her considerable influence behind a social media platform called Backplane. Exactly what that was or how it would be used by Gaga remained to be seen. With the launch of ...

it's not. It's influence is growing and it is becoming an accepted and critical component of any complete marketing strategy. The misguided idea, however, that all marketing will be digital sooner than later is nice hype but it's not the truth. Sure there may one day be an all digital marketing world but that won't happen for a long time. Let's just look at the notion of the ...

said they regularly influence purchasing decisions of friends and family. This is up from 31% in 2008. 33 percent had recommended a product or service in the past six months; while 19 percent recommended that someone not buy a specific product or service. That last part really hurts. The study shows that women are even more careful about how and where they spend their money. Much of ...

to positively influence consumer views about the brand. Blogging about your industry expresses devotion and also influences perception. It may require putting in extra hours per week, but the positive reputation of a passionate, knowledgeable blogger nicely supplements, and in some cases precedes, SEO results. More Blogging Consider devoting your time to other, industry-related ...

to a reputation's influence on search. In most cases, each brand needs to chase highly-competitive keywords aligned to its respective industry. Social media optimization (SMO) supplements search engine optimization, and when done well, could help lessen the importance of chasing competitive, SEO-campaign, search terms, sought by many if not all vendors in most industries. Reconsider ...

where greater influence can be wielded through Google+. According to Nancy Messieh at Next Web , "Google+ power users will have a direct effect on search results, a consequence which could prove to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, if you trust your Google+ network, your Google Search results will become even more relevant. On the other hand, could some of those search ...

are sure to influence online marketing strategies. Via Marketing Sherpa . Ken Horst - "Social media for the complex sale: Where should you start?" While most B2B companies are heavily invested in their social channels today; many are finding that for at least Facebook and Twitter, these may not be the best channels for companies with a longer sales cycle. The good news is ...

and those who influence customers prefer? With that knowledge, develop a content mix and corresponding optimization effort. This is content marketing 101, but so many marketers are caught up in specific tactics, they lose sight of the target audience they're after in favor of the crack-like effect of pumping out "a viral video", another infographic or contest to attract more ...

other factors of influence include quantity, velocity and sentiment of reviews stemming from relevant third-party sites: IYPs, vertical/niche directories, and data aggregators, Facebook page likes, social media mentions on sites like Twitter, Foursquare check-ins, and Google+ shares . The entire local-social-mobile ecosystem is becoming increasingly more connected and continuing to ...