The Web Uncovered

FFWD Brands is giving away a FREE custom designed Wordpress Blog Style Website to a deserving (Friend/Follower/Reader)!!!

Rev-up your company’s current site and make 2010 your most profitable year! Adding a Blog style site to your marketing efforts is the next step in increasing your company’s online presence and increasing your status as an industry expert.
FFWD’s marketing experts are offering their expertise and time for a deserving company. Enter today!

Winner will be announced 3-31-10
The Winner will Receive:
-A dynamic and eye catching Wordpress (Blog Style) Website for your Company
-1year free hosting courtesy of FFWD Brands
-Your Company’s Brand integrated into the Template Layout, highlighting your company in a very professional and creative light
-‘Contact Us’ Section that is linked to your email address, capturing all your followers’ information
-Free Digital Marketing & SEO consultation/analysis
FFWD will ensure that your site implements the Top 5 Blog Plug-In’s, which include:
-All in One SEO Pack
-FD Feedburner
-Sociable
-WR-Superache
-Google XML Sitemaps

1. No purchase necessary to enter the FFWD Brands, LLC.  contest. The contest will end on the date stated in the posting.
2. FFWD Brands, LLC. Contests are open to all companies and non-profits, individual entering much be 18 years or older and legally allowed to participate in such a contest as allowed by their local laws and corporate structures.
3. Players must submit the required materials for each contest which will register the player on the spot, for a chance to win. Players will be informed if they are a winner on or after the contest end date. Limit one attempt per person, per section of the promotion. FFWD Brands, LLC and its subsidiaries are not responsible for: incomplete, lost, late, damaged, scrambled or misdirected entries or other errors of any kind whether human, mechanical or electronic, which may limit a user’s ability to participate in the contest. FFWD Brands, LLC reserves the right to cancel or modify the contest if fraud destroys the integrity of the contest as determined by FFWD Brands, LLC in its sole discretion. All entries become the property of FFWD Brands, LLC and will not be returned or acknowledged.
4. Employees and families of FFWD Brands, LLC and its affiliates and subsidiaries are not eligible. Void where prohibited by law. All Federal, state and local laws and regulations apply.
5. Prizes will be assigned to those who have been identified as winners.
6. Acceptance of prize offered constitutes permission to use winner’s name and/or likeness for purposes of advertising and trade, worldwide in perpetuity, without future compensation, unless prohibited by law. Entering the contest is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws.
7. All programs and guarantees are subject to terms and conditions.
8. FFWD Brands, LLC reserves the right to update the terms and conditions at any time without notification.

Four months ago Mashable asked it’s readers to vote in for their preferred social network between the two current giants: Twitter versus Facebook. The results were pretty close, although Facebook edged out Twitter in a 48% to 40% victory. Now, there’s a whole new game in town (google buzz).

Google Buzz is now the new shiny, and represents Google’s big push into social networking meets mobile social meets location services. We know it’s still the early days for Buzz, but it seems like a good time to gauge the opinion of our readers thus far.

Have you had a chance to spend some quality time with Buzz? Do you like the service? Are there parts about it you don’t like? Does it draw you away from other social networks or complement them? Let us know your vote for best social service in the poll below, and be sure to let us know why you picked your favored winner.

2010 is here and with a new year comes new expectations, especially when it comes to social media.  Anyone who has been immersed in social media for the past few years have witnessed social media’s transformation from a richer form of harmless online chatter to one of the most powerful marketing channels today!  Marketers are seeing the masses spend less time on traditional media and more time playing Farmville on Facebook (I’m referring to the black sheep on your Newsfeed  phenomenon).  So if 2009 was there year where social media social media got some double takes from the the usual critics than 2010 is the year social media reels in that critic and seals the deal (whatever that means to you).

Some of the emerging trends in 2010:

Top Trends for Businesses

• The most apprehensive and most traditional companies will start dipping their toes in the water (cause everyone else will have already dove in).
• Each business will begin to set metrics for measuring ROI instead of measuring obscure levels of engagement.
• Companies will begin enforce social  media policies (like the NBA).
• Small business will begin to emerge in the space (via apps like FourSquare).
• Media agencies will begin to expand their offering or partner-up with others who got the skill set they need.

Don’t just take my word for it…check out what the experts have to say!

Seth Godin argues the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so.

About Seth Godin

Seth Godin is an entrepreneur and blogger who thinks about the marketing of ideas in the digital age. His newest interest: the tribes we lead. Full bio and more links

“Seth Godin may be the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age,” Mary Kuntz wrote in Business Week nearly a decade ago. “Instead of widgets or car parts, he specializes in ideas — usually, but not always, his own.” In fact, he’s as focused on spreading ideas as he is on the ideas themselves.

After working as a software brand manager in the mid-1980s, Godin started Yoyodyne, one of the first Internet-based direct-marketing firms, with the notion that companies needed to rethink how they reached customers. His efforts caught the attention of Yahoo!, which bought the company in 1998 and kept Godin on as a vice president of permission marketing. Godin has produced several critically acclaimed and attention-grabbing books, including Permission Marketing, All Marketers Are Liars, and Purple Cow (which was distributed in a milk carton). In 2005, Godin founded Squidoo.com, a Web site where users can share links and information about an idea or topic important to them.

“[Godin] is a demigod on the Web, a best-selling author, highly sought-after lecturer, successful entrepreneur, respected pundit and high-profile blogger. He is uniquely respected for his understanding of the Internet.” Forbes.com

Is Twitter Fading?  If you saw the headlines yesterday, you might be excused for thinking Twitter was in decline:  “Twitter’s growth slows dramatically,” “Twitter popularity declines, growth slows down,” and “Is Twitter ‘Traffic’ Tanking?”

Twitter was the story of 2009, growing from less than 5 million monthly users to almost 30 million in the course of six months.  People joined, brands rushed in, and words like “Tweet” entered our common vocabulary.

Yes, overall growth is slowing—how could it not after posting 1,000%-plus growth in such a short time?–but the key for marketers is not the number of Twitterers but the habits, Technographics and psychographics of Twitterers.  As Sean Corcoran and Josh Bernoff demonstrated in their December 2009 report, “Who Flocks To Twitter?,” Twitters are the connected of the connected, overindexing at all Social Media habits.  For example, Twitterers are three times more likely to be Creators (people who create and share content via blog posts and YouTube) as the general US population.  continue reading via the Forrester Blog

Is social media a fad that businesses should avoid? Think again or drown – is the message of the Social Media Pool graphic and it’s quite compelling. Facebook is growing faster than Google ever did.  Twitter might be the ultimate Networking site. Check out Oliver Blanchard’s Basics of Social Media ROI.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this subject and success/failure stories…