Among the numerous online initiatives that were measured in the study, having a company page on a social networking site had the highest adoption with 75% of small businesses using it.

Small businesses today are considering different, cost-effective alternatives to keep their brands visible and accessible to potential customers some of which include posting status updates and/or articles of interest on social networking sites, building network through sites such as LinkedIn, creating a blog in area of expertise and monitoring positive and negative feedback about own organization on social networks.

As the study shows, the second highest activity used by small businesses is posting status updates and/or articles of interest on social networking sites which was implemented by 69% of businesses.

In addition, small businesses also declared that building online presence was one of their main priorities for the coming years, property sites being the top technology investment in the next two years, followed by an online showcase of products and services to help attract new customers and placing third are social media activity investments.

One highlighting fact which can be greatly exploited using social networks such as Twitter or Facebook is the fact that small businesses hold customer service as one of their biggest strengths, and have proven to be quite efficient at responding to customer claims, answering their questions and solving their problems.

For more information on the study you can visit www.growsmartbusiness.com

Last Thursday we hosted our first social media seminar of 2010 with partners B!Digital and Viadeo at Soho House London. The evening was a success. People arrived between 4pm and 4:30pm to register & have a welcome drink before the actual presentations began at around 4:30pm.

First up was 77Agency partner and Business Strategist, Amedeo Guffanti, who spoke about the opportunities of Facebook for brands with a specific focus on the importance of buildiding a good Fan Page and the advertising possibilities around it.

Next on the mic was Wayne Gibbins, Communication & Partnership Director for Viadeo. As part of his presentation, he held a live poll amongst the attendees about the importance of social media marketing for their brands and if they would work with a PSN ( professional social network) to achieve their goals. People voted with their mobiles and viewed the results live on the screen.

The last presentation of the evening was on Mobile Couponing and Social Media, which was given by Stefano Diemmi from B!Digital. It was interesting to see how only a few brands are currently using mobile marketing to achieve their business objectives, however, there seemed to be a clear interest in the opportunities existent today and those in the pipeline.

Some of the companies that attended include: Reckitt Benckiser, Piaggio Group, Expedia World Wide, Acer, Elemis, Miller Harris, FX Capital Group, Deutsche Bank, Alico, and Comment:Visions (EuroNews).

Our next London event will be on the 31st of March and we are very happy to have YouTube as one of our special guest speakers!

Stay tuned and visit our Fan Page for more event news!

The annual convention of Athletes World, a subsidiary of  the Bata group, leader in Italy for the distribution of international sneaker brands such as Nike, Adidas, Converse, Lacoste and sportswear fashion, was held last Tuesday in Limena, Italy.

Athletes World, which has a network of over 100 commercial outlets between direct and affiliates in major Italian cities, is also an innovator of new technologies, and has implemented social media strategies in their marketing mix since early 2009.

“Over the years we have built our community on Facebook and with nearly 30K fans we are proud to have been one of the first major retailers to see an opportunity in the social media arena and integrate these new tools into our off-line communication strategy,” declared Paola Sandini, Advertising & Communication Manager at Athletes World, “thanks to the joint efforts of both our traditional communication agency (Attila & Co) and new media agency (77Agency), we have initiated a process of innovation and integration of alternative communication channels which will continue in 2010 and eventually take us to the launch of our e-commerce.”

Marco Corsaro, Founder and Managing Director of 77Agency said:

“We are proud to have been invited to speak at the convention of Athletes World. It’s an honor to be recognized for our efforts  in the development of  successful digital communication campaigns for and to have been selected for the development of the e-commerce platform for this important sports fashion retailer.”

Click image to see full story: (in Italian)

The following infographic put together by the team at Flowtown, showcases some great figures that reflect how small to medium businesses are spending their advertising budget.

Conclusion: investment in social media to be less about advertising and more about engaging consumers one-on-one.

Average posts per user on the site exceed the 55 million mark and more than 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared every week. The social media giant has also expanded way beyond its American roots: today some 70% of its audience is outside the United States, the article stated.

That being said, our recommendation is that every business- small, medium or large- product or service should have a compelling Facebook profile that helps to drive awareness, increase visibility, and boost fan engagement.

What should you try to achieve from your Facebook profile? Engagement for one, followed by interaction.

In order to engage fans and non, you need substantial and relevant content that they can find interesting. It’s not necessary to post a trizillion articles a day, depending on your fan base, you should begin with a few and then work your way up as you begin growing your audience.

In addition, posts can be anything, from ideas and videos, to articles, research and latest industry news. One thing that you must keep present, you must be relevant, stick to your topic of expertise. You may include links to other articles or bloggers, post photos and if possible, tag the people in them, set up an events calendar and so on.

If you are able to achieve enough fan engagement- bear in mind it will not happen automatically, it’s something you or your social specialist must work on and dedicate loads of time to on a daily basis- then you’ll be a small step away from increasing interaction between fans and your brand or product.

Also, if you haven’t already, link your Twitter account to your Facebook profile so that you can share content, photos, videos, news, and increase your fan base/follower base.

Try to discover what sparks the most interest out of your fans by testing out different types of content, ask open-ended questions, set up polls, etc. Start testing and observe the kind of results you obtain. Respond promptly, if possible, to comments or questions. And most importantly, give your brand a true character, avoid being impersonal and instead try putting yourself in your fan’s shoes and seeing things from their perspective.

Go ahead, tell us about your brand’s Facebook experience. What has worked or hasn’t quite worked for you yet?

Social networking site, Facebook, is used by more than 350 million people to share personal and business with friends, colleagues, customers and prospects. The social media giant will soon be turning six and has not ceased to attract members with demographics that could serve e-tailers well in terms of extending market reach and increasing branding.

Clearly, social media sites are amongst the top referring sites for many marketers particularly retailers, which then leads us to the question, is Facebook e-commerce for you?

Some of you may think it’s risky business, however, it can also represent an invaluable source of marketing for your business.

Social media merging with online shopping is definitely not a bad idea, particularly since the latest Nielsen figures tell us consumers spent 5 and a half hours on social media during 2009.  Users are used to spending a lot of time in their favorite social network, hence integrating your business into these channels will be seen as a perfectly natural integration of the two.

Social network users are feeling more confident, thus increasing their level of participation and interaction on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and the likes and therefore, retailers are finding in these, a solution to drive more customers and monetize more.

Choosing to leverage Facebook business options can provide a new vehicle  for your customers and potential prospects to interact. Furthermore, it can help you acquire new customers as your Facebook fans spread the word about your business to their friends and network.

More reading www.cnn.com.

We’ve been hearing theories back and forth as to what will happen in the digital marketing industry during this fresh, new year. One important fact to keep in mind and as Advertising Age narrows it down for us is: the basic rules of brand building are just as important for innovations in the digital space as they are for traditional forms of communication.

New technology by itself won’t bring you the results you’re aiming towards. Creativity and relevancy are still key factors in any digital communication strategy you develop.

Although there’s a whole new year ahead of us, there’re still a lot of challenges lined up for marketers and advertisers in digital marketing. This is AdAge’s take on what could lay ahead of us. (Click image to enlarge)

One thing that holds true about digital marketing is that the shift is constant and consumers will continue to direct the mediums through usage. In result, marketers will need to peer around the corner and stage venues that are welcoming to this new engaged consumer.

2009 has been the year of the new media revolution.

To mark this year of change, 77Agency has commissioned a team of artists to illustrate how new media has changed the way we communicate, share and obtain information.

The resulting works will be exhibited and auctioned for charity at the East End Studios in Milan today starting at 7:00 pm.

The funds raised from the auction will be donated to two organizations: Fondazione Gaetano Bertini Malgarini, a non-profit foundation providing support, training and assistance in gaining employment to people suffering from mental illness and Territori Onlus, a volunteer organization that develops innovative campaigns to fight stigma and cultural prejudice surrounding mental disease.

Each piece of art is 70 x 98cm and has been printed onto anodized aluminum.

One such project for 2010 is “Mind the Difference,” an international video contest to produce a short film on the theme of “psychological differences” which will be promoted on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs. To keep up with this initiative you can become a fan of Mind the Difference on Facebook or follow their tweets on @MindtheD.

The works produced for the charity auction can be viewed in this link :

Charity Auction’s Artwork Gallery

Today, Bing’s CTR is 75% higher than Google’s.

Let’s head towards the social media network front instead. A recent study by comScore, reported that Facebook is the fourth largest website in the U.S. Numbers show that Facebook surpassed with 102.9 million unique visitors in the U.S., versus 99.7 million for Aol. Other interesting values revealed that although AOL grew millions in October 2009, while Facebook grew by more than 5 million.

Last summer Facebook has already become the fourth largest site worldwide last summer when it became more popular than Wikipedia. So, how long  do you think it will take for Facebook to catch up to Microsoft’s 136 million U.S. visitors? or Yahoo’s 160 million U.S. visitors? and for tha matter, Google’s 168 million visitors?

This information should be quite useful to 72% of 8,500 senior marketers who declared they will increase their spending on digital media in 2010, as presented by a study from Round2 Communications. Along similar lines, 33.9% of marketers said ROI for new media is “somewhat” better than traditional, and 28.2% said new media’s ROI is “significantly” better.

The downside to this- 86% of the respondents say they expect their spending on traditional media, including broadcast TV, radio, print newspapers and magazines, to suffer very little change or simply decline in 2010 as declared by 40.3% of respondents.

A vast number of brands have already adopted and harnessed many of the digital marketing tools to communicate, engage and interact with customers and prospects to establish a solid online presence as well as increase awareness and build brand image.

Among the list of top online strategies that were mostly used in 2009 were:

*Social Media- Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube: Used to engage with customers on a personal level, interact with brand followers, friends and loyalists more directly. This strategy also helps increase brand awareness and generate a lot of buzz about a product or service.

*SEO/SEM: Used to achieve a high ranking on the SERPs and to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search result pages. The higher the position on a page result, the higher the probabilities of people clicking on your website, knowing about your brand or product and generating a higher ROI.

*Online PR: Used to generate positive buzz around a brand or product. Word of mouth is one the most powerful forms of communication and can greatly influence people’s opinions and consumer purchase behavior.

*Email Marketing: Used to send useful information as well as offers and discounts about a product or service. It is also a vehicle that helps obtain a continuous flow of new business contacts and users who are genuinly interested to your products or service.

*Paid search marketing: Used to bid on keyword phrases relevant to the brand or product. Its highly measurable and helps maximise your return on investment.

*Link Building: Used to build a brand’s credibility. It’s a fundamental ingredient to get a brand’s website higher in the search engines since it’s a key element in search engine optimization.

*Blogging: Used to provide additional information as well as viral and website content on a particular brand or product. Blogs are helpful to build brand credibility and spread valuable information all the way across to the different social networks, thus generating more brand visibility. When a particular blog obtains a certain level of popularity, it is often used as a point of reference for followers and prospects to go back to for general industry information.