on social media in 2010? Probably because it’s easier to follow the crowd than redefine marketing around consumer’s touchpoint.
Nathaniel Perez provided some guiding principles to help us get beyond the tactical earned social media …

It seems like conducting survey is a trend now. Everyone I know are coming up with surveys to understand their target market. Therefore, to follow the crowd, I too have a survey I need you to help me with. ‘Challenges Marketers Face With Social Media‘ is a survey to find out more about what challenges you are facing with when it comes to social media. It also allows me to understand how I can design my programs to help you meet those challenges. So, please help me help yourself by …

Not long ago, Channel NewsAsia posted a report highlighting the importance of monitoring social media for corporate reputation. In the report, they suggest SMEs invest more to monitor what is being said because it would affect the company’s reputations as well as business prospects.
One of the example highlighted in the article is the protests against US beef imports in South Korea in 2008. experts says that the reason the matter blew out of proportion is because the South Korean authorities did not monitor the rumors on the cyberspace about the …

Anyone can start a conversation about social media. You don’t have to be from the communications department to do it. Whether you are from HR, customer service, finance, PR, sales and marketing, everyone can contribute and open a discussion to help your company progress forward in the areas of social media. The intent is to get you on the phone or even email and ask for 15 minutes of  time from people that can move social media forward in your organization.
You can ask them two or three questions that can …