Twitter’s growing usage has caused a lot of uneasiness on the part of branding experts. The ability for customers to quickly express their opinions – positive or negative – in an instantly, globally public forum means marketers have lost another inch of ground in the battle for brand control. At this point, Twitter marketing is no longer optional: controlling the conversation surrounding your brand is part of crafting your brand’s message.

Watching out for mentions of your brand on Twitter (more on that later) and responding to them is a great start, but it’s not the only reason to be watching Twitter. Those of you who work in a less Twitter-focused industry than, say, search engine marketing may find a hidden benefit to Twitter marketing – not only are you paying attention (because you’re such a smarty pants), some of your competitors probably aren’t.

This is where you can get sneaky. And by “get sneaky,” I mean “demonstrate quality customer service to users and prospects.”

Social networking sites like Facebook are the next big frontier for online advertising. Their audiences are large and inviting, and there’s ample opportunity to reach the users you’re looking for. But even with the large amount of potential Facebook provides, many advertisers don’t know how to approach the service, and sometimes the results aren’t predictable.
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If you are among the very few people who are not yet LinkedIn, here’s some good news: it is not too late. However, you should probably hurry as more individuals and businesses begin to see the value behind professional social networks.

Members of Point It attended two social media events last week. One put on by the Seattle Direct Marketing Association and the other by the Puget Sound America Marketing Association. Apparently social media is all the rage these days and marketers are flocking to these events just to make sure they don’t miss a beat [...]