Time will tell which are the most appropriate and which have the highest return on investment, but it is worth all brands learning the basics of Twitter usage for marketing purposes and in particular for PR. We wrote earlier this week about how brands should use social media marketing instead of email . Tags: social media marketing Comcast freshminds web2.0 Again this week, Twitter has been high on the media agenda. As is always the case during a time of innovation, brands are experimenting with lots of different ways of using Twitter.

This is a relatively new online community from one of the major players in the UK supermarket market. This fits well with the open and friendly brand they have developed and so would reinforce their position in the market. Tags: social media Virtual community marketing Asda Online Community Examples starbucks freshminds web2.0 For the second in our series of Online Community Examples , we move on to look at online communities in the retail industry. Online communities in the retail industry

And satisfied and united members mean an effective and engaged support base for your cause. Tags: social media Virtual community marketing AARP Online Community Examples freshminds FreshNetworks Blog web2.0 online communities customer communities United States Navy Social network FreshNetworks word of mouth Oxfam Web Barack Obama presidential campaign 2008 Non-profit organization US navy Marketing and Advertising qualitative market research Social Media navy for moms United States A busy week at FreshNetworks has meant that we’re a little later than expected  bringing you the third in our series of Online Community Examples .

When I speak at marketing conferences, I like to ask the audience whether they spend more on email marketing or on social media. Email is very much in the ‘push’ marketing category, while online communities and social networks engage people. Most importantly, they encourage peer-to-peer marketing, which we know people trust more than messages from any brand. I was the expert blogger in this week’s edition of Management Today on innovation in business. Having written about the Nielsen Global Faces and Networked Places report earlier this week,

The statistics, from MarketingSherpa , look at the barriers that organisations cite as having stopped them from adopting social media marketing techniques in their firm. Of the 1,886 firms interviewed who had not embraced social media as a marketing tool, 46% cited a lack of knowledgeable staff as being a significant reason for this. The second most popular response was an inability to measure ROI , A new report out this week suggests that the biggest hindrance in the adoption of social media is a lack of knowledge. That these two reasons are cited by firms are not a surprise

Tags: social media Natural History Museum social networks marketing wallace collection museum national museums online learning project online research communities freshminds creative spaces advertising online communities Research 2.0 customer communities marketing 2.0 Social network FreshNetworks On the Web V&A Social Media National Portrait Nine museums in the UK launch Creative Spaces This week in the UK saw the beta launch of Creative Spaces .

Tags: social media qualitative market research Social Media Virtual community online market research freshminds Blog innovation market research United Kingdom Social networks Matt Rhodes web2.0 Two-thirds of the world’s entire online population have visited ‘Member communities’, including social networks , online communities and blogs , according to Nielsen’s Global Faces and Networked Places report. This places social networks and online communities as the fourth most popular category of online activities, ahead of personal email.

RATM spent nothing on marketing and yet they made it to Christmas No.1. Point of purchase marketing – both in store, and also on the homepages of iTunes, Amazon, Play.com and Tesco.com (the four major MP3 retailers in the UK). 0 marketing budget - Rage Against the Machine on Facebook Rage Against the Machine (RATM) have just had their first UK Number 1.

Tags: social media qualitative market research TED Social Media Twitter online market research Evan Williams freshminds innovation market research United Kingdom Social networks Matt Rhodes web2.0 There’s a lot of talk about Twitter at the moment in the press and across the web. From how brands should be using Twitter , to the impact that mass adoption is having .

customer communities FreshNetworks Sun Guardian the sun the independent qualitative market research Social Media Twitter online market research Mass media market research innovation United Kingdom Matt Rhodes co-creation Liverpool Jonathan Ross UK the guardia Image via CrunchBase It’s been a busy week for news this week, but one thing that struck me was the amount of discussion in the press in the UK about Twitter.