Retailers who are actively involved in marketing their products and/or services using Facebook may have a distinct advantage over their competitors, according to the latest Morpace Omnibus study.

Businesses are using Facebook as a means to offer and receive product recommendations. The study concentrates on three key areas: which consumer segments are most likely to use Facebook and how frequently; how often consumers search for or share product/company opinions or information, and which demographics are most likely to use the social media website.

“The results show us that Facebook is a tool for retailers to directly communicate with their target market,” said Morpace Retail Vice President Kirsten Denyes. “Retailers can offer consumers product information and exclusive coupons and discounts to create viral product buzz among Facebook consumers”, Denyes added.

Among the primary reasons consumers join a Facebook fan page are: “To let my friends know what products I support,” (41 percent) and “To receive coupons and discount offers,” (37 percent). More than 36 percent of consumers consider

Social media is the fastest growing component to online marketing today. Are you using social media sites, such as Facebook and YouTube and/or using social media tools, such as blogs and Twitter, to attract visitors?

More businesses are beginning to understand how to best leverage online tools to build a community and recognize that engagement and interaction are the foundations of social marketing, but most don’t know what’s next.

Download your copy of “How Franchises Can Leverage Social Media”

Online Marketing = Staying Ahead.

Social media, email marketing, and local search marketing are changing how we do business. It is now more critical than ever for your franchise to be visible in all areas of online marketing in order to stay ahead of the competition.

Integrating Online Marketing = More Leads.

Three industry experts from both ElementsLocal and Exact Target will be discussing how to leverage technology by bringing different types of interactive communications together to drive deeper customer engagement, customer loyalty and new customer acquisition.

This webinar will be held March 19, 2010 at 10am PST. This is part of the “Online Marketing Made Easy” Webinar Series.

Reserve your spot here!

With over 80% of people searching online to find local businesses prior to purchasing goods and services, more and more franchises are responding by getting local with their franchise online marketing.

One way franchises are getting local is by having websites for each franchise location.  Using localized websites, franchise marketers are driving more and more traffic from local searches directly to the franchise locations their customers prefer.

However, large franchise systems run into “territory conflict” when they have multiple franchise locations in one densely populated metro area. This can cause confusion with consumers when they type in ‘hair cut Austin TX’ and find five locations near them. And what could be worse is if the first listing they find in the search engine is the furthest from them.

Elements, Inc., developers of the ElementsLocal™ software platform for franchise online marketing, has developed a new concept called “Metro Pages” to help avoid territory conflict.  By placing all of the neighboring franchise locations on a “Metro Page”, and placing a Google Map on that page, it allows customers to select the franchise location of their choice.  This drives more online leads to every franchise location, unveils more options   and simplifies the customer experience.

“One of the great things about our Metro Pages is that our system automatically creates the listings based on the pre-defined metro areas, or regions, of a franchise system.  This is just another example of our platform creating automated ways to increase organic, natural listings”, stated Jeremy La Duque, CEO Elements, Inc.  “Ultimately, we’re always looking for new ways to improve the expansion of a brand through online marketing while deepening customer engagement with that brand.”

Metro Pages will be released this month  as another valuable component of the ElementsLocal™ software platform.

We thought this was interesting. The national survey conducted by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations found that 89% of journalists are using blogs, 65% are using Social Networking Sites, and 52% are using Microblogging Sites to find newsworthy content. Reliability, however, is one of the biggest concerns with these online sources. Read the full report.