*Clarity In Marketing

Nearly 90 per cent of businesses are missing out on valuable market data by failing to analyse social networks, reports The Institue of Direct Marketing on it's website.

According to predictive analytics software provider SPSS, despite 82 per cent of firms claiming that social networking sites such as Facebook are a useful source of information, the majority do not use them to survey customer opinion.

Reported by Precision Marketing, the firm suggests that such portals provide a good opportunity for companies to collaborate market data, irrespective of language or distance. Colin Shearer, senior vice-president of market strategy at SPSS, explained that consumers are more open about their opinions towards products or services on social networking sites.

He also claimed that businesses will be "overwhelmed" by the wealth of information available from social network data. "While traditional contact channels are still applicable, businesses need to recognise and capitalise on the shift towards social networking or they are missing vital insight," he said.

Last year, it was revealed by comScore that Brits are the biggest users of social networking sites in Europe.

According to the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies (NFEA), business owners should not slash marketing budgets in order to cut costs, despite economic instability. Instead, we suggest they should be looking to get a better return from their marketing. Read our tips for making your marketing more effective.

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Online advertising has seen greater than expected growth in the first six months of 2007 with spend topping £1.3 billion.

Figures published this week by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC reveal online advertising has grown 41.3% in the first six months of 2007.

With a 14.7% market share, online advertising now outstrips direct mail which stands at 11.8%.

While the total UK advertising sector grew by 3.1% in the first half of the year overall, UK media expenditure would have fallen by 1.9% (£147 million) without online's contribution.

Guy Phillipson, chief executive, IAB adds "90% of internet users are on broadband now and nearly 40% are using wireless. We’re also seeing women and the over 50s spending far more time online, which makes the internet a very attractive medium to a broader set of advertisers."

If you're missing out on the online marketing revolution talk to Clarity In Marketing about harnessing eMedia to grow your business. 

Read the full IAB article.

This time last year Facebook membership was reserved exclusively for students, and it was the 138th most visited website in the UK. Then in September it opened itself up so that anyone could join, and its membership started to grow exponentially. Facebook, which attracts an older and more affluent audience than the other big social networks, is now the 10th most visited website in the UK. In fact, 3 of the top 10 most visited websites in the UK in July were social networks, with Bebo at number 6 and MySpace at number 8.

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The explosion in popularity of online video has arrived hand-in-hand with an increase in the possibilities for advertising to accompany it. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has put together a video marketing handbook to provide an overview of all the current opportunities for advertisers in this exciting space and offer an insight into the future of the format.

Video advertising on the internet isn’t new, but the volumes and the variety of different formats available is increasing considerably. Many websites already carry video advertising which is usually in the form of pre-rolls or other forms of moving image using, for example, Flash technology.

However, within the next few years one of the major differences will be an increasing amount of video advertising presented in and around other video content. This could be programming from existing broadcasters, made for broadband, branded content and even user-generated content (UGC).

Download the full handbook from the IAB website