Ford recruited 100 bloggers to test drive and review its new Fiesta model, allowing honest feedback. Unilever's VP said marketers need to move past 30-second ads and focus more on social media. Social media networks have grown tremendously in recent years, with sites like LinkedIn and Facebook doubling their users rapidly. Marketers are experimenting more with social media but few have established a dominant presence like Apple, Nike, and Dell. Some companies are finding ways to measure social media ROI.

1. Social Media Marketing Explosion Last year when Ford introduced the Fiesta to the US market, it recruited 100 top bloggers and gave them a Fiesta for six months. The bloggers had to upload a video on YouTube about the car, and give their honest personal opinion of the Fiesta on their blogs. Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford said, "it's about culture change and adapting to this ongoing way of communicating. The bloggers are fully free to say what they want." Move Past the 30-Second Spot Earlier this month at an American Association of Advertising Agencies Conference, Kathy O'Brien, Unilever's VP, Personal Care said creative agencies need to "move past their reliance on the 30-second spot" and focus more on social media efforts to keep up with modern consumers. Marketers have had their eye on social media marketing for several years, but learning to connect with consumers through online social networks has taken on a rapidly growing sense of urgency. What's driving it? Tremendous Growth Over the last two years social networking sites have experienced tremendous growth. They are subject to the "network effect" which suggests that the audience of a social network will grow slowly at first, and then explode once it passes a certain point. LinkedIn, which has about 58,000,000 members today took 16 months to reach its first million users, but added its most recent additional million users in only 11 days. Similarly Facebook took almost five years to reach 150,000,000 users, but then just eight months to double that number. Now "Facebook's audience is bigger than any TV network that has ever existed on the face of the earth," says Randall Rothenberg, head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). But unlike a TV network, the social networks enable a conversation among consumers and marketers. Steve Hasker of Nielsen refers to social networks as "the world's biggest, fastest and most dynamic focus groups." Social Media Adoption While social media marketing is projected to grow at an annual rate of 34%, faster than any other form of online marketing (according to Forrester Research) the adoption of social media for marketing purposes varies widely. Survey research from eConsultancy found that 61% of marketers have experimented with social media (but not done that much). At the other end of the spectrum, brands like Apple, Nike, Dell, Subway, and dozens of others have established a dominating presence within networking sites. Social Media ROI Does that presence translate into something tangible? Can the ROI of social media marketing be measured? Leading practitioners are trying. Pepsi's "Refresh Everything" program, which has a huge social media component, is using a combination of standard research methods to assess brand perception as well as social monitoring tools to measure share of voice and mentions. Dell Computer made social media a priority several years ago and worked it into all aspects of its business. Last year it rang up $6.5 million in sales through Twitter. "We want to make this be completely embedded into the fabric of the company," says Richard Binhammer, a senior manager on Dell's social-media team. More Than Just A Marketing Directory Finding promotion vendors may be easy, but finding the right one you need right now is hard. Let PromoAid help you just like we're helping our clients, including Colgate, SUPERVALU and Ryan Partnership. PromoAid has streamlined how marketers and agencies screen, research and select marketing programs used to execute their strategic plans. PromoAid provides a one-of-a-kind marketing data platform containing comprehensive information on 1,700 marketing service vendors with up to 30 data points for each one. Our service saves our clients valuable resources, time and money.