Tookitaki (www.tookitaki.com) is a social audience discovery and retargeting platform that has recently launched its beta version at iAccellerator’s¹ Demo Day in Ahmedabad, India.

With incubation funding recently secured from Bangalore tech start-up incubator Srijan Capital as well as other angel investors², Tookitaki is looking forward to demonstrate just what its platform can do for advertisers conscious of media budgets waste.

Tookitaki At A Glance

In their own words, “It all began from a simple idea to go social and capitalize on the problem – too much data, not enough time to squeeze the best. Tookitaki built on this idea to help enterprises explore and engage with relevant people across the social web.”

“We help marketers discover their audiences via analyzing social graph data. Simply put, a marketer can define criteria to describe an audience and our machine learning algorithm based on contextual search can “locate” a potential audience. We then provide RTB-based platform to reach out to the discovered audience.“, says Abhishek Chatterjee, Founder & CEO, Tookitaki.

Tookitaki scans social media platforms – Facebook and LinkedIn at the moment, with Twitter to be added soon – to identify products and brands that people talk about. Tookitaki’s audience discovery engine will then help advertisers identify and connect with the very people who are interested in their products.

By targeting the right audience with the right ads at the right time, followed by retargeting campaigns across both Facebook and the general web, Tookitaki promises to address three shortcomings of most online advertising campaigns:

- low engagement: at an average 6.2%³ engagement rate, plenty of brands fail to make the most out of their targeted audience

- low CTR: 0.1%⁴ appears to be an average click-through rate across banner ads in the United States, while we’ve all experienced CTRs even significantly lower than this in recent years;

- high bounce rate: at a whopping 40%⁵ average bounce rate, many ad budgets are wasted towards the final stages of their attempt to engage the desired audience.

The tools employed by Tookitaki in the quest of bridging the general web and the social media while creating targetable audiences include:

- Facebook Custom Audiences, helping brands to serve ads exclusively to their targeted audience;

- Intelligent Programmatic Advertising, assisting media buyers in fine-tuning their targeting.

Tookitaki will be facing tough competitions from more established and well-known players such as AddThis, RadiumOne, Lotame, Hearsay Social, as well as from smaller, newer companies like Perfect Audience or Velocity. Its founders remain confident that Tookitaki will be able to find its place on the market and prove value to its advertisers.

The Tookitaki Team

Tookitaki is the brainchild of Abhishek Chatterjee and Jeeta Bandopadhay.

Abhishek has a passion for real-time problem solving and loves to do different. After completing his BE in Computer Engineering from University of Pune, he pursued a MS in Computational Biology (Applied Mathematics) from University of Southern California. He brings in a wealth of experience to Tookitaki, having worked with DoubleClick (Google) and JP Morgan New York as an algorithmic engineer for 5 years.

He is the founder and CEO of Tookitaki, keeping an eye on overall strategy. Additionally, he works very closely with the product team to make sure brands and companies are well-connected to their preferred events and relevant people.

You can reach him at abhishek@tookitaki.com

Jeeta is the life and breath of Tookitaki. She completed her MA in English, then moved on to pursue a degree in Integrated Marketing and Communications from St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata. She is very lively and has the unique talent of talking in a convincing tone on subjects she has no clue (hey, these are her own words!). She gels quick and easy with anybody and enjoys networking. Her previous employer is the media conglomerate The Times Group, where she worked on some of their business journals.

She is the chief marketing officer at Tookitaki and she is currently busy building rapports with clients. In the free time, she keeps thinking of innovative marketing strategies and talks about Tookitaki to anyone she meets.

You can reach her at jeeta@tookitaki.com.

Other members of the vivacious and fun Tookitaki team include lead designer Sudipta Mallick, along with algorithmic engineers Nishant Kumar (previously with Microsoft) and Niraj Kumar (ISM Dhanbad).

You can try out the Tookitaki platform at http://beta.tookitaki.com/ or take a demo tour at http://tookitaki.com/demo/index.html.

1. iAccelerator is an initiative of CIIE (Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship), set up at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) to foster innovation-driven entrepreneurship in India.
2. Reported Tookitaki angel investors are Aakrit Vaish, director of Flurry Inc.; Miten Sampat, VP Product Strategy at Neustar; Anuj Pulstya, member of the Indian Angel Network; Maneesh Bhandari, investor director at Framebench; Anand Ladsariya, owner of Everest Flavours, and Nitin Agarwal, owner of NM Fashions. 
3. Source: comScore
4. Source: Wordstream
5. Source: Wordstream

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HOUSTON - FrogDog, a national marketing strategy and execution firm, this week released the results of a three-year national longitudinal research study on social media. The study shows how social media use has changed over time.

Highlights from the study:

• Facebook continues to be the dominant social media platform for every social media purpose—spreading marketing messages, business networking, connecting with friends and family, keeping abreast of the news, and finding sources of entertainment—according to 80 percent of respondents.

• For entertainment, Facebook remains king, with 78 percent of respondents spending their leisure time on the social media giant. YouTube (at 55 percent) remains the second destination respondents chose for entertainment. Facebook and YouTube have not lost any footing in this category; both received almost identical numbers in 2011.

• Twitter is relevant when delivering marketing for 60 percent of respondents; however, Twitter usage is declining.

• LinkedIn has emerged as the leading social media platform for professional networking, with 77 percent of respondents preferring LinkedIn over Facebook, at 48 percent. Additionally, LinkedIn has increased as a destination for information over the past three years, moving up almost 15 percent since 2010.

FrogDog’s survey also revealed several emerging social media platforms that garner a mention for use in reaching customers and clients, including YouTube, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

Also, by comparing results from prior years, the firm determined that social media platforms have become more relevant in all forms of business communications with clients and customers.

FrogDog CEO Leslie Farnsworth said, “I felt certain we would see a year-over-year increase in the number of companies with formal social media strategies. Instead, the percentage stayed relatively flat in 2010 and 2011, at 38 percent and 36 percent, and only increased to 58 percent in 2012. I’m surprised it’s still only at 58 percent. Developing these strategies is critical.”

For additional results from the survey and further analysis, including charts and graphs, read FrogDog’s 2012 Social Media Survey Results.

Farnsworth is available for interviews on the topic with all media outlets.

About FrogDog

FrogDog is a national consulting firm that has helped companies with marketing and communications strategy and execution since 1997. FrogDog’s customized approach helps clients across a variety of industries and business sectors thrive. For more information, visit www.frog-dog.com.

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Clive Punter to Lead Expanded Team of Online Advertising Veterans, Including New Hires from McCann Worldgroup, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 100 million members worldwide, announced several additions to its global advertising sales organization. The personnel moves, which include the addition of several new roles at the company, will better position the company’s Marketing Solutions team to meet the broad marketing and advertising goals of the world’s leading BtoB and “prosumer” brands. The changes announced are as follows:

- Clive Punter will lead the organization as the Global Managing Director of Marketing Solutions, based in London. Clive will focus on global strategy and growth initiatives for Marketing Solutions and will report to Mike Gamson, Senior Vice President, Global Sales at LinkedIn. Clive joined LinkedIn in September 2010 after nearly 15 years at CBS Outdoor. He served as Director of International Sales and COO of Europe and Asia before being appointed International CEO of CBS Outdoor in 2007.

- Jonathan Lister will serve as Vice President, North America Sales for Marketing Solutions. Jonathan joined LinkedIn last July as Country Manager in Canada, and quickly became Managing Director for Canada and Latin America. In that position, he was responsible for driving revenue, building user engagement, strategic partnerships, marketing and general operations. Jonathan will now take on the lead field sales role for all of North America. Prior to LinkedIn, Jonathan was Country Manager at Google Canada, responsible for creating and executing the business strategy for Google Canada, and he held several executive positions at AOL.

- Emily Ketchen joins LinkedIn as Director, Global Agency Relations. She will be responsible for the relationships with all major advertising and marketing agencies around the world. This is a new position at LinkedIn, and reflects the growing demand from larger advertisers who plan and buy through agencies. Emily comes to LinkedIn from McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, where she was a senior vice president and group account director.

- Josh Graff recently joined LinkedIn as Sales Director for EMEA. In this role, he is responsible for growing the Marketing Solutions business across the region. Before joining LinkedIn, Joshua ran EMEA/APAC media sales and business development at Electronics Arts, overseeing EA’s media sales relationships with sport’s leagues including the NFL, NBA and NHL and securing key partnerships with European brands including Renault, Vodafone and Adidas.

- Alison Engel joins LinkedIn as the Director of Field Marketing for Marketing Solutions. Alison comes to LinkedIn from Microsoft, where she was the Marketing Director supporting their advertising business. Prior to that, she held senior roles at Massive Inc., HBO, Goldman Sachs and CBS Television.

- Steve Patrizi will be leaving LinkedIn after three and a half years to pursue the next step in his career. Formerly the Vice President of Marketing Solutions, Steve has played an important role in building the Marketing Solutions business and bringing it to where it is today.

“Every day, more marketers and advertisers are recognizing that there is no better online platform to reach the most influential, affluent and highly-educated audience than LinkedIn,” said Gamson. “Now is the time for us to take the Marketing Solutions business to the next level, and to do that, we’re bringing on some of the most experienced and talented people in the industry – from big agencies and big brands – while giving current LinkedIn talent more responsibility. These moves poise LinkedIn Marketing Solutions – one of the primary revenue drivers for the company – for accelerated growth.”

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions helps marketers and advertisers reach and engage with exactly the right audiences on LinkedIn through a suite of self-serve products and custom enterprise solutions. LinkedIn has more than 33,000 Marketing Solutions customers taking advantage of a broad suite of products and services, from highly-targeted display ads to uniquely LinkedIn offerings, such as Company Pages and Custom Groups. In the last year, Marketing Solutions revenue grew more than 94 percent to nearly $27.7 million in the first quarter of 2011. Learn more at: http://marketing.linkedin.com.

About LinkedIn

LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories. The LinkedIn website launched in 2003 and currently counts executives from all Fortune 500 companies as members. The company is privately-held and has a diversified business model with revenues coming from user subscriptions, advertising sales and hiring solutions. LinkedIn is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

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Online course designed for executives or teams of professionals who want to create, manage, and track successful social media campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube

College & University Pressroom
PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Starting on February 28, 2011, the Rutgers Center for Management Development (CMD) will be offering an Online Mini-MBA: Social Media Marketing Program. This unique Social Media Marketing course is the first online executive education program to be offered by Rutgers Mini MBA programs.

“From Facebook to LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube – firms and individuals are embracing social media platforms at an ever-increasing pace. This unique online program addresses the many issues surrounding this new phenomenon and provides a roadmap to help individuals and firms navigate social media to gain a competitive edge,” says Eric Greenberg, the Faculty Chair of the Online Social Media Marketing Mini MBA Course.

“While some people have flown to New Jersey from as far away as Seoul, South Korea, to take our in-class social media marketing course, we are excited to be able to offer our online course to a global audience. We will continue to increase the in-class offerings to additional locations, including China, but the online format will allow people, regardless of their location, to take advantage of our unique faculty and programs,” he adds.

The 12-week online faculty led program includes videos, faculty evaluated exercises, section quizzes, plus a final project and exam. Additionally, 12 different faculty members will host live weekly “Virtual Office Hours” throughout the program to discuss the most current developments in the field and answer student questions.

This online course is designed for executives or teams of professionals working in marketing, advertising, branding, communications, or sales. It is also appropriate for individuals seeking to employ social media to further their business careers.

The cost of the Online Mini-MBA: Social Media Marketing Program is $3,500, which includes all instructional materials and fees. The 12-week program will be held from Feb. 28 to May 16, 2011.

Founded in 1947, Rutgers CMD provides management and leadership training for professionals in business and human resources. Instructors are Rutgers faculty members from the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick, and the School of Management and Labor Relations, as well as industry experts. Programs bring practitioners from different organizations and industries together in a diverse learning environment designed to develop skills and enhance knowledge through a combination of expert class instruction and peer interaction.

For more information, contact Greenberg at 732-445-5639, or go online to the Rutgers Center for Management Development at http://www.cmd.rutgers.edu/contact.html.

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Active US Social Network Users Show Significantly Higher Usage and Interest in New Tech Gadget Purchases

BOSTON – According to “Profiling US Social Network Users,” a recent Strategy Analytics survey of 2,000 US consumers, about 60% of Internet users in America access social network services – such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – at least weekly. Those active social network users also demonstrate substantially higher interest in electronic devices and new media entertainment services—much more than the average Internet user.

Strategy Analytics found that active US social network users—defined as weekly users of any social network services— spend significantly more time with tech gadgets—such as HDTVs, game consoles, iPhones, iPads and eReaders—than the average US Internet user. Additionally, these consumers make substantially more use of media services, such as on-demand premium TV and over-the-top video services, like Hulu—compared to the average users. For example, 27% of active Twitter users use an eReader on a weekly basis compared to only 6% of total US Internet users.

“Active social network users not only own more gadgets than normal consumers, they also use them much more frequently,” says Martin Olausson, Director of Digital Media Research at Strategy Analytics. “Furthermore, active social network users indicate higher interest in purchasing new consumer electronics devices in the coming year.”

Commenting on the findings, Jia Wu, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, “While it is not too surprising to see tech-savvy social network users consuming a lot of online video content, it is interesting to note that they also tend to frequent use of on-demand video services from TV service providers. Pay TV service providers still stand a good chance of battling the growing cord-cutting threat. They will retain customers as long as they can continue to innovate and improve service offerings.”

About Strategy Analytics

Strategy Analytics, Inc. provides timely and actionable market intelligence focused on opportunities and disruptive forces in the areas of Automotive Electronics and Entertainment, Broadband Connected Home, Mobile & Wireless Intelligent Systems and Virtual Worlds. Headquartered in Boston, MA, with offices in the UK, France, Germany, Japan, S. Korea and China, Strategy Analytics works with clients through annual multi-client services, management team workshops and custom consulting engagements. For more information, please visit http://www.strategyanalytics.com/

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Powered by Radian6, New Monitoring Solution Allows Marketers to Measure What Consumers are Saying about their Brands across Digital Media

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, announced the introduction of comScore Social Analytix™, a social media intelligence service for comScore clients, powered by the Radian6 social media monitoring and engagement platform.

The service will provide clients with detailed, real-time insights based on what consumers are saying about their brands and products on the web. The Radian6 technology, which operates independent of the comScore global consumer panel, captures mentions across more than 150 million social media sources worldwide including blogs, discussion boards, video and image sharing sites and popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn Answers.

“The emergence of social media in the past few years has helped usher in the era of the digital consumer, where one’s brand equity increasingly relies on what people are saying about it in the digital environment,” said Steve Dennen, comScore Vice President. “comScore Social Analytix leverages Radian6’s leading social monitoring technology to help us provide our clients with enhanced insights into an increasingly critical variable in the marketing mix equation: consumer word-of-mouth.”

comScore Social Analytix will enable clients to:

·         Monitor consumer-generated word-of-mouth brand mentions and gauge consumer sentiment toward their brands, products and/or competitors
·         Listen and respond quickly to potential customer service issues as they arise
·         Help identify key social media influencers, reach out to them and form strong relationships with their customers
·         Engage with social media users and scale listening and response across their organization
·         Track the lifecycle of campaigns, announcements and communication efforts
“At Radian6, we built our platform to analyze not only social media conversations, but also the metrics of the social web. We are excited to team up with comScore, a recognized global leader in measuring the digital world,” said David Alston, Vice President of Marketing & Community, Radian6. “Both companies share a common view around the value of measurement and are leaders in their respective markets. We look forward to providing customers with industry-leading solutions leveraging the unique strengths of each company.”

For more information about comScore Social Analytix, please email learnmore@comscore.com.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

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WESTERVILLE, Ohio – Small business owners are hoping to engage customers in new ways in 2010. According to Ad-ology Research, 28% of small business owners say they plan to spend more on online video in 2010, up 75% over last year’s plans. Twenty five percent say the same about social networking, while 21% plan to commit more resources to mobile advertising.

“They’re still using traditional media, but they’re embracing these emerging media types as a way to take their business to the next level”

Facebook was ranked the most beneficial social network for small business, followed by LinkedIn and Twitter. These owners say the top business benefits of social networking are lead generation, keeping up with the industry, and monitoring the online conversation about their business.

E-mail marketing continues to be the most popular online marketing method for small businesses, but these numbers show increased acceptance for emerging media since last year’s study.

“Small business owners understand that the marketing landscape is changing, and they need to connect with consumers in new ways,” said C. Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research. “They’re still using traditional media, but they’re embracing these emerging media types as a way to take their business to the next level,” Smith said.

Twenty-nine percent plan increased advertising spending overall, targeting increased resources to online, direct mail, and newspaper advertising.

The Ad-ology Small Business Marketing Forecast reveals small business owners are generally hopeful, with more predicting increased sales in 2010 versus 2009, and one in five expressing optimism about the economy.

Other key findings from the study:

31% say they don’t use social media because their customers don’t use social media.
More than one-third of these business owners plan to spend more time writing white papers and e-articles.
52% of small business owners surveyed plan to devote more resources to cause marketing in 2010.
42% plan to participate in trade shows or conferences, and the percentage of these planning to spend on trade publications increased 18% from last year.
The study was conducted in November 2009 by Ad-ology Research to analyze the attitudes and marketing plans of small business owners. The Small Business Marketing Forecast is available for purchase through the Research Store at Ad-ology.com.

ABOUT AD-OLOGY RESEARCH

Ad-ology Research analyzes key marketing and advertising trends in over 440 industries and what motivates end-customers. The company’s research is used by over 2,000 advertising agencies, media properties, local governments, and product marketing departments across the United States. Ad-ology Research is a division of Sales Development Services (SDS), Inc. – a Westerville, Ohio firm founded in 1989.

METHODOLOGY

Ad-ology Research surveyed an online panel of 1100 owners of U.S. businesses with less than 100 employees in November 2009. The margin of error for this survey is +/- 2.95 percentage points.

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