By Donna M. Vandiver
In twenty-first century marketing, there is a new rulebook. Rule Number One: Your best marketers are always your satisfied customers. In conversations with friends, family, peers, people they interact with online, and even those who follow them on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and the myriad of other social media sites, your customers [...]

Less than two weeks until Thanksgiving. Remember, get your shopping done early. Here’s your Friday 5:

1. Forbes Sponsored Blog Model
Forbes is coming under criticism for its paid Forbes AdVoice blog, as debate wagers over whether consumers can tell the difference between paid blog posts and staff blog posts. Forbes argues that there are clear [...]

The shift in corporate management and spending over the last 18 months has created a domino effect that has impacted advertising and marketing departments, shrinking their budgets and shifting the way they approach projects.
Last month companies dropped millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads with fingers crossed their creation would be one buzzed about [...]

TVG recommends that our clients protect themselves from FTC violations by developing a formal social media policy for endorsers. It’s important to conduct periodic audits to ensure that your company’s policy is being implemented. Often, the marketing and legal departments must work together to create a comprehensive policy and a culture of compliance within [...]

In December, the FTC released revised Guidelines Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. I think it’s important to address specifically the FTC’s requirement that companies and endorsers disclose material connections. That’s why I will be writing a series of blog posts about best and worst practices and the impact the regulations may [...]

In November I attended the 2009 Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Summit in Las Vegas.  As a member of WOMMA, it has been interesting to watch the Association grow and transform as the social media era has taken hold of communications.  WOMMA conferences provide some great face-to-face collaboration and bring together an interesting mix [...]

My newest favorite Twitter personality to follow is @AskHBR.

Last month I attended the World-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s conference, WOMM-U. I joined other marketing and communications enthusiasts to collaborate on social media and hear about some great campaigns from Disney, Texas Instruments, WalMart and many more. We also heard from YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and other key social media platforms. Overall, it was [...]

If you’ve ever been to a conference or trade show, you’re almost always asked to drop a business card in a bowl to win a prize. It’s the tried and true way to generate some new leads. Those tactics may be changing with the advent of social media.
I recently attended the National [...]

One of the events most affecting the people of St. Louis in 2008 was the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by InBev. It’s too early to know exactly what the impact on the region will be, but we can expect it to be somewhere between significant and profound.*
I was a video producer/project manager in a creative subsidiary [...]