You should see the other guy. A new study by researchers at Yale School of Management suggests that companies can increase their bottom line by recommending a rival on their blogs. In their study, "Link to Success: How Blogs Build an Audience by Promoting Rivals" Dina Mayzlin and Hema Yoganarasimhan offer the theory that posting a link to a competitor can help build a blog's audience, because it signals that the blog strives to provide useful information for the reader. Such links can also help a blogger generate content when he or she doesn't have any news to report. "Impressing readers is a big issue for bloggers. If a blogger is not able at this time to 'get the scoop,' it is in her best interest to direct readers to a rival that has new information," said Mayzlin. For more information visit http://www.cci.som.yale.edu/.
And so on, and so on… Podcasters around the globe are banding together March 21 to try and rocket an independent musician to the top of the iTunes sales chart – and raise money for a scholarship fund. This campaign, called Bumrush the Charts, represents a viral social media experiment in which podcasters, in conjunction with bloggers, indie labels and artists, will ask their listeners to buy one song, by one band, on one day. The song is "Mine Again" by the band Black Lab, from their new album Passion Leaves a Trace (http://www.blacklabworld.com/). Black Lab fought for ownership of their music after being pushed out of two major label record deals and has subsequently become an early adopter of podcasting. Bumrush the Charts plans to use an iTunes affiliate link to earn a commission on each sale of the song, which it will use to build a scholarship fund. The Student Loan Network, an education finance company in Boston, has made a pledge to match the first $1,000 raised.
Let's be friends. Forty-eight percent of brand marketers plan to use social marketing tactics in the next year, compared to 38% last year, according to a new report from JupiterResearch. "Users between 18 and 34 are much more likely than older audiences to visit social networks daily," said Emily Riley, JupiterResearch analyst and lead author of the report. "Thirty percent of frequent social networkers trust their peers' opinions when making a major purchase decision, but only 10% trust advertisements. Consequently, brand marketers must harness brand advocates and influentials by providing additional motivation for frequent networkers to engage in social marketing."
A new study by researchers at Yale School of Management suggests that companies can increase their bottom line by recommending a rival on their blogs.
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