The study conducted by research firm Psychster and commissioned by cooking/recipe hub Allrecipes.com, was to experimentally test user engagement across a variety of so-called “widgets,” defined to be interactive ad types that may prompt users to engage their peers in a social manner.

The report also found that corporate profile pages (like Facebook Fan pages) produced the most purchase intent, especially when users were able to add themselves as a fan.

Key Question: Are some ad types more effective than others?Secondary Questions: Do ad types work for all brands on all sites? Must the brand be relevant to the website for the ad to work?

Here are the key results: -

If the goal is brand awareness and positive associations, Sponsored Content may be the best choice.

If the goal is purchasing and loyalty, then Profiles that allow people to become Fans and add logos to their own profiles may be the best choice.

If the goal is purchasing and the best ROI, Banners and Newsletters may still be the best choice.

We are aware of the ever increasing number of people logging into the internet each moment. This is leading to the increase action on the internet in every field.

Gone are the days of traditional marketing when people used to see an ad on T.V. or newspaper and then purchase a product. The latest trend is to create a Buzz for your product on the web through blogs, videos, pictures or tweets. This can be done through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. All of these help in gaining customer attention and building fans of brands. These help in creating that positive word of mouth. The common examples of using social media for product promotion are the manufacturers of China where the common people do not trust the traditional promotional ads due to perceived absence of business ethics. Hence they trust other customers’ word of mouth and social media marketing plays an essential role in this.

It is said that if you need a good job, you should improve your network. In the era of internet, networking has also got a changed face. Sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook help you in creating communities and strengthen the network of people who can let you know about a job prospect or help you in getting hired. The action is not limited to the job-seekers’ side. The companies also need to curtail the cost of hiring and they are cleverly using blogs or sites like LinkedIn, MySpace or Facebook to hire right candidates. Try some of these links provided in Twitter like http://bit.ly/aNPnYP for medical consultants in U.K. or http://bit.ly/dgItq6 #engineering #jobs for AIE engineering jobs http://bit.ly/bXCwyG #customer #service is customer service job in New Bern. Neither the employers nor the job seekers need to depend only on job sites like Monster for recruitment.

Customer service is a field which always craves for a personal touch. If it is there, it means more and more business for the company. If it not, it may lead to bad word of mouth and several lost business opportunity. World famous company Dell has several employees who use Facebook, Twitter and their own blogs to listen to the customer needs. There has been a case when a customer wanted a Dell computer within a day. He posted a comment on the blog of one of the Dell’s customer service agents. This agent suggested him that he should go to the nearest Best Buy. He himself drove to that store to check the various Dell models available there. Then he discussed the details and won a brand loyal customer. This is a small example of how social media can help in providing excellent customer service. If you want to see more examples you go through the links like http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mattycollectorcom/57309659843, or http://www.facebook.com/bestbuy?v=app_110144381181.

There is no dearth of stories where social media has helped in marketing, recruitment or customer service. People have also been using this media for internal communication, fund-raising or public relations. This list is sure to increase in near future.

Social media marketing has become the buzz word at this point of time and you must have heard the experts say that it is here to stay. If you are still ignoring its importance, you are either unaware or uninterested of what social media is and what it can do your business.

The process of using social media channels for the purpose of promoting your business (whether selling a product or a service) or your website is termed as social media marketing. It is a low cost and high return promotion method who can give you numerous visitors and many fans. It gives you a good feel when you see someone returning to your website or blog again and again. This is indeed a good method to improve web traffic. Also this media does not interfere in other ways of getting web traffic; it rather complements other methods.

There are several stories of successful marketing campaigns through social media. As you cannot send photos, videos or links through Facebook, FedEx used this as an opportunity. It got an easy to use application developed for the purpose of sending photos, videos etc in a FedEx package. FedEx increased its brand awareness and hence more business.

NewBalance used an online running game on Facebook for promoting its new line of shoes. The points that you earn after playing this games were redeemed while buying a pair of NewBalance shoes. By throwing a challenge of who is the best runner, the company was actually pulling customers for buying its product.

Companies like Ford, Sony Erickson and Dell have been using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube etc. for promoting their new and old products. Such campaigns lead to increased relevant traffic and search engine ranking of the page. It helps them in increasing the brand awareness and managing the reputation of the company. All this in turn leads to increased sales of not only the product for which the campaign was launched but also other related products.

Social media marketing has its own share of limitations as well. This cannot be a good tool for small businesses being run in a small geographic area. If you need a plumber or an electrician in your own city, you will not go to Facebook or YouTube. You would type ‘Electrician in Chicago’ or ‘Plumber in Los Angles’ in Google. For promoting such businesses, you can probably use humorous videos or articles related to your business and hence attract audience to see that video or read that article. You will be able to create awareness about your business and pull customers too.