Michael Litt says, “Love it or hate it, email is at the heart of many business relationships, and it is one of the main tools marketers use to develop and nurture relationships with prospective customers. Unfortunately, our inboxes are inundated with messages. It’s hard enough to get a response from someone expecting your email, let alone from someone who knows you’re trying to sell them something. Our inboxes aren’t that different from our social media feeds in that respect. They’re full of updates we don’t care about (and sometimes even from people we don’t care about). Think... [...]

Martin Beck says, “That brands should be “human” on social media has become a cliche. Worse, in some cases, brands take the advice too far and make embarrassing attempts to act like humans of a certain age. (See the Brands Saying Bae Twitter account.) But when it comes to customer service, authentic humanity works very well. That was the most surprising finding to come out of research that Twitter published this month, Twitter research manager Meghann Elrhoul told Marketing Land. Brands that got personal in customer service interactions did far better than those that kept it businesslike.... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Direct messages on Twitter can now be much more long-winded. The company announced that starting today, it is dropping the 140-character limit for private messages within its network. The new limit is 10,000 characters. Twitter said the change will begin rolling out today on twitter.com, the iOS and Android apps, TweetDeck and Twitter for Mac and will continue to roll out worldwide in the next few weeks. Direct Messages sent and received the old-school way via SMS will still be limited to 140 characters. Here’s our original story from June when Twitter announced it would... [...]

Martin Beck says, “In May, Google started displaying Twitter results in a limited way, only on mobile and only within the US. Now it appears that Google is experimenting with bringing such results outside the country and to the desktop. The folks at Conductor tipped Search Engine Land that they are consistently seeing the Twitter integration within desktop search results in the UK“. Google May Be Bringing Twitter To Desktop Search Results Marketing Land  [...]

JP Mangalindan says, “Twitter users can officially send one another direct messages topping 140 characters starting Wednesday. Twitter is phasing in the change across Android, iOS and web-based platforms on Wednesday, lasting over the next few weeks. Instead of 140 characters, the social network previously said in June the new character maximum would be 10,000. “You can now chat on (and on) in a single direct message, and likely still have some characters left over,” the company wrote in a blog post published Wednesday”. Twitter officially drops 140-character limit…... [...]

Jim Yu says, “Brands and marketers are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of content. Unfortunately, this greater insight does not always result in higher levels of customer engagement or stronger ROI. When content is used correctly, it can be an incredible tool for brands — but too many companies are missing the opportunity and spinning their wheels. The content you produce needs to demonstrate an accurate understanding of the target audience and what they seek. It then needs to work in tandem with search and social to get that information in front of the intended audience.... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Advertisers that use Amazon Product Ads will soon have to find other ways to get their items in front of Amazon shoppers. The company has started notifying advertisers that Product Ads will be shut down as of October 31st. Amazon is simultaneously introducing a new ad option called Amazon Text Ads, and the email sent to advertisers suggests that as one of a couple alternatives. The email doesn’t give any specifics about why Amazon is shutting down Product Ads. We’ve reached out to the company for more details but have yet to receive a reply. Here’s the full text of... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Last fall, Twitter unleashed the full history of tweets, giving users the ability to search for everything from @Jack’s first message on the network in 2006 to conversations about the 2014 World Cup to… literally anything that is shared on Twitter. Today, Twitter announced that it’s making the full stream available through an API. Not a free API, mind you, but one that will be available for a price through enterprise analytics providers and Twitter’s own Gnip service. The Full Archive Search API builds upon two Gnip products — the Historical PowerTrack and the... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Complaining about poor service on social media might be the new national pastime. But most brands are still doing a poor job of responding to consumer complaints, especially on Twitter, where most of the action is taking place. According to Social Bakers, brands answered fewer than 30 percent of the seven million questions asked of them on Twitter in the second quarter of 2015. Brands are doing much better on Facebook, answering 76 percent of the 1.5 million questions posted on their Facebook Pages in Q2. Facebook is pushing its advantage with new tools for Pages, announcing... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Twitter today introduced a new feature to help advertisers manage multiple campaigns. Called ads editor, the tool enables users to create and manage advertising campaigns with spreadsheets, either downloaded from existing Twitter campaigns or created from scratch and uploaded to Twitter’s ad-serving dashboard. Twitter product manager Deepak Rao explained how the tool works in a blog post: With ads editor, you can leverage the power of Excel to manage your campaigns at scale. For example, if you’d like to edit your campaign end dates, budgets, and targeting criteria,... [...]