Burst Media, an online media company and wholly owned subsidiary of blinkx PLC, released the results of a survey revealing how and why web users interact with brands via social media. Conducted in March among 2,577 U.S. online adults, the study found that the effectiveness of social cues in advertisements varies by the medium.

Medio, which specializes in optimizing the acquisition, retention, and monetization of mobile users, announced the launch of K-Invite. Named after the viral coefficient "K," K-Invite empowers mobile app developers and marketers to create and track the virality of their mobile applications. The net result is higher quality installs at a fraction of the cost charged by traditional ad networks.

Kenshoo Social, a social marketing platform, published a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, "The Key to Successful Social Advertising," that evaluates how marketers are using social advertising, with the goal of educating marketers on how to develop social media strategy and activate the most effective tactics.

Spongecell, a creative technology company that creates dynamic, interactive online ad experiences, has added IP geolocation technology from Digital Element, a provider in IP Intelligence and geolocation solutions, to help brand advertisers and their creative and media agencies deliver more engaging and effective video and display campaigns.

TIE Kinetix, a software-as-a-service company that facilitates every step of the e-commerce lifecycle, announced the launch of its Social Media Syndication Solution as an addition to its Content Syndication Platform. The new element is designed to help companies accurately and effectively deliver marketing messages on a dynamic basis through the partner community via Twitter, while closing the marketing loop at the partner level.

Facebook's January announcement for fourth quarter 2012 revealed 1.06 billion monthly active users on the site and, with those numbers, marketers expect their reach to be vast within the social network. Instead, they were disappointed. A 10-15% view rate of page posts isn't a number that social media marketers like, especially on the most popular social media platform available on the internet, but many continue to struggle with understanding how to be seen.

For every brave soul that posts a comment on a website or blog there are likely hundreds of others simply lurking in the background. Content providers crave interaction and want to encourage discussion, yet many find themselves faced with a dearth of comments, save for perhaps those spammy postings that pop up every once in a while. What can they do?

"Cyber Monday" may have come and gone, but that doesn't mean America is done with its online holiday shopping. In fact, a recent LivePerson survey found that 63% of shoppers plan to do 50% or more of their holiday shopping online. And this holiday season retailers have relatively new tool at their disposal with sites like the wildly-popular Pinterest.

If it's not your job to pour over your site's Google Analytics results you may not have noticed that the search giant announced, just over a year ago, that it would make SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) search the default for signed-in users - and you definitely wouldn't have realized the effect this has on your company's SEO efforts. Optify recently took a look at what this change has meant for marketers and put its findings into a study dubbed "Google Not Provided On the Rise: The Impact of Google's SSL Enhancement on SEO Data."

With a global audience, not only of sports enthusiasts but family viewers as well, the Olympic Games are a potential goldmine for advertisers. But the Games starting in London offer greater opportunities than ever before, because these are the first ever to be streamed online in their entirety.

If "knowledge is power," as the saying goes, then content analytics is a game-changer for any digital publisher concerned with harnessing the power of content. Today, content providers know more about their audiences than ever before. All the data in the world isn't worth much unless you know how to make sense of it and, more importantly, can put a plan into action that capitalizes on what you know.

Customers are one of a company's most valued assets. At the same time, customer data is one of the most valuable assets a company can acquire and use. Knowing how and why a customer is drawn to a company's products and services provides insights organizations can use to deepen that customer engagement into a very profitable relationship. Fortunately for organizations--and especially their marketers--there are many customer data tools that can help a company most effectively and efficiently collect and analyze that customer data.

If you're considering adding online display advertising to your media mix, your first impressions may be one of confusing three-letter acronyms and an overwhelming number of vendors and technologies. So how do you make sense of this complex market and identify the right approach for your marketing goals?

With the emergence of digital natives, companies are questioning how best to gain brand awareness with this sizable new group. As Celia Goodnow of the Seattle PI noted in her article "Millennials Thrive on Choice, Instant Results," Millennials are the second-largest generation in U.S. history after the Baby Boomers. They are coming into their own and companies want to determine how best to market to them and generate sales from them.

A number of companies have taken the "we know our market" approach by using a simple demographic definition of the market, as opposed to defining the market based on an understanding of the drivers of demand. Knowing these drivers offers far more insight when establishing a market strategy.

By the time you read this column, Facebook's redesigned Timeline and News Feed will be old news. But as I was casting around for column ideas, I instant messaged my friend Mike--otherwise known as @tech_envy--and asked him what he thought I should write about. I was stuck for ideas. He wanted to talk integration. Specifically, he wanted to talk about the changes to Facebook's look, which would put new emphasis on your activity.

There are many different kinds of analytics in today's world of technology and information management: web analytics, predictive analytics, social analytics, etc. If you work closely with a web CMS or an ECM system, you have probably run into the notion of content analytics. But chances are good that no one ever bothered to explain what it is exactly and how one uses it.

Social TV is making headlines as broadcasters endeavor to monetize their audiences whose attention is now spread simultaneously across multiple platforms. It is now common knowledge that most TV viewers, while watching their favorite shows, are actively engaged in social media conversations about the shows. Broadcasters have largely seen this phenomenon as an opportunity to grow the audience of their TV programs and accompanying websites, thereby increasing the value of those properties. However many broadcasters have been seeking ways to harness their social media audiences to create new incremental revenue streams. This may sound futuristic but, in many ways, the emerging business model actually harkens back to the earliest days of broadcast media.

The controversy concerning online brand marketing has returned to the pages of the digital marketing trades once again, as industry insiders and pundits are weighing in on the latest iterations of the old debates regarding banners, clicks, emerging formats like "native ads", and the viability of brand marketing online in general. It's time to take a break to consider the most current data.

She was at least six inches taller than me but I was in love. Or what passes for love as a 14 year old boy in middle school. Lori was tall, blonde, and a super-smart basketball player with the sweetest southern accent you have ever heard. The eighth grade dance was almost here and I had to work up the nerve to ask her to go with me. My hands were sweaty, my heart rattled like a subwoofer in my chest, and my already cracking voice was hitting Mariah Carey high notes with ease. Was this love? If so, it was the scariest thing I had ever experienced in my life.