Archive for May, 2011

HubSpot and Marketing Charts have released their Marketing Data Box, a quarterly collection of practical marketing tools ready for professional use. At Bonfire we are data junkies so we sorted through the stats with a fine tooth comb and summarized the key takeaways from the slide deck. We have also embedded the full slide deck for your reference.

Traditional Media Stats

• TV and Radio Ad buys are up
• Newspaper is down
• Online news consumption is up 17% and marks the first time more people got their news from the web.

Digital Stats

• Top areas of marketing growth: Website, Email, Social Media – in that order
• Trigger emails are on the rise (automated emails for certain calendar events)
• Inbound marketing leads (Blogs, email, social media, PPC) are 61% cheaper than outbound marketing leads (TV, Radio, Print)
• Cheapest lead sources (in order from cheapest): Blogs, Social Media, SEO, PPC
• Facebook ads have a 72.3% reach in the U.S.
• Facebook interactive ads (home page ads) have the highest recall of any social media ads

Smart Phones

• 1/3 of mobile users have Smartphones
• Time spent on Smartphones in order of use: Email, Social Networking, News

Online Spending

• Online spending is up 11%
• Youth online spending is up 9%

It is never a bad thing when great work is recognized.

Bonfire was thrilled to receive a nomination for the 2011 ‘Best ROI Under 25K’ award at this year’s Social Media Awards in Portland, Oregon. We were surprised and delighted when host Daniel Baldwin called our name as the winner!

The winning campaign involved Gresham Toyota, a long-standing client and one of the top Toyota dealerships in the Pacific Northwest. In an industry known for pushy salesmen and “hard” selling, we were able to take a step back and highlight what made Gresham Toyota stand out from other dealerships: outstanding, pressure-free customer service. We built an engaged community, turned existing customers into brand advocates, and increased inbound sales calls by an impressive 600%. We were especially pleased to be receiving an award in the “Best ROI’ category, illustrating our commitment to outstanding business results for our clients. Read the full case study to learn more.

If you are ready to light the fire, contact Justin Albano, Bonfire’s Director of Business Development today at JAlbano@bonfiresmm.com.

This post started out as a tribute to May Day – searching for creative ways labor unions and anti-union supporters were using Facebook. I had recently read an article about how Facebook could potentially REPLACE labor unions and excitedly went to work looking for well-organized, active pages. What I found instead was a handful of pages that seemed to have little in the way of followers and even less interaction. So, I changed the topic of this post to covering politicians and political groups that DO have a following on Facebook. Below I have outlined the top US politicians on Facebook and what we can learn from their pages.

Union Woes Continue on Facebook

If there ARE active labor union themed pages out there, they are hidden deep within Facebook’s inept search function. I was able to find this page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Labor-Works – one of the few union pages I could find with more than 10 fans. The page had only one wall post and 233 ‘likers.’ There were no custom tabs and I could find very little information about the organization. No photos, no videos, nada. There WERE active groups and events surrounding union topics and perhaps these Facebook tools work better to provide an on-line rallying cry. continue