We are inundated with a number of sites offering the best deals on all kinds of products, services and experiences. How sustainable are these business models? Are daily deals “To Be Or Not to Be?” That is the question.

With 2011 coming to an end and 2012 just around the corner, I reflect on what has transpired over the past year and attempt to predict what the future has in store for us. Here’s what I am envisioning…

If you haven’t incorporated digital into your marketing plan, your missing out. Here are some essential digital marketing tactics to jump on to avoid a “digital disconnect”.

There are millions of tweets shared everyday. By creating Twitter lists you can filter through the noise and find exactly what you are interested in. Take for example, food trucks…

I have always been a firm believer that we never stop learning. To close the door on education is a disservice to all. In the digital marketing arena, things are changing every day. There are new technologies to learn, new platforms to explore, and overall advancements in marketing trends that we need to stay on top of.

That’s right, it’s all about location nowadays but hasn’t it always been? The rapid rise of proximity-based marketing or location-based marketing (take your pick) is validating the old axiom of location, location, location.

Things are moving fast, incredibly fast. I keep hearing peers, colleagues, friends and family commenting on how fast paced life has become. I personally often find myself not knowing what day of the week it is, let alone determining the actual timing of past events, which may have taken place only a week ago, yet somehow seem to be several months ago in occurrence. This mind blazing pace is a challenge at many levels. For marketers it’s especially challenging as staying current on cultural norms, trends, fads, news, etc. often seems beyond reach. Yet it’s vital to stay up on the latest what’s what in relation to developing relevant messaging and marketing solutions that will resonante withtarget audiences while it’s still valid.

The question is, just how does one stay current on culture when it’s moving 300 hundred miles per hour? The answer seems to be to slow down a bit, take a break from your normal routine (these days, that’s mostly work for me) and be sure to leave your mobile device behind. The simplest way to describe the concept is to “plug in” which requires you to “unplug”. Here are some quick ways to make it happen:

Twitter is now conducting trials with advertisers for placement of new ads in their “Trending Topics” section, rumored to sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Trending Topics, located on the Home page of Twitter, is an area that highlights real-time topics that are most chatted about within the social network. This new advertising [...]

”Stop! Collaborate and LISTEN!” Let’s apply Vanilla Ice’s song lyric to social media. Your customers are talking, are you listening? Whether it be around your product specifically, your competitor, or the industry as a whole, people are engaging in conversations online through blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, forums, product reviews, etc. as an outlet to recommend, [...]

Cuddled up in my Snuggie™ blanket over the weekend, I flipped the pages of my February 2010 issue of Elle Magazine and came across a survey about iPhone users that consumer electronics specialists, Retrevo, conducted called the Gadgetology report.  This online survey featured in the Modern Love section of the magazine, consisted of 445 iPhone [...]