As online mediums continue its rise to marketing significance, merchants need to find different ways to connect with their audience, engage with their audience, track their audience and most importantly, create advocates from their audience. Google backed start-up Ordr.in has taken that step.

Two weeks ago, Ordr.in released their Facebook application that lets people order from their favorite restaurants and then share what they eat using the terms “crave” and “eat.” Perhaps more importantly, this application allows merchants to track the results, track their customers and track their advocates. A direct tie to ROI, Facebook and restaurant delivery is coming to a city near you.

“We wanted to create an application and make social engagement part of the purchase,” said David Bloom, CEO of Ordr.in. “Social media as a marketing concept is starting to mature, but social media as ecommerce is just at the beginning.”

Key takeaway: Facebook applications that can directly tie back to ROI are bound to pop up. As they do, marketers won’t have to worry about proving social’s importance, but perhaps overcome the bigger obstacle of using this significant information to spread word of mouth and create more advocates than they ever imagined.

Any person can use the Ordr.in application, but the product has only been released for merchants in designated areas. As the application matures, more markets are expected to open.

This may come as a surprise to many marketers, but remember what happened with banner ads. There was a steady loss in CTR. Despite Facebook’s efforts to approve ads and block out spam, the same will happen.

However, a lot of clicks may not be the end-goal for many marketers on Facebook

Key Takeaway: Online behavior changes. What once drove a lot of clicks may now be best for awareness. This has happened before and it will happen time and time again.

Read more about the findings at eMarketer.

Mike Stiles of Vitrue found three that community managers should take note of:

1. Mobile Page Management – Community managers rejoice! No longer do you have to lug your laptop to industry events to upload pics, video and other social media goodness. One caveat though – iPhone only.

2. Chats with 12 People – They two-upped Google’s 10-person Hangouts. Any guesses on how high the video chat room arms race will go?

3. Time for a Timeline Facelift – Timeline has been loved by some, despised by others, and not that big of a deal for everyone else. Facebook is beta testing some new designs. Keep on the lookout for changes.

Read more about these changes at Vitrue.

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Word of Mouth Marketing Book Hits Bestseller List

Andy Sernovitz’s “Word of Mouth Marketing” hits #6 New York Times, #1 Amazon Business, #1 USA TODAY Money, and #1 B&N.com

The paperback edition of “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking” by Andy Sernovitz launched on April 30th and hit the bestseller lists of The New York Times, Amazon, B&N.com, and USA TODAY.

The book focuses on the fundamentals of word of mouth and features tutorials on “3 Reasons People Talk About You,” “4 Rules of Word of Mouth,” and “5 Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing.” The book also features case studies from Dell, IKEA, Intuit, and Microsoft.

More Here

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Oracle bought Vitrue. Check it out!

Click image for full size.

Joe Chernov at Eloqua took issue with describing different social media properties as more complex than any other type of business. For instance:

“Consider the automotive rental sector. The industry is comprised of complex relationships between and among auto manufacturers, rental fleets, used car dealers, delivery services, repair shops, aftermarket equipment manufacturers and suppliers, limo services, lease companies, loyalty/points systems, shuttle services, insurance carriers, and logistics specialists.”

Key Takeaway: This is what industries look like when they mature – Lots of companies, different services, all competing and maturing the industry in the process. It’s called social business folks.

Read Joe’s full argument at It’s All About Revenue, Eloqua’s blog.

And check out Luma’s other graphics about mobile, digital capital, video, search and display. They’re very well done.

Key Takeaway: If you aren’t Talkable now, you aren’t going to be without a little change. Get creative. Break your mold. Surprise your customers. Take some advice from Bonnie Raitt.

Watch John’s full series at Brand Autopsy

Results:

• 16 million people reached
• 50,000 downloads in one hour
• 800% increase in website interaction
• 337% more website visitors

Read more at Digital Buzz Blog

You can’t just be great at social media or PR or marketing. A whole suite of skills is necessary.

Trish Forant at Radian6 found eight must-have skills for any community manager:

1. A willingness to learn – Ignorance doesn’t fly in community management. Your community members use all the tools available to them to express their worries and compliments. Knowing how to communicate universally is key and that only comes with an eagerness to learn.

2. Passion – The best community managers are also members of the community. They understand not only the lingo, but why certain things are particularly important. They respond accordingly. And the community grows because of this.

3. Storytelling – Stories bring together otherwise uninteresting information. A community needs to stay informed and engaged. Without stories, it’s hard to do both.

Read the five other qualities at Radian6

Key Takeaway: Mobile will play a huge part in content consumption and creation. Create sharable experiences to ride the mobile photo wave.

See the whole infographic at Digital Buzz Blog

1. Broadcasting – People have decided to follow your brand because, yes, they have some sort of affinity for your products/services. But they don’t want to hear about them all the time. Audit your posts and make sure most are content-based.

2. Immediately Taking Issues Offline – If someone tweets a complaint, tweet back a solution. Only take it offline if it can’t be resolved online.

3. No Personality – A brand needs a voice. Even if you have a few community managers covering different times of the day or week, a consistent voice creates a familiar and comfortable atmosphere for your community. That is what you want, right?

4. Direct Marketing on Social Media – There’s a time and place for everything. Mail a great DM flyer. Run a great community. Don’t let the two mix.

Read his insights in more depth at Collective Bias