About Social Marketing

I had the pleasure of listening to Rachel Botsman, author of What's Mine Is Yours? The Rise of Collaborative Consumption at our ExactTarget Connect Conference in Sydney, Australia. Her presentation was absolutely brilliant and full of ideas about using technology to "empower people to make meaningful connections. Connections that are enabling use to rediscover a humanness that we lost somewhere along the way." 

During her presentation she made a comment that hit pretty hard. 

(I'm paraphrasing here...) We should have never called it social media. It has always been social design. Social design...

That is a familiar image, isn't it? The well-traveled, world-weary suitcase, littered with stickers from places visited from Alaska to Zimbabwe. The trusty suitcase that is lugged from state to state and country to country: it may be battered and bruised, but it serves its owner well as they globe-trot across the world.

I used to be envious of the owners of those suitcases. That image motivated me to have my own beat-up, decorated travel companion to visit far off places with.

I have been living outside of America for almost nine years now. I lived in Sydney, Australia for just under five years...

The ExactTarget team invites you to participate in our #ETCafe Twitter chat this Thursday (and every Thursday) from 11am - 12pm ET, where we discuss emerging topics and trends from across the interactive marketing world. This virtual coffee chat is hosted directly on Twitter by @ExactTarget using the hashtag #ETCafe.

This week, we're excited to have Simms Jenkins (@SimmsJenkins) founder & CEO of BrightWave Marketing (@BrightWave). Tied to the launch of his second book, The New Inbox, this week's chat will discuss the future of email, how to truly integrate social and mobile, and what trends and...

Welcome to another edition of the Baer Facts. This is our second in-person interview from Myrtle Beach, SC for New South Digital Conference! Please pardon the sound quality. We had Allie Wallis of the Brandon Agency record the discussion with Jay's iPhone. 

Today we talk about the massive changes that have been happening in the digital and social media space from the Google+ layout changes to Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr. What does it mean for content development? What does it mean for social media? What does it mean for the digital marketer? Jay and I break it down in this 24th edition of the...

Summer is heating up here at our Indianapolis headquarters, and our May product release delivered a few new features with plenty of sizzle over the weekend. Whether aimed to save you time, optimize your marketing efforts, or just make our interface easier to navigate, we think you’ll really like these new enhancements.

And don’t forget—we have free training on product release features via 3sixty. It’s interactive, and takes less than 30 minutes.

1. It’s Here! Send to Multiple Data Extensions
This long-requested new feature gives you the ability to save time by sending to a large data set in one...

In today’s digital era, brands are trying everything to stand out from the crowd. With more channels, more users and more campaigns than ever before, breaking through the white noise is becoming even more difficult. There is no special formula, process or social media "expert" that can guarantee success when it comes to these efforts. For Dick’s Sporting Goods, they have found a way.

@DICKS simply asked, “What do you #RunFor?” It seems like a simple enough question. And then you think about it. Running is hard work. It can be painful. There’s rarely a tangible reward at the end of a run. So,...

Social media has impacted everything from daily friendships to business practices. But one of the most dynamic effects of social media is how it has blurred the lines between customer service and marketing.

As a CMO, you know that your brand needs to go beyond listening and start doing. When it comes to social media, a further examination between customer experience and marketing has led us to three essential truths that CMOs should know about the social space. (Read the full list of truths and background information in our free-to-download whitepaper.)

The first truth for CMOs to grasp is that r...

At ExactTarget, we’re passionate about our clients—they’re some of the best brands we know, and we’re often inspired by their dedication to the work they do. And Von Maur is an excellent example! From the company’s start in the late 1800s until now, Von Maur has always put their customers first.

If you’ve visited one of the retail chain’s stores, you know what I mean—impeccable service, inviting décor, musical ambiance, and top-notch products. And while the company’s perfected their signature “above and beyond” service in stores, Von Maur wants customers to experience the same great service...

When people talk about the basic elements of a successful email marketing campaign, there are a lot of facets to consider—responsive design, relevant messaging, personalization, pertinent send time, and beyond. But one facet of a successful email campaign that many marketers regrettably overlook is deliverability. After all, no matter how great the email, if it doesn’t reach the inbox, it can’t be effective.

Which brings us to Sky Angel.

Sky Angel came to ExactTarget in 2007 after experiencing deliverability issues sending emails from their internal servers. As a faith and family television...

Are you a digital marketer? Do you work for a travel brand? If you answered yes, then this blog post is for you!

ExactTarget recently released Reaching Today’s Digital Traveler, a compilation of tips and tactics that are critical for digital marketers in the travel and hospitality industry. Here’s the list of tactics, plus the questions you should ask yourself to keep your digital communication strategy on track.

1. Grow Your Subscriber list

To determine why your brand might be missing out on conversations with interested and ready-to-purchase travelers, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you...

When it comes to the marketing industry, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve. Not long ago, digital marketing was only a whisper within corporate marketing teams – now it’s here, it’s as competitive as ever and it’s completely changing the way we do business. Here are my predictions for what’s to come over the next year.

Smart, personalised content
It’s time to stop being oh-so-frightened of data capture and start taking advantage of the fact that personalised content makes browsing the web an absolute pleasure! Take Linkedin, for example – simply log in and you’re presented with the...

It should come as no surprise that traditional advertising is no longer as trusted by consumers as it was in the Mad Men era. Today’s consumers are more skeptical than ever. Less than 50% of consumers worldwide trust TV advertising. So what do people trust? 92% of consumers around the world say they trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.

Brands are embracing new strategies and technologies, which allow them to connect and engage with customers in social channels. The most innovative brands are shifting their strategies from traditional...

If you’ve mastered marketing automation 101, and even tackled our 9 steps to go beyond the marketing automation basics, then you’re ready for a few of our expert tips. At this point, you should be delivering highly relevant and dynamic email content, sending out drip emails to nurture prospects over time, and managing your social profiles using real-time and scheduled posts.

Sound about right? If so, then read on to find out how you can continue to improve your marketing automation efforts with these 8 steps, inspired by the Mastering the Art of Marketing Automation eBook:

1. Don’t get lazy. At...

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing guest articles from experts in the realm of content marketing. This week, Josh Miles writes.

Josh Miles is principal and founder of Miles Design, a branding firm specializing in branding and website design for professional services and software firms. Josh is the author of the new Content Marketing Institute book Bold Brand: The New Rules for Differentiating, Branding, and Marketing Your Professional Services Firm.

“It will look like you guys are on everywhere, even if you’re not.”

Our media buyer always had a way of helping our clients make the...

The human race has used storytelling to persuade, share our history, and convey information for the entire length of our existence—since before the written word came about.

When you consider the breadth of companies whose profits depend on storytelling, you see that this hasn’t changed in 2013: movies are more popular than ever. YouTube reached the one-billion-monthly-users milestone in March of this year. (By comparison, Twitter has 200 million monthly active users) And though digital formats are eating into the profits of traditional books, the reading industry as a whole is stronger...

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing guest articles from experts in the realm of content marketing. This week, Steven Shattuck writes.

Steven is VP of Marketing at Bloomerang. He is a featured contributor to Social Media Today, and has been published in Search Engine Journal, Business2Community and the Content Marketing Institute. Steven has spoken at national and local conferences, and is frequently interviewed by traditional media outlets in Indianapolis for his expertise in social media marketing.

There's no shortage of content marketing advice out there. Now that most marketers...

Mastered the basics of marketing automation? If the answer is yes, I'm guessing you've already begun reaping the rewards of your initial automation efforts. I'm also surmising that your CRM system is busy collecting plenty of customer and prospect data, and you're actively engaged on multiple social channels. At this point, you might even have a little extra time in your schedule to dive into your RSS feed, or take a longer smoothie break.

You're off to a good start.

That being said, there's always more to learn about the complex clockwork of marketing automation. Take your knowledge to the...

ExactTarget partnered with Social Media Explorer's Jason Falls and Nichole Kelly to deliver a hands-on, full-day workshop that will leave you with a fully executable and measureable social media strategy by the end of the day! We couldn't be more excited about the content and format of the Social Media Domination Road Tour. You'll walk away with a strong foundation in the most important strategies to be successful in social media, including:

Social Media Strategy: You'll particiapte in hands-on exercises that guide you on the creation and evaluation of a successful social media strategy that is...

The recent success of social music platforms, such as Spotify and Songza, has inspired Twitter to expand its reach into the world of arts and entertainment. Primarily used as a collective newsource to share information in 140 character chunks, Twitter launched its music platform #Music last week to support music sharing and promotion. This comes only a few months after the release of Twitter's video support application, Vine, which can be used as further evidence of Twitter's expansion into other forms of communication and sharing.

#Music allows Twitter users to explore popular, emerging,...