2009 brought big changes and big growth for the online video market. Consumers viewed 33.2 billion videos in December, generating a 132% increase over the same period in the previous year. Google continued to own the market with its YouTube property but Hulu moved into second place with 3% of the online video market. comScore statistics show that viewing online video is a widespread consumer activity with an online participation rate of 86.5%.

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Mullen, and Radian6, a leader in social media measurement, created BrandBowl2010, a Twitter/Super Bowl experience that combined tweeting, ad reviews and a host of metrics to let viewers generate and view real time ratings of the TV commercials that ran on the big game.

Do you trust me? Social media relies on the premise that we’ll believe what people tell us more readily than if we were told the same thing by a nameless, faceless company. That’s why brands go to great lengths to humanize themselves on the social Web. But, a new study by Edelman (whose digital arm features [...]

The National Retail Federation released its 2010 economic forecast recently, projecting retail industry sales (which exclude automobiles, gas stations, and restaurants) will increase 2.5% from 2009. According to its bi-monthly Retail Sales Outlook, influential economic indicators such as the housing market and employment are beginning to show positive signs, which will bolster consumer confidence throughout the year. Analysts still expect shoppers to continue to be frugal with their discretionary spending, but say retailers will soon be able to reap the benefits of leaner, smarter inventories and a year and a half of pent up consumer demand.

Most analysts and marketers know that younger consumers have typically been bigger Internet users than older consumers. Web use by younger consumers is nearly ubiquitous (93%) while adults over age 65 now have a usage rate of 65%. The bigger news, according to a Pew Internet and American Life Project report, is that the type of Internet use varies drastically by age group.

After a difficult 2008 and 2009, analysts are seeing improvement in the ad market for sporting events. This improvement is particularly obvious in TV and online media formats. One category that has upped its buying rate for event advertising is automotive, according to a report in Sports Business Journal.

The Levelwing Blog was selected as Fuel Lines' Agency Blog of the Month for January capturing 42% of the vote from among the agency blogs submitted. Levelwing Media is a full-service digital advertising agency headquartered in New York City and an office in Charleston, SC.

One of the favorite ways consumers like to save on their online purchases is by searching for free shipping offers. Consumers love free shipping, and e-commerce sites that can provide it are often more successful than those who do not. Compete.com released results from a recent Online Shopper Survey citing that free shipping would encourage 93% of respondents to purchase more online.

Ad-ology Research recently updated their Industry Marketing Insights report for Electrical Supply Distributors.

Opening day is weeks away but some baseball fans will soon be hearing pitches that entice them to make their lawns look just as nice as the grass on the diamond at their favorite ballpark. This year, The Scotts Company, LLC is the ?Official Lawn Care Company of Major League Baseball.? According to press releases, Scotts will be selling branded grass seed and fertilizer that has been specially formulated to match what fans see in their ballparks.

I’ve been making a few tweaks to Convince & Convert recently, with the help of my friend (and Wordpress/SEO ninja) Chuck Reynolds. We’ve added Disqus as the commenting system. Changed the sharing tools to incorporate Sexy Bookmarks plug-in (Michael Stelzner at Social Media Examiner turned me on to it). We’re working on tweaking the subscription center [...]

Wow. Remember when MySpace was the dominant social network? Seems like a long time ago, as the past three years have seen Facebook approach, catch, and blow past MySpace to become our preferred online hangout spot. Now, new data released by Facebook and third party researchers show just how influential Facebook has become in our daily [...]

Jordan Mccollum at Marketing Pilgrim has a piece on the Hitwise December numbers and I thought they were interesting, as well as potentially helpful to agencies with a retail focus. Per the graph below, downstream traffic from social networks to retail sites is up 37%.

As Jordan asks:

So is it more because users are recommending deals to their friends, or is it because of retailers? presence on social networks?

Good question. Seems inevitable with these numbers consistently trending upward that big brands will continue to focus more dollars on social. As ever, the comments after the piece were also interesting. Take for example these two extremes:

Great statistics. I think that social media will grow enormously in next 12 months. Because people have this feeling that social media sites like Facebook or MySpace represent more personal information, then you can ever put into the About me page or the blog or website.

And then the other example:

I just cannot see how/why Social advertising works?most are teenagers wasting time. I focus on search.

Showing yet again, just how much social media is still the Wild West.

Read Jordan's piece, Social Network Traffic to Retail Grows here.

You?ve probably heard of ADBOWL, but you may not know that the idea originated at a midsize ad agency?s Super Bowl party in Albuquerque, NM. Ten years later, growing in size every year, the idea has paid great dividends to the agency generating national television, press coverage and positioning it as an industry leader.

Carton Donofrio Partners, a small Baltimore advertising agency has created a ambitious campaign that bring advertisers, agencies and the media together to stop advertising madness. The campaign is also providing a unique way to build some national buzz and awareness for the agency.

There are many ways social media differs from traditional marketing. It’s approachable and human. It’s a two-way dialog, rather than unilateral declarations. It treats the customer as a teammate, rather than a target. But there’s another big difference. In social media, the audience comes after the message, not before. Remember that when you buy a print [...]

A national survey provides insight into what marketers want from their agencies in the next 12 months. The Agency of the Future Survey, sponsored by Sapient. Though this survey was conducted just over a year ago, it is an insightful look back as well as a look forward and still has relevance for agencies today.

If you’re going to succeed on Facebook, you don’t just have to be more interesting than other companies, you have to be more interesting than my friends and relatives. Are you prepared for that? My friend Jeff Widman runs BrandGlue, a consultancy that helps companies better manage their Facebook fan pages. He told me recently that [...]

Examples of ad agency blogs. Review and decide which of them really ?gets it? when it comes to social media. Pick-up ideas for your own blog. The following 11 advertising agency blogs have been submitted to Fuel Lines. Vote for the best agency blog for the month of January. The winner will be featured on Fuel Lines throughout the month and included in the voting for ad agency blog of the year.

Automatically send the latest feeds from your page to your fans' email inboxes. A free Email Newsletter application allows your agency's fans to keep track of new activity on your agency's Facebook Fan Page. The NutshellMail Facebook application allows users to add an ?Email Newsletter? tab to their fan page, letting fans opt-in to receiving emails that highlight recent content from your page.

Among the many exceptionally interesting data snacks in the recent MarketingProfs’ State of Social Media report is one showing that businesses of all sizes and types are primarily using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, and blogging. And while it’s on one hand a positive that we’re stating to see some norms and best practices emerge within social [...]

I've reviewed enough agency Websites that my eyes are almost permanently crossed. So many agencies trying to impress with a lot of flash they forget that prospective clients need a quick way to be given " just the facts" about your agency.

Did you know the United States Speedskating team has won 75 Olympic medals, making it the most successful U.S. winter Olympics sport? But the global economic bear doesn’t take medal count into consideration, and last year the speedskating team was without a title sponsor when Dutch bank DSB went bankrupt. (Why a U.S. bank didn’t sponsor [...]

The divine corporate blogging expert Debbie Weil recently asked this question on her blog, as part of a Kindle version refresh of her excellent book “The Corporate Blogging Book.” Debbie asked me to think about whether a blog should be the social media hub – your epicenter, the place where you’re trying to bring your customers [...]