It’s a given that social media is de rigueur, but companies can still be better listeners and communicators according to the latest A.T. Kearney Social Media Study.

Parsing the top 50 of Interbrand's list of 100 Best Global Brands, Kearney analysts found that 48 of the top 50 have a Facebook presence, reluctance to include social media as a core factor in customer outreach persists and levels of participation vary widely. Concomitantly, consumer use of online messaging has reached “a staggering quantity,” and the study posits that no FB presence may be preferable to a spotty or irrelevant one.

"The majority of companies we looked at are not moving toward a more interactive use of social media, even as their customers are becoming clearer about their expectation to interact with their brands,” stated Jim Singer, study sponsor and partner in A.T. Kearney's Consumer and Retail Industries practice.

The study focused on four distinct types of posts: personal, consisting of a question or statement not specifically promoting a product; promotional, maybe including a coupon; informative, with product-relevant information; external, referencing off-Facebook content with a link.Continue reading...

Visitors to Target's Facebook page will notice a Seussified version of the brand's iconic bullseye logo, tied to the retailer's cross-promotional marketing for Dr. Seuss' The Lorax movie, which opens on Friday. Look a little closer, and they'll also notice a tab that promotes group gift-giving.

The pitch for the just-launched FB app, called Give With Friends: "Going in on a group gift? It’s easy peasy with Target’s “Give with Friends”. Just choose an eGiftCard, invite people to pitch in, and surprise someone with something fun from the whole gang. Best part: You never even have to leave Facebook!"

The app is powered by ShopIgniter, a social commerce developer, which aims to create social buying experiences. Kevin Tate, ShopIgniter's CMO, told brandchannel the goal is “bringing ‘commerce’ to the conversation and content that brands have spent the last few years developing on the Social Web. We see Commerce as a key vehicle for these brands to monetize the (significant) investments they've made in their social presence."Continue reading...

eBay CEO John Donahoe, speaking at the DLD Conference last month in Munich, commented that: “Innovation is not driven by retailers. Innovation is technology-enabled and consumers are driving it. Consumers are in charge here.”

Now his online auction-based brand is looking to innovate by returning to its roots to create more of a community among its users — and, naturally, attract new useres.Continue reading...

The Facebook/Google wars are heating up.

Google is enticing sign-ups for Google+ — which zoomed out of invitation-only mode and into public worldwide release in just under the 90 days — by touting its "Hangouts" video-chat feature.

The virtual lounge, which lets up to nine people link up and chat on video and host online broadcasts, will be demonstrated via a live demo tonight, when The Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am hosts the first "Hangout on Air" at 7pm Eastern.Continue reading...

In the video above, special agents codenamed k, g, and b, search for products and services with ‘deal appeal’ in a campaign for kgbdeals, an offshoot of New York-headquartered kgb, which has successfully worked its way to #3 in the UK's daily deals space.

In the past three months, Google searches for Groupon have increased by 78% compared to the first quarter of the year, according to Sky News, and 112% growth in the same period for Living Social.

But the largest increase came from kgbdeals, which reportedly saw a 443% rise in traffic to them via search engine marketing.Continue reading...

American Express is offering its Facebook fans and merchant partners a deal — the first of many — they can't resist.

"Link, Like, Love" is not only a new tab on its FB page, but the cornerstone of new deals-based social initiatives that AmEx is unveiling today.

More than 100 participating merchants are on-board at launch, include H&M, Whole Foods Market, Lord & Taylor, Celebrity Cruises, 20th Century Fox, and Outback Steakhouse.Continue reading...

A new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), “The social shopper: harnessing the disruptive influence of social media,” sponsored by SAP, includes insight about the changing consumer/retailer dynamic and the substantial gap that exists between retailers and their efforts to capitalize on social media. 

The survey was based on 179 global retailers who were asked to “describe their companies' social media strategies/investments — how advanced they were, whether they extended to all reaches of the organization and whether they were being monetized,” according to Gilda Stahl, editor of the report and senior editor, EIU.

Four themes emerged from the EIU survey, following four general principles:Continue reading...

P&G has upped its F-commerce game with new Facebook stores for Tide, Gillette, Olay, Gain, CoverGirl, Luvs and Febreze, mixing social with detergents, cosmetics and diapers in a bid to fish where the fish are — and make it convenient for them to swim up to the checkout.

P&G's pilot store launched on Facebook last year, powered by Amazon, but now, the e-commerce functionality is being outsourced to PFSWeb's eStore, the CPG giant's independent online e-commerce site selling its branded products directly to consumers.

“Shop now” buttons on each brand page link to a retail page for e-commerce with a splash tab inviting fans to “Purchase on Facebook through these trusted retailers.”Continue reading...