If you are the person who has the responsibility of monitoring your brand's reputation one of your greatest fears is that your CEO will be "found out". Ask the folks at Yahoo today how it feels to put out the reputation firestorm that has been ignited by Scott Thompson's "little white lie" . Now the folks at AT&T look like they may have a cringe-worthy moment as their CEO, Randall Stephenson,

HootSuite has announced the release of HootSuite Teams which will help businesses more easily manage the total social media presence across larger groups involved in day to day management of SM accounts. All Facebook reports Social media management platform HootSuite is looking to carve its niche into the business market with today's launch of HootSuite Teams, a suite of tools designed to further collaboration within businesses.

Google+ Hangouts are one of the more compelling features of Google's social outlet. In fact, many would argue that it's the main differentiator that, if utilized more, could make more people understand just what Google has to offer for the social media inclined. Last year Google used a small group to test Google+ Hangouts on Air which is essentially a way to broadcast your Hangout live and record them to YouTube. Enough said.

Poor Yahoo. Just the other day we reported about their new small business marketing dashboard. It looked pretty neat and you got the sense that the company was trying to do something relevant that was pointed at a market segment in need. It seemed as if the company under the direction of their latest CEO, Scott Thompson, was heading in the right direction. Not only were new products being brought to market but the company was in the process of streamlining its offerings.

Did you know that May was Small Business Month? Neither did I. In honor of the group of businesses that make up the majority of jobs in the US )some reports say as high as 95%( Web.com has taken a look at one increasingly important aspect of these businesses: mobile.

In what should come as no surprise to anyone, today Google has announced more changes. This times they are focused on Google News but as with most changes and updates from Mountain View these days, Google+ is along for the ride. The Google News blog reports Many news stories inspire vibrant discussions on Google+, and today we're starting to add this content to both the News homepage, and the realtime coverage pages. This way you can see what your circles,

Spirit Airlines is in the midst of what could only be described as a reputation dumpster fire. Here is the quick back story. A Vietnam war veteran, Jerry Meekins, purchased a ticket on the airline to go to Florida to help his daughter out after a surgical procedure she was having. He purchased the ticket to make the trip. Mr. Meekins has battled esophageal cancer for two years )he is 76 years old(.

Whether anyone would like to admit it completely or not, because of the need to perform in Google's search results, the search engine, at least indirectly, dictates how websites should be built. Fun things like Flash were vilified because of the havoc it caused in being properly seen by Google. There are probably many more examples that you folks who build sites could come up with as well )feel free to share them in the comments if you feel the need to vent(.

Before I go into any discussion here I will admit that I use Google for about 99.9% of the searches that I do. I can't say it's because Google has better results than any other search engine because I honestly don't take the time to compare. Instead I am one of millions, or more likely billions, here on the planet that have developed a Google habit. Having quit smoking a long, long time ago I can tell you that Google might be a more powerful addiction.

One gets the sense that with all the turmoil that has beset Yahoo in the past several years there may still be hope for the company. Unfortunately, there have been cuts in both product offerings and thousands of employees of the company and thus there has been a lot of pain. The company that once stood as an Internet icon even removed an iconic billboard from the San Francisco landscape last year. So why have hope? Well,

In a move that will make many SEO tool makers hearts flutter, SEOmoz, one of the most widely recognized and revered creator of tools and software for the Internet marketer, received $18 million in VC funding from Brad Feld of Foundry Group and Ignition Partners. Forbes reported Not only is this round of funding significant for SEOmoz, which has previously failed at attempts to secure funding,

While the Internet marketing news front is a little slow this is the perfect time to say thank you to some very important people to us: our sponsors. Since we have rolled out our channel sponsor program we have had great success for our existing sponsors and we are getting a lot of interest from future sponsors as well. If you would like to learn more about the content marketing and advertising opportunities we have here at Marketing Pilgrim, contact us today !

Today Google announced several improvements to existing services like click-to-download for mobile advertisers. Using language that is starting to sound very familiar to those who follow the search giant the new systems are meant to create a "holistic solution" for businesses looking to take advantage of the rapidly expanding mobile app world.

HubSpot's Social Media Scientist, Dan Zarrella, is up to something again and this time the result is a free Twitter analysis tool called TweetCharts. The idea behind TweetCharts i the ability to get an analysis of activity ranging from links, retweets, replies, mentions, media used in tweets, questions and more. Here is a result screen for you. Zarrella's post introducing the post gives us the genesis of the tool Enter any word, phrase, hashtag,

While Google scrambles to put together all of its disparate pieces into a cohesive product set it is still busy showing off the other areas where it feels it needs to be. Two of those areas that received attention in the past day or so are mobile and Google Translate. First with mobile. Google released its " The Mobile Playbook: The Busy Executive's Guide to Winning With Mobile ".

Google tests new things all the time. They have to in order to figure out the best way to deliver ads to visitors as well as the best way to get those visitors to engage in those ads so advertisers keep paying Google for the chance to be there. Oftentimes these tests are minor and can go relatively unnoticed but this latest effort is pretty interesting and quite differnt, at least from my perspective.

I admit that I have woefully under utilized LinkedIn over time. I don't know exactly why I feel this way but it is a nagging feeling I get from time to time. I get it enough that I pay attention to it so there must be something there, right? Even in my lack of commitment to the service I have noticed significant changes in the approach of the service on my mobile device. It is more about the content being pushed around by my network than it is about the network itself. Now,

I know the whole daily deals thing isn't very newsworthy to our readers. I get that. As business people, though, the story of Groupon is actually fascinating and it continues to entertain at the very least.

First, social media took the art of the conversation and created a way to slice and dice our interactions into 140 character pieces. As social media users have adjusted to this new way of connecting there may be a realization that it's not as easy as it sounds. Enter the image. The rumor is that it is worth a thousand words. Video is taking over about of the time spent online. People are busy and, let's face it,

Are we reaching the point where B2B marketer's are understanding that they need to invest in social media and community management so well that they can actually DECREASE areas of investment? If so, that was quick. If the findings from a new Forrester report titled "B2B Marketers Must Focus On Partnership and Experimentation As 2012 Budgets Rise" are to be believed it's marketing operations, including analytics that measure marketing success,