comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results from a study of the state of the Internet in Brazil, which includes a focus on social networking, one of the country’s most popular Internet categories. comScore’s data show that 85 percent of Brazilians age 15 and older who accessed the Internet from home or work computers in September 2008 visited a social networking site, up from 76 percent in September 2007. Compared to other countries with Internet populations of at least 10 million monthly unique visitors, Brazil had the second highest percent reach in the social networking category, slightly behind Canada with 87 percent...

As you may or may not have heard, over the last several days there’s been lots of discussion around a controversial TV ad/video that Johnson & Johnson’s Motrin launched on its website last Friday. You can easily find it with a few quick searches. The ad/video was meant to play on the fact that “baby wearing moms” are just doing so to be trendy. Well, there was quite a backlash and, as a result, the Motrin.com website was down for several hours and when it came back was sans video plus an apology from the vice president of marketing...

“Social media can change your business!” “You need a social media strategist!” “Social media can save you money!” Those are just three of the primary claims I’ve been hearing over and over and over again since I started following social business trends. Are they true? Sure. Are they false? Sure. The definitive answer is, “It depends on your business”...

Yesterday, I posted my Q&A with Scott Monty from Ford and his responses to a pile of questions about how they are approaching social media. And I promised that I’d share with you my takeaways, so here they are. Will you share yours with us too, in the comments?...

It wasn't exactly a repeat of the 1982 poisoned Tylenol disaster, but Johnson & Johnson struggled with a minor crisis this week after some vocal critics derided an edgy ad that implied that new moms could suffer back pain from carrying their infants. What can we learn from this episode and was J&J's rapid apology really the best response?...

What if you took everything you had and made it publicly available on the Internet? What if you opened up your most secret of secrets and encouraged your customers, friends, family members, peers and, yes, even your competitors to play with, tinker and devise that better mousetrap?...

Every marketer is looking for cost-effective ways to drive sales amid the current budget-constrained environment. Meanwhile, purchasing for many products has become a more drawn-out process due to the availability of shopping-related information and consumers who want to gather input from peers and experts. One way to reach your target audience when they're researching their purchases is to leverage the power of blogs. Recently, when I shopped for a mobile phone, the Verizon salesman recommended checking CrackBerry.com, which contains a collection of blogs, for more product information. Obviously this salesman felt this blog would add more credibility to his offering than anything he could say face to face...