Companies of all sizes and across all industries are investing in video cameras and editing tools, making videos and posting them on the Web. What many of them don't realize is that putting video on the Internet without tracking its effectiveness is tantamount to hiring a new sales rep, training her, giving her a customer route and then never checking in with her.

For many retailers, 2009 has been the year of social media. Forrester Research reported that 64% of retailers surveyed invested in social media this year. Investment so far has been primarily around interactive marketing and a fairly straightforward presence in blogs, or other third party social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. But for retailers interested in expanding their distribution channel, social media and social networks are quickly becoming an area that they cannot ignore.

Now that we are beginning to feel relief from the economic uncertainty that has been hanging around, I hear a lot about the invention of some new roles inside organizations looking to get into social media. Typically this means, "Hire someone who knows our 'space' really well and someone who is an expert in social media."

Companies need to be smart about their innovation strategies and look at their innovation initiatives as a key brand touch point. Plenty of organizations have tried to implement an open innovation strategy of their own, yet how many truly succeed? Whether it's Chrysler Listens or Change.org, some organizations are still struggling to become effective. Without knowing the right methods and processes when launching open innovation initiatives, crowdsourcing can lose its potential for turning innovation into actionable ideas.

SMS is more than a teenage communication technology; it can and should be a critical part of the marketing communications mix. The direct and brief nature of SMS (each SMS message permits a maximum of 160 characters, including spaces), allows marketing teams to deliver concise, targeted messages that customers will actually opt-in to receive.

Tom Phillips, former director of search analytics at Google, has recently stepped into a new role as President and CEO of Media6Degrees, a venture-backed start up. Two weeks into his new position, Phillips shared his thoughts on how next generation advertising will leverage the best of search, display and the social graph.

Welcome to "Patient Critical: Madison Avenue," where new and legacy media vehicles struggle to capture declining advertising dollars, deliver ROI and answer the question: What marketing media are worth saving? Digital media may have set the bar for sales-attribution reporting, but today, that's not enough. Delivering ROI requires an understanding of how all media work together and how spends should shift holistically to achieve the greatest net impact for a client.

Trends show that more and more online advertisers have been insisting on performance-based pricing over the last few years, largely based on the common belief that cost-per-action models reduce the perceived risks of display advertising. Despite conventional wisdom, however, that's not always the case.

More than ever, hard numbers are necessary to demonstrate success. They are incontrovertible, easy to communicate, and can point out what is or is not working. For new media darling Twitter, marketers are finding more tools to help them understand how their efforts are performing.

When you start to hear rumors of economic recovery and growth in the market, hiring isn't far behind. Online advertising and e-commerce hiring managers are looking forward to bringing fresh faces in to capitalize on that growth.