COMPETE BLOG — In recent months, I’ve noticed the term "groupon" creeping into conversations with increasing regularity. The term comes from groupon.com, a website devoted to offering a new deal each day and built around the tagline of "collective buying power." The site is targeted to various cities across the country, and each day features a steep discount at a local establishment. In order for the groupon to be activated for that day, a certain number of people must join the deal. Once that number is reached, the deal is on and everyone who signed up receives the Groupon coupon by email...

COMPETE BLOG — According to a 2008 Rosetta study, in April of 2008, less than 1/3 of US e-retailers had a Facebook page. By November 2008, that number had doubled. Last quarter, Softpedia reported that 86 percent of US online retailers have a Facebook page, and they expect that number to reach 99 percent soon. With the vast majority of online retailers flocking to Facebook and other social media sites, the question I have to ask is: are consumers paying attention?...

COMPETE BLOG — If you are an advertiser who wants to drive large volumes of traffic to your site, there are two important things you are probably looking for: reach and ease of implementing your campaign. Facebook meets these qualifications. It is currently the third largest site online with 125MM visitors in September and it is quickly approaching parity with the #1 and #2 publishers, Google and Yahoo...

COMPETE BLOG — Let’s face it. At this point, if you’re not somehow plugged into Twitter, you’re either asleep at the wheel, in complete denial, or my mother. For most people, the allure of real time news, spicy celebrity gossip, and an endless flow of whimsical trivialities from the Twitter pipe is simply irresistible. For marketers, however, Twitter is not all fun and games – especially when dollars, customer relationships, and brand credibility are on the line...

COMPETE BLOG — Twitter continues to capture the attention and imagination of marketers; the site has posted twenty consecutive months of all time highs in site traffic. Its 23M+ monthly user base (as of July) provides a huge opportunity for brand marketers to directly engage customers, drive brand awareness, and drive revenue. Jetblue, Southwest and United are the most active airline brands on Twitter with approximately 1M, 460K & 30K ‘followers’ respectively (at the time of writing). Leveraging its ability to track consumer behavior across the internet, Compete measured the directional potential for twitter traffic to drive airline business by quantifying the extent to which shoppers of these airlines also visited Twitter...