In its second year, the Social Media Maven Awards honor the brands and retailers who are “effectively using social networks for their customer engagement, marketing and service initiatives.”

All told, 11 brands earned awards in one of five categories, including: Up-And-Coming Social Channels, Specific Social Campaign, Social Influencers & Advocates, Social Customer Service, and Social Monetization.

“The winning brands span a diverse range of business types, company sizes and annual revenue marks and include restaurants, convenience stores, jewelry brands, online-only brands and more,” the company said.

To review the complete rundown of the 2016 Social Media Maven Award winners, check out the organization’s press release here.

The post Retail TouchPoints Touts 2016 Social Media Maven Award Winners appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Those are still catching on, according to Retail TouchPoints. A mere 29 percent of retailers surveyed worldwide by the research company say they have implemented beacon technology in their retail stores.

Yet other studies peg the adoption rate even lower.

But what do we know about beacons for certain?

“One trend that holds is that retailers that have adopted beacons are satisfied with them,” reports eMarketer.

In fact, retailers included in the Retail TouchPoints poll who had implemented beacons in-store cited a number of benefits from the new technology.

“More than seven in 10 said they were able to track and understand how consumers moved through the store and selected items for purchase because of beacons. Around two-thirds said beacons let them track customers down to the aisle level,” noted eMarketer. “A majority also believed beacons made shoppers more engaged in stores, and helped them to create better, more relevant offers.”

It could be a sign of times to come.

“According to IDG Enterprises, a plurality (36 percent) of IT professionals in North America report they plan to hold investments in beacons steady over the next year — in addition to the 30 percent who have no plans at all. In the Retail TouchPoints survey, 17 percent of respondents said they had some plans to add beacons.”

More beacons, more information, more sales? If retail ever needed a beacon boost, the time is now.

The post Yes, Beacons Bestow Benefits: Retailers Can Understand the Consumer Journey appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

To that end, MMW was recently briefed by Taggpoint on the commercial availability of its new Taggpoint Connected Experience Enterprise Platform designed to give marketers “enterprise-class tools” for understanding the performance of their mobile device marketing campaigns.

“As the digital experience that your customers have with your brand moves increasingly away from the PC or laptop toward mobile devices, the need to know user context increases,” Taggpont said in a written statement. “Knowing the location and interests of your customers and tailoring their experience accordingly are critical steps on the road to delivering a Connected Experience.”

Taggpoint says its endpoint management tools allow users to create and manage their mobile device touchpoints with ease in an open and scalable way.

Additionally, advanced reporting tools make it easy to measure, monitor and understand the engagement across one’s mobile device marketing campaign.

“Retailers, marketers and even enterprises are increasingly moving their brands forward with multi-channel engagement solutions, including strategies that embrace mobile devices,” says David Gross of Taggpoint Product Management. “Taggpoint’s unique solution enables companies to meet the mobility challenge head on in media, retail, information transfer and more, and also gain unique insight into their deployments.”

The post Marketers Gaining More Enterprise-Class Tools for Mobile appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.