Posted by: Carlee Vellinga

Social media marketers are continually improving the systems they use to monitor searches online. While these tools are becoming more complex and intelligent, they still need further development. This article by Jim Tobin at mashable.com shows why analytics are the key to improving these tools.

Why Social Media Monitoring Tools Are About to Get Smarter

Jim Tobin is president of Ignite Social Media, where he works work with clients including Microsoft, Intel, Nature Made, The Body Shop, Disney and more implementing social media marketing strategies. He is also author of the book Social Media is a Cocktail Party: Why You Already Know the Rules of Social Media Marketing.

Over the last three years, social media marketers have gotten a lot more sophisticated about the programs they deploy and how they’re measured. Platforms like Sysomos and Radian6 have become vital tools in understanding not only the social universe in which you operate, but how that universe responds to your brand.

But for all of our success, we’re still largely entering strings of Boolean variables into a tool and waiting for matching results to roll in. Most tools have added sentiment processing, but that clearly has a long way to go. Beyond sentiment, however, how are these tools going to evolve to provide more insights? The answer is with math.

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Posted by: Micah Pratt

Smart phones are becoming more and more popular and advertisers have begun using them as a tool to reach large audience with the use of applications. Here is an article from mashable.com about how people are welcoming advertising with smart phone applications.

Consumers Embrace Mobile Advertising

Advertisements on mobile devices are both welcome and effective, a recent study from mobile audience media company JiWire revealed.

This is especially true of advertisements that appear in apps. Of the roughly 1,000 smartphone users surveyed, 52% claim they have acted on an advertisement in an app and 18% have made a purchase directly from an ad in an app in the last month.

In addition, 53% said they were willing to share their location to receive more relevant advertising and a full 76% said they would prefer to download a free, advertising-supported app instead of paying an upfront fee for the same app.

This is great news for social gaming apps like Foursquare and Gowalla, which enable users to unlock special deals from advertisers based on their locations. It’s also great news for Apple, whose mobile app advertising platform, iAds, will debut this summer with the iPhone 4.0 OS.

Posted by: Micah Pratt

Last Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg sat down for a rare public interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer to discuss the continued success of Facebook along with the latest pressure it has faced. Facebook, the largest social networking site, recently hit a major milestone of 500 million users but along with fame has come issues dealing with privacy and a lawsuit that Zuckerberg sold a portion of the ownership in exchange for work in the early years of Facebook.

Watch the interview here.

Jennings Social Media Marketing recently promoted Michelle Jennings-Camber to president.