By JENNIFER L. CHERRY, Vice President, Marx Layne

The owners of businesses, no matter how small or large, should take heed from the adage “Fish where the fish are.”

Consumers are extremely active in social media and getting so comfortable with their mobile devices that they want to do more with them.

Keep in mind that people are talking about your business online whether you’re on social networks or not, so join the party and put your own spin on things. The biggest hurdle for a company to get involved in social media was explained by a Ford Motor Co. executive, who said the hardest thing is to let go of your brand and let consumers run with it. Mind you, Ford has been successful in its social media efforts. Costs are relatively low for such high potential.

Consider: Facebook has more than 500 million users and Twitter now has 175 million registered users.

Social media sites like Facebook aren’t normally places where consumers actually buy goods, but are virtual gathering spots where they learn or reveal what’s cool and can build consideration for your products or services.

Nevertheless, some companies have added “Buy Now” buttons on their social media pages. While these outfits haven’t revealed what kind of sales volumes they’re seeing from this, there’s little downside since it doesn’t cost much to add this feature. It’s about being where the buyer is when they make the decision to buy.

Social media can expand your customer base via existing clientele writing about your products or their positive experiences in your establishment. Executives may fret about the potential of customers writing negative things, but the benefit in this case is quicker awareness of a problem and the opportunity to rectify it.

WE’RE GOING MOBILE

Cooler smart phone technology has really caught on. Americans are using them more to do more, whether post on social media sites, check email or search for information.

When it comes to shopping, consumers in the not-too-distant past, used the devices for information and in-store price comparisons. But now than they’re more comfortable with the devices they want to complete their transactions.

Outfits like Square, a mobile credit card provider, lets them do that. A cheaper and less bulky alternative to traditional, wireless credit card machines, Square lets business owners accept credit card payments by plugging its jack into the headphone of iPhone, iPad or Android device. Best Buy customers can even complete a transaction using the Best Buy Mobile app.

Major national retailers started using a free smart phone app for customers called Shopkick this summer that rewards in-store shoppers with points towards gift certificates. Shoppers automatically “check in” at the stores when they walk in with the app running and collect points for different behavior, like picking up merchandise, going into dressing rooms or to cash registers.

This app can help the retailers learn about in-store shopping patterns that could result in better layouts and product selection.

By MATT SCHULER, Digital Architect, Marx Layne

I’ve been shopping for deals online since I picked up “The Matrix” DVD for pennies when some of my friends were dropping $20 on it.

The internet has been leading the shopping revolution for years, but now it’s also giving people an edge when they go in to stores as well. It’s likely you’ve been to a site listing Black Friday deals and ads. A Google search of Black Friday Ads nets more than 40 million results. Topping the results are sites like http://bfads.net, http://www.blackfriday.info, and http://www.black-friday.net. The sites even have details on deals that start on Thanksgiving Day!

Planning out a shopping strategy has become a digital endeavor. The Wall Street Journal tells the story of Debbie Young and how her quest for the best deals now includes a digital companion—her smartphone.

“I don’t know how I would ever shop without my iPhone, especially this time of year,” Ms. Young told the WSJ. A point of reference, Ms. Young is 58 years old. For the first 50-some years of her shopping life, she was doing things sans smartphone. But now, it’s making her life easier and it’s also giving stores a chance to be innovative.

The WSJ cites an October survey by the Mobile Marketing Association that found 59% of adult U.S. cellphone owners plan to use their phones for shopping and for planning parties. There’s a 25% increase in the number of people who will be using their mobile phones compared to last year.

If you know they’re going to be connected, you can target them. With apps that allow people to scan a barcode and find out what the best price is, you can be proactive and match the price. It’s something the WSJ reports Best Buy is doing, matching the price that retails are shown on cellphone screens.

Increasingly users are also checking in when they go shopping. You can incentivize the shopping experience and encourage customers to check in by offering discounts, special incentives or even free product. Gap Inc. gave away 10,000 pairs of jeans to customers earlier this month when people checked in at stores using Facebook, and according the the WSJ article, when the jeans ran out the retailer started handing out 40% discounts.

Knowing that customers will be using digital devices as they plan a strategy for their shopping means that you know they’ll have that constant contact. You can use it to your advantage and develop a strategy to benefit your business.

By MATT SCHULER, Digital Architect, Marx Layne

There’s a trend growing among American adults, staying connected with work even when away from it. I’m not talking about checking an email from your computer on a Tuesday night, but pushing back from the Thanksgiving feast and loading up your account during a true holiday.

Mashable cited a new survey from Xobni and Harris interactive that says “59% of employed American adults check their e-mail during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of the 59%, more than half (55%) check their work e-mails at least once a day, while about 28% check their e-mails multiple times throughout the day.”

Take in to account that some employees have their work email pushed to a device, and you can safely assume that important work can get done even on a holiday.

They’re checking their work emails for a variety of reasons too. The largest group (42%) are checking email to stay up-to-date, others believe it helps ease their workload and about one in five say that they emails serve as a welcome distraction.

If people are so inclined to check their work emails during a holiday or break, I think it’s safe to say they’re also using the same devices with increased frequency and are looking for new ways for technology to make their lives easier.

Personally, I’ve had work email pushed to my phone and it was of great benefit. I learned about scoops, review opportunities, schedule changes and more. I used the same smartphone to check up on social networking strategy and opportunities to update my coworkers if I saw a problem online that needed fixing.

Are you always connected, checking work emails while on vacation or during a holiday? What are some ways that it helps you?

By MATT SCHULER, Digital Architect, Marx Layne

This past weekend when I logged into my Facebook account, I was greeted by a message asking me to change my homepage to www.facebook.com. I wasn’t the only one.

It turns out Facebook is trying to become the first place you go when you open your browser. The only change I’ve made in years was when I switched my browser from www.google.com to www.google.com/ig because I wanted to use the customized Google interface. For as long as I can remember, I’ve gone to Google first.

Now, Facebook is trying to change that, but they’re just the latest in a series of companies who’ve been trying to get you to change your home page. As TechCrunch notes, “Being people’s homepage is good for branding, great for ‘stickiness’ and phenomenal for traffic.”

Facebook hasn’t made an announcement of any kind about the homepage replacement, and it appears to me that Facebook is testing out a variety of message and popup layouts. The message I received is different than the ones posted on TechCrunch and VentureBeat.

I’d presume that Facebook wants you to turn to your friends when you’re looking for information rather than to a search engine. People are already looking to their peers and the social graph they’ve created which is why it’s more important then ever to have a social media strategy for interacting with them.

What’s your homepage? Would you change it to Facebook if you were asked?

By Jennifer L. Cherry, Vice President, Marx Layne

Retailers are already promoting deals for Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving and one of the 10 biggest online shopping days of the year. Researchers and retailers are projecting lifts in online sales that day versus 2009, when Americans spent a record $887 million and topped 2008′s prior peak for the day by 5%, according to comscore.com.

When the National Retail Federation’s Shop.org first dubbed this day Cyber Monday in 2005, most consumers didn’t have Internet broadband service at home, so the bulk of the shopping was done at work-where the speeds reigned supreme. Since then, in-home broadband has grown dramatically.

Yet more than half of last year’s Cyber Monday purchases still originated from work computers, according to comscore.com. Now comes the results of a new study by WPP Group’s Lightspeed Research for dealnews.com that 86% of those planning to shop that day would do so from their home computers, with only 13% doing it from work. That’s good news for employers and productivity.

But retailers may have some consumer educating to do, since a third of the 2,001 online respondents in that survey also have never heard of Cyber Monday. While dealnews.com reports people with annual earnings of more than $50,000 have the most awareness of the day, the third of the respondents still in the dark about it doesn’t fluctuate much among age groups or geography.

Researcher Forrester expects online retail sales during the entire holiday season to grow 16 percent in the U.S. compared to last year. The market researcher said consumers are showing a willingness to spend this season, with affluent consumers driving the most growth. Online retailers in the U.S. also expect their holiday sales to rise year-over-year, but are planning aggressive promotions throughout the season, highlighting Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Forrester says.

NPD Group noticed during last year’s bleak economy that retailers offered deals over two weeks, not just on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. That has resulted in what NPD’s chief analyst Marshall Cohen called the “graying of Black Friday” since there’s opportunities to get the same great deals on other days.

There’s new research that shows Americans are increasingly more willing to shop online for holiday gifts, rather than face the mobs of people who go to brick-and-mortar stores for one-day-only, deep discounts on Black Friday. A recent online poll of 800 prior Black Friday shoppers by Persuadable Research Corp. for dealnews.com found that only 46% of them plan to definitely shop on Black Friday this year, a 12% drop from last year. It’s not just the crowds and yes, sometimes rude fellow shoppers that is causing this shift, but consumers’ realization that they can find better and earlier deals online. Fifty-nine percent of the respondents said they’d rather shop online on Black Friday than in a store.

By MATT SCHULER, Digital Architect, Marx Layne

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch calls it a formal surrender ceremony, but what you’ve read is true, MySpace and Facebook have partnered.

What’s that mean? You can now log in to MySpace with Facebook. I don’t necessarily see it as a surrender though, I think it’s more analogous to dogs and cats living together.

Facebook has cemented itself as the premier social network, a spot held by MySpace just a couple years ago. It serves as a reminder that the web moves fast and that you have to have a social media strategy for the fast-paced changes. If you’re stuck in the past, there’s less value to be found.

Mashable writes that it’s important for a few more key reasons, “First and most obvious, it’s official acknowledgment on the part of MySpace that Facebook has indeed become top dog in the social networking space, and it’s better to be with them than against them at this point. Second, and more important as MySpace looks to turn itself around, it creates a huge new audience for MySpace’s content and affirms its focus on entertainment.”

The important takeaway for MySpace is that they have a built in entertainment audience and want to utilize the Facebook “Like” system to offer real content. An overview of how they plan on doing that can be found here.

You can see some of the new features of the MySpace/Facebook partnership in the video below and for even more details check out the press release from MySpace.

Mashup your Facebook Likes on Myspace

Myspace | Myspace Video

By MATT SCHULER, Digital Architect, Marx Layne

It’s not incredibly hard for me to imagine what life would have been like in the Wild West (or the American Old West as it’s referred to on Wikipedia) because I’ve such great examples from Hollywood. Back to the Future 3, anyone?

It was the time of outlaws, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, the Dalton Gang and Butch Cassidy. People lived life on the frontier, where the laws of the land still hadn’t caught up with the rules of the road.

The only thing that’s hard for me to imagine is how long the period lasted. From the mid 1830s to about 1920, there was a sense of adventure for those living in the Wild West.

Right now, we’re still in the early days of the web. Sure, it’s been 20 years from Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau invented it, but it’s still relatively young compared to other technologies. It’s easily comparable to the frontier life because things are still being developed. The laws of the land still haven’t caught up with the rules of the road.

Looking just at clever map of online communities created by XKCD, one can see the truly expansive nature of the web we roam. But there’s something missing from the map, and it’s the same thing Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg pointed out on a similar map at the Web 2.0 Summit.

“The biggest part of the map has to be uncharted territory,” Zuckerberg is quoted as saying by TechCrunch. “This map makes it seem like it’s zero-sum, but it’s not. We’re building value, not just taking it away from someone else.”

Just like the Wild West and frontier life in America was building value for the U.S.A., there are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies building value on the web. 25 years ago, Microsoft released Windows. 12 years ago, Google was working in a garage. 6 years ago, Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com.

Now we have more ways to share and market our ideas than ever. There are ways to use social media to optimize your strategy and get your message out in a broad way. These ways are constantly changing, and as Zuckerberg said the biggest part of the internet roadmap has to be uncharted territory.

By MATT SCHULER, Digital Architect, Marx Layne