Tag Archives: Merc Strategy Group

The Rising Rule of Thumb for Online Political Ad Spending

03. Aug, 2010 • Categories: Online Advertising • by Curt Mercadante

For most of 2010, we’ve been counseling our political clients to invest a minimum of 10%-12% of their total ad budget on political advertising. It appears, according to this MediaPost piece, that this political ad rule of thumb is set to rise: This year’s political ad spending could be up between 5% and 10% from [...]

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New Study: Most Brands Fail @Twitter

02. Aug, 2010 • Categories: Social Media, Technology/Tools • by Curt Mercadante

A new report from 360i shows that most brands are coming up short in their attempts to utilize Twitter as a marketing tool.  But let’s be clear — it’s the brand’s use (or abuse) of the medium, rather than the medium itself, that is holding them back. According to 360i, after a six month study, [...]

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Small Businesses Turning to Social Media in Tough Economic Times

29. Jul, 2010 • Categories: Content, Social Media, Technology/Tools • by Curt Mercadante

With uncertain economic times, small businesses have to keep their wallets tight to keep their books out of the red. In order to keep your head above water, you have to advertise. Although costly, it is necessary to boost sales, grow your business, and have a positive impact on the community around you. Most small [...]

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Baltimore Sun Offers Free Blogs to All Maryland Candidates

28. Jul, 2010 • Categories: Content, Political Campaigns • by Curt Mercadante

I love it. The Baltimore Sun is breaking new ground by offering free blogs to all political candidates in Maryland. As epolitics.com reports: Call it innovation, call it self-preservation, call it a traffic scheme, but the Baltimore Sun, one of the leading papers covering Maryland politics, has made the decision to offer a blog to [...]

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Adding Foursquare to Your Organization’s Social Toolkit

27. Jul, 2010 • Categories: Content, Technology/Tools • by Curt Mercadante

Many companies are using Facebook and Twitter as part of their PR campaigns, but other social networking gems are popping up that could be beneficial to businesses and their online communications strategy. Foursquare is a social networking platform that allows its users to “check-in” to virtually everything from restaurants to airports via their smart phone [...]

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Are you ready for a communications climate change?

23. Jun, 2010 • Categories: Uncategorized • by Curt Mercadante

Does each one of your tweets require a multi-step approval process within your company before posting on Twitter? Are all of your Facebook status updates products of rigorous review processes by your communications, legal and policy departments? Does the above result in social networks in which you’re only posting one or two times per week? [...]

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The death of email? Call us skeptical

18. Jun, 2010 • Categories: Uncategorized • by Curt Mercadante

So, this week Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg predicted the death of email: “Email is probably dying.” Forgive us if we’re skeptical. While nobody can fully predict what new technology will take hold over the next few years, email is still the fabric that holds together online communications. For example, Ms. Sandberg should look at her [...]

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