This holiday season is the first chance for most retailers to test the selling power of Facebook and Twitter, and one early survey shows the strategy is working.
A survey conducted Dec. 4 to 7 showed 28 percent of shoppers who have already started buying gifts were influenced by social media, according to a report issued [...]

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I want to share a 10-step game plan for social-network involvement that I think will work for you. You don’t have to think of these steps as commandments; rather, they are practical guidelines that will make you a better member of the social-networking communities in which you participate.
Win the Right to Be Heard
Social-media engagement is [...]

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The current economy is a bumpy trail for many travel marketers. But Backroads is finding a clear path thanks to postcard mailings using personal URLs and other digital enhancements.
The high-end adventure travel company — which markets trips typically costing between $2,500 and $4,500 — first tried the tactic last winter with a 30,000-piece campaign that [...]

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There are numerous factors that will determine whether a hotel website is great. Such factors like simplicity of navigation, easy understandability of information and powerful functionality could all affect the user experience which in the end will be the deciding report card of the hotel website.
Hotels often take great extend in trying to provide the [...]

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A healthy skepticism can be a good thing when it comes to social media, as it is a new idea for most hotels and destinations. But for the general public, your target audience, social media has become a part of everyday Internet life. The benefits of social media are real, abundant and measureable.
The Internet has [...]

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Is Facebook really great for business? With over 300 million members and growing (50 percent of which log on to Facebook daily), it has to be… especially if you’re a B2C company.
From the perspective of a company using Facebook, the only legitimate options are Pages and Ads (aside from creating Facebook apps of course, and [...]

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Most businesses are well aware of how to market to Generation X (those born 1961-1981), mainly because so many people in business today are part of Generation X.
But as Gen Xers move into midlife (the oldest are 48, and youngest are 28), we are seeing a dramatic shift in how they view the world and [...]

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E-mail remains a very powerful marketing tool when used correctly. E-mail usually has a higher psychological value than other social media communication. If you are consistently delivering value in your messages people will listen to what you have to say. They may even take action.
With all the hype over social media during the past several [...]

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Reward and incentive-based promotions, which include a wide range of marketing strategies, such as sweepstakes, contests, loyalty/rewards, couponing, sampling, and other incentive offers, are gaining new popularity in these uncertain economic times.
This resurgent popularity is partly due to the power of promotions to interest, engage, and activate targeted consumer responses, and to produce immediate [...]

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