by
1 Comment

Welcome to Marketing Pilgrim’s Spring Refresh!

posted on March 26, 2012

It’s that time of the year isn’t it? Spring is springing. You clean out the garage. You spruce up the whatever it is that needs sprucing up. It feels good, right?

Well, we figured what better way to enter this season of renewal than to refresh the look and feel of Marketing Pilgrim! We hope you enjoy the new car smell of our new design including our improved sharing options that will help you easily pass along content you find valuable and want to share with others.

We have seen some great growth over the past few months and we want to thank our loyal readers for that. Our hope is that this new design will make your experience even better. Thanks so much for your support!

by
4 Comments

Facebook None Too Thrilled With Recent Employer Actions

posted on March 23, 2012

As you have probably seen recently, there are reports coming out of Facebook accounts being an integral part of job interviews. Of course, we know that if something is public on Facebook it can be found by anyone. That’s fine. It’s the direct requests by employers to prospective employees to give them their login and password for their Facebook account that has many up in arms. Included in that many is Facebook itself.

Facebook released a statement called “Protecting Your Passwords and Your Privacy” that leads with

In recent months, we’ve seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people’s Facebook profiles or private information. This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.

by
2 Comments

B2B Marketers’ Social Media Efforts Have Much Room to Mature

posted on March 23, 2012

Let’s just start by saying that the B2C approach vs. the B2B approach to social media marketing is often at opposite ends of the spectrum. Not always but often. Honestly, it should be. Asking you friends about an electronics purchase or the best place to find shoes is an inherently different mindset that finding the right multi-million dollar software and hardware combination for a business. In other words, there aren’t a lot of OMG’s in the B2B social media space (Thank God!).

Recent findings back this idea. eMarketer shows some research conducted in November of 2011 by Pardot that indicates where B2B marketers are spending their social media time.

by
2 Comments

Sure Pinterest is Hot, but is it the Next Facebook?

posted on March 23, 2012

Is Pinterest the next Facebook?

Fortune magazine is asking the question in their April issue, but they’re not the first one’s to consider it.

The graphically-oriented social media site is gaining popularity faster than a studio-made teen idol. People, particularly young women, are signing up in droves and if we could hear them, they’d probably be shrieking with joy.

Here are a few comments from Twitter:

people ask me how I know @pinterest is here to stay…I think – I’m having a bad night and Ill want to do is go pin/look at pins

Wife occupied for hours while I watch basketball. Thank you Pinterest…whatever you are.

And not complementary but says it:

It’s not until you click into the “Popular” section that you glimpse the Winnie The Pooh sweatshirt-wearing nightmare that is @pinterest.

by
0 Comments

Inspiration Alley: Levi, L.L. Bean and Angry Birds

posted on March 23, 2012

This week we’re taking a look at how two old brands are keeping things fresh and one modern company who went to new heights to promote their product.

Levi’s Water<Less Jeans

Levi’s is a brand that’s been around since 1873. It’s a brand that the world over associates with one thing – jeans. They’re trusted. They’re respected. But they still have to keep finding ways to modernize a product that really hasn’t changed all that much in over a hundred years.

Introducing the Water<Less Jean. Levi’s the average pair of jeans uses 42 liters of water in the finishing process. With their new system, they’ve reduced water usage up to 96%. To date, they have already saved more the 172 million liters of water which is equal to 726,600,812, 8-ounce glasses. Who knew?

by
1 Comment

Social Nudges Viewers to Watch More Live TV

posted on March 22, 2012

I love television. That’s not new news to anyone who regularly reads my work. I routinely record up to 4 hours of TV a night, that I can watch back in under 3 hours by skipping commercials, intros and the boring parts.

Here’s something that is new  news. Thanks to social apps, I now watch more live TV than ever before.

For example, last night American Idol was on. Instead of sending it straight to the DVR, I watched live because of app called Viggle. Viggle rewards me with points for watching and more points if I watch live because then I can play their real-time trivia game. They even give me extra points if I stick around for the commercials and prove it by answering questions after the show.

by
1 Comment

Netflix and Yahoo Pin Their Hopes on Original Content

posted on March 22, 2012

Netflix was created as a means of sharing the content of others with a large group of people. They were the librarian. The mail carrier and eventually, the storage facility for streaming files.

Now, Netflix is taking on a new title, that of content creator. As stated in Variety, Netflix has five original shows coming up in 2012. The first show, Lilyhammer rolled out last month and House of Cards is highly anticipated.

But bringing in an audience on a new series is tough enough for TV stations that have been doing it for sixty years. So Netflix is hedging their bet a little by bringing back titles people already love. They’ve agreed to help foot the bill for a new season of canceled series Arrested Development.  There was also talk of them taking on Fox’s failed dino-epic Terra Nova.