For businesses and professionals, maintaining a positive reputation in the public eye is important. In this digitally connected world we live in, word spreads quickly and can have a major impact on our business or career. News gone viral has fuelled success stories (think Justin Beiber) - and closed doors and killed careers. *WARNING: Some of the language provided in the examples of this post may offend readers. Please use your own discretion.

Now that so many big brands have taken to social media, you'd think that they would be more accessible to their customers than ever. If you have a question or concern about their product, you just shoot them a tweet. Problem solved. Most companies start with good intentions and see Twitter as another useful tool to further build their brand. They can gauge customer feedback in real time and respond right away. Customers feel valued and appreciate the time a brand takes to address their specific message.

How many of you would be lost without your smartphone? Could you function without the convenience of 24/7 access to all of your mobile interests? The smartphone statistics on this infographic from OnlineColleges sum up the state of our smartphone-savvy world with some not-so-surprising results.

The world of internet marketing is an unpredictable one. With so many variables to adapt to, it is sometimes difficult to choose an effective marketing strategy and stick with it. Consumer trends are always changing, as are the social media platforms that they use on a daily basis. The best way to tackle this uncertainty is to look at the important marketing statistics and trends on a yearly basis and work your marketing goals and objectives around them for optimized results.

Over the past couple articles in this series I’ve talked about the drastic shift in buyer behaviour we’re experiencing as more and more buyers turn to the Internet to do their research before making a purchase decision. (See part one or part two.) As you’ve likely experienced, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to market and sell to the modern buyer as they continue to tune out the mass marketing methods we’ve used forever.