Sephora, known as a consumer-friendly haven for sampling cosmetic brands, fragrances and beauty tools, recently tapped its shopper base for product ratings and reviews via a mobile site that the company launched at the end of 2009.

As the beauty retailer evolves its mobile strategy, Julie Bornstein, senior vice president of Sephora Direct, hints that there will be additional elements that will extend beyond ratings and reviews to enable consumers to tap their smartphones for in-store shopping opportunities. Here’s a snippet from the full interview with Ms. Bornstein on eMarketer Total Access: (Read more…)

We recently chatted with Pete Blackshaw, vice president of Digital Strategic Services at Nielsen, and his colleague, Maya Swedowsky, about how customers use social media sites to praise and complain about retailers and best practices retailers use to respond. Here’s a clip from the full interview available on eMarketer Total Access: (Read more…)

For those of you unfamiliar with American Express OPEN Forum, here’s a primer: The site, which originally launched in 2007, is an online resource and social networking hub for small-business owners and entrepreneurs searching for practical information and tips for industry experts. According to Compete, OpenForum.com passed 1 million monthly unique visitors for the first time in March.

This success, in part, is due to Jason Rudman, who leads OPEN Forum’s content strategy and development. We recently spoke to him about the evolution of the platform and how American Express OPEN is using social media to arm small business with the information they need. Here’s a snippet from the full-interview on eMarketer Total Access. (Read more…)

A February 2010 Edison Research study of Twitter usage and demographics is making the rounds on several blogs, and some readers think they have found a problem for microblogging marketers: Twitter’s failure to convert awareness to usage.

However, that finding is not about brand awareness—unless the brand is Twitter itself. The site rose in popularity last year and got plenty of attention from the mainstream press. The result? Almost as many people have heard of Twitter as Facebook.

At the same time, relatively few people who have heard of Twitter actually use it. That “conversion rate” may be a problem for Twitter itself, though the service still boasts tens of millions of users (and counting), and keeps those users engaged over time.

But for marketers, there is plenty of data to support targeting Twitter. The Edison study itself found more than one-half of Twitter users followed a brand, compared with just 16% of other social network users. Small businesses have found Twitter effective for lead generation, and Twitter users are more likely than Facebook users to respond to brand recommendations from friends. There is also evidence from companies like IBM and Dell that Twitter promotion can make millions.

Skepticism is healthy, but perhaps the most experienced social media marketers are onto something and Twitter marketing is worthwhile.

How successful can a B2B business be using social media? Fairly successful, at least in the case of IBM. We recently chatted with Ed Linde II, whose team is responsible for building Web assets to support the IBM.com sales channel and organic Web visitors, about IBM’s social media efforts and successes. He spoke about their Listening for Leads program, which he says has “uncovered millions of dollars worth of sales leads” so far, and is expected grow even more. Here’s a clip from the full interview available on eMarketer Total Access. (Read more…)