Paid brand conversations on the rise: transparency is a myth, money makes the social media world go round

Money A study from PQ Media has found that more brands are likely to compensate bloggers and social media users in an attempt to generate chatter about their products. The press release about the report doesn’t really say if in these practices clear and obvious links between the posts/tweets/whatever and the advertisers exist for the people who take the effort to tweet, buzz, share, bookmark, retweet, like or simply ‘read’ them.

Maybe the report tells more about it, but I don’t really feel like paying $1,295 to find out and I guess the relationships between the ‘social influencers’ and the brands that reward them are not always clear since PQ Media uses the word ‘controversial’. And, let’s face it, we all know business is business. 

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The real-time web: the impact of social networks on organic search

Punch By Stijn De Meyere

According to UK-based PR, search and social media agency Punch Communications, “the addition of real time social media factors into results on search engines could serve to galvanize the quality of organic search”.

The influence of social media on search engine results is becoming more and more prominent every day, and is likely to get even more significant in near future.

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