Did you know that a recent survey showed that 89 percent of marketers said that social media has generated more exposure for their business, and that increasing traffic was the second major benefit, with 75 percent citing positive reports?

You hear time and time again that social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have made a massive impact on business marketing, but where’s the proof? Where are the hard numbers?

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Short on time or budget, but need to stay on top of the latest trends? Explore cutting-edge topics and programs that can help your business and your career take off – in our new one-hour webcast series.

Each week, we’ll feature a different expert who will discuss best practices, tips, and what to look out for when it comes to hottest trends and innovations sweeping the digital world.

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The majority of U.S. marketers say that they plan to spend more on mobile and social media marketing in 2013, reveals a new study from the Association Of National Advertisers.

In their 2013 Q1 Member Benchmarking Survey, the ANA discovered that 55 percent of advertisers will increase their social media expenditure this year, while 45 percent will spend the same.

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Can you win the #GameOfMarketing?

Well, now’s your chance to find out, courtesy of this amusing piece of viral marketing from those winning folks at Another Marketing Conference, which takes place Tuesday, June 25th, Cambridge, UK.

As they say, working in marketing can feel a bit like a boardgame sometimes – every time you think you are moving forward something takes you by surprise and brings you back down to earth with a bump. So, they designed this board game (which is laugh-out-loud funny in parts), as a way to test the mettle of your common or garden marketer. Or anybody thinking about signing up for that job.

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Want more retweets on Twitter? Sure, who doesn’t, right?

So… have you tried asking for them?

Yep. Tweets that include the phrase “please retweet” are significantly more likely to be retweeted than other kinds of tweet (i.e., those that don’t say “please retweet”). And it has to be longhand, too – asking for someone to “please RT” generates a measurably lower return.

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Which social media platforms and tools do marketers in the business to customer (B2C) and business to business (B2B) consider to be the most important for their brand, and why?

Social Media Examiner surveyed marketers worldwide and discovered that Facebook (surprise) is the preferred social media platform for B2C marketers, favoured by 67 percent of brands, ahead of blogging (11 percent) and Twitter (10 percent).

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What is digital marketing?

It’s a pretty expansive question, but let’s try and sum it up in a single sentence: digital marketing is the promotion of brands using all forms of digital advertising, which includes, but is not limited to, websites, search engine optimisation, search engine marketing, cost per click advertising and social media.

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U.S. social media advertising spend is expected to grow 31.6 percent in 2013, reaching $4.2 billion by year-end, predicts eMarketer, and a new study has revealed some of the tactics used by marketing professionals.

Forrester Consulting surveyed U.S. advertisers and found that more than seven in ten (73 percent) cited the use of branded pages on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as their primary social marketing tactic, ahead of buying ads on social networks (56 percent), micro-blogging (52 percent) and paying to promote content (51 percent).

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Did you know that 15 percent of U.S. mobile internet time is spent entirely on social networking sites? Or that social media lead conversion rates are 13 percent higher than the average lead conversion rate?

What if I told you that 36 percent of marketers have found a customer via Twitter, that companies with more than 1,000 Twitter followers generate (on average) 800 new website visitors each month or that social media produces almost double the marketing leads of trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail or PPC?

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Social media is all about engagement.

Right? How many times have you heard that. Engage, engage, engage. So why are so many brands so bad at it?

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