The new YAYAmedianow.com design is beginning to take form. The final design should be completed by mid-may.

In this MediaPost article, the author urges search marketers to focus on connecting with individual customers rather than merely optimizing:

Search marketing must turn into a consumer service to help make the correct decisions when purchasing products or services, and connecting means figuring out what customers want and use their language to communicate with them. SEO professionals need to focus on what consumers need rather than getting higher ratings in search query results. Companies need to target teaching consumers, answering questions and providing support to enhance the buying experience.

The article’s advice can be applied to any brand trying to interact with customers. The consumer needs to be viewed as an individual with unique needs, not merely another Web page hit or a new Facebook fan. Understanding a customer and his or her needs is the first step toward truly connecting with a target audience.

Four years after being launched, Twitter is ready to start making some money. This AdAge article discusses Twitter’s new business model and its introduction of promoted tweets. These tweets will be ads listed in search results and in the user feeds at Twitter.com.

Initially, advertisers will bid on keywords on a cost-per-thousand basis, but Twitter is developing a performance model that could be the basis for pricing based on a metric called “resonance” — impact judged on how much a tweet is passed around, marked as a favorite or how often a user clicks through a posted link. Ads that perform well will stay in the system; ads that don’t rise above the resonance score of a typical tweet from a marketer will fall out.

Some of the first brands to sign up to advertise on Twitter include Starbucks, Bravo and Virgin America.

This MediaPost article discusses a marketing event called “The New Black. The New Urban,” hosted by media mogul Damon Dash. The main idea of the event was that marketers need to be in touch with how today’s young African-Americans and urban Millennials define themselves.

Tru Pettigrew, president of Alloy Access, said the firm has been approached by big brands over the past year. He said they wondered why, despite their increasing media commitments to urban markets, 12- to-29-year-old African-Americans and urbanites were not buying.

“They were saying, ‘What is happening with the African-American and urban space that is causing our brand metrics to decline? What’s different about this generation? How do we speak to them?’,” he said. “They are asking why it seems their brands are not as entrenched in their lives as they were 10 years ago.”

Apple is giving Google a run for its money. It’s new iAd system is breaking Apple into the realm of mobile advertising–and with an advantage too:  it can make ads contextually relevant because the company owns the devices, not just the browser (like Google).  This MediaPost article explains more:

Targeting ads becomes easy when the company doing the serving knows the device owner’s habits in terms of how they use the phone and can infer likes and dislikes based on sites visited and applications downloaded.

These close-looped marketing and advertising experiences create the perfect scenario for mobile ad platforms; and Apple has a leg up on Google because, for starters, Apple sold more than 41.8 million iPhones as of December 2009.

The market of Internet-enabled mobile devices is growing exponentially, and more and more consumers are using these devices to make purchases online. However, brands are not keeping up with the pace and are under-targeting mobile device users.

Advertisers spend only 8% of their dollars on the Internet, where consumers spend about 38% of their media time. Nearly half the U.S. population has profiles on social networks, which get miniscule ad support.

The paradox means advertisers are leaving money on the table by not monetizing new media’s unique real-time opportunities to build awareness, loyalty, referrals, purchases and repeat business.

Click here to read the full article from MediaPost.

People at different life stages use media, and especially the Internet, in different ways and with varying frequency. This Mediapost article breaks down media users into subgroups such as teens, college students, young professionals and young homemakers. It gives stats on their media usage and advice to marketers on how to reach them:

Young Homemakers:  Interruptions by marketers through social networks, text messaging and email are all frowned upon more so than other subgroups.

Even so, consumers in this group are active online buyers (83%), they go online to find coupons (71%), and their use of social networking sites is increasing faster than any other subgroup. The key is building opt-in relationships and delivering coupons and promotions that help these consumers manage their households.

This Fast Casual article weighs the pro’s and con’s of Four Square, the latest social engagement site.

The location-based social media site encourages users to “check-in” at locations in a given community.  Establishments are able to provide incentives, such as free food, for FourSquare users who frequent a restaurant.

The added value of Foursquare is its connection to social media giants Facebook and Twitter. Foursquare users can find fellow members among their friends and followers on those sites. Then, when they check in, they can tweet tips about any specials offered or crow about being crowned mayor.

The article focuses primarily on the debate among restaurants over whether or not to join the site. Of particular significance is the site’s ability to interface with popular social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

The added value of Foursquare is its connection to social media giants Facebook and Twitter. Foursquare users can find fellow members among their friends and followers on those sites. Then, when they check in, they can tweet tips about any specials offered or crow about being crowned mayor.

Vivmag, an online lifestyle magazine, is planning to produce an interactive version for the iPad. This New York Times blog talks about the future of interactive media in relation to the iPad.

 Jeanniey Mullen, VIVmag’s chief marketing officer, said that the magazine planned to make every iPad and desktop issue interactive with video and full-motion advertising, including a Fandango HBO “Sex and the City 2″ advertisement and interactive spreads for Kia Motors and Estée Lauder.

The iPad offers advertisers a chance for more detailed mobile marketing, as the iPad’s screen is much larger than a smart phone.

Word-of-mouth advertising is being replaced in this digital age by young people sharing their brand picks with friends via social media. This MediaPost news brief discusses a study of 1500 consumers:

60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a fan or follower. And 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.