Social-media use is up 14 percentage points this year among Inc. 500 companies, with 91% of the firms now saying they use at least one social service. Twitter ranked as the most widely used site in the survey conducted by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

The study clearly shows the upward trend of social media adoption rates among some of the fastest growing private companies, and provide a useful comparison of social media trends from 2007 on.  Despite lower usage of some tools in 2009, many companies that have not yet incorporated social media in their business operations say they intend to do so in the future. For example, 44 percent of companies without a company blog say they plan to start one, and 36 percent intend to use some form of online video.

Have you gone social? DigitalEffex provides consulting on social media and can help get your company a jump-start on today’s most prevalent social media sites.

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Marketing, Social media Hide

ZDNET.com recently featured an article on the success of American Express’s OPEN Division .  Some of the key excerpts included Jason Rudman, director of strategy and marketing for American Express OPEN who said

“Small business owners are successful by building individual relationships – for example, with customers, prospects, vendors – based on an innate ability to talk to everyone, to get to know people. You might say this is “social IQ” and that many entrepreneurs possess this in droves. You see it frequently when a small business owner engages their customers or reaches out to new ones through a very personal style of marketing. Social media as we know it today is just an extension of this in the digital universe.”

The web is undoubtedly the most useful tool to engage your customers and have an instant feedback on the success of your message. When having an e-commerce site,  one of the most effective ways to engage your customers and drive sales are through dedicated email blasts. Our clients open-rate on emails have ranged between 20% – 80% . Some things to consider when sending an email blast is:

• Determine the overall goal of your email.
• Engage the user through a link, coupon code, or reply to measure the success of your message.
• Schedule the email – when’s the best time you would want to receive it?
• Make sure the email looks good.

The more you build these individual relationships and get to know your customers, the better message you can deliver; the better results you will end up having.

Dedicated Email Blasts, Marketing, Newsletters, Social media Hide