The growing importance of social networks and their use in marketing is not a hidden agenda anymore. Companies are actively cooperating with social networks, using a wide range of advertising solutions in the framework of such sites.

Friend2Friend, a social media solutions provider that designs, develops, implements and hosts social media applications and campaigns to engage users on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and mobile platforms, rolled out a major update to its social media platform. The Friend2Friend Social Media Platform that works on Social Media Management System (SMMS) is a new technology platform for global brands and media agencies to develop customized social media solutions.

The Friend2Friend Social Media Platform allows companies to create, manage, monitor and measure social media marketing campaign integrated with Facebook and other outlets.

The Friend2Friend Platform includes self-serve tools for wide range of campaign types including social commerce, social quizzes, and the management of self-serve contests and sweepstakes campaigns. It also offers full campaign management, analytics and reporting through its applications, publishing, moderation, analytics, and campaign administration.

“This major upgrade delivers tools that support the increasingly sophisticated demands of brands in this new era of social media marketing,” said Roger Katz, CEO of Friend2Friend. “We see brands demanding engagement that is systematized and scalable, but that is also focused on encouraging their most important advocates — their social fans — to share real and meaningful brand experiences with friends. The most socially savvy brands respect their relationship with their fans, and Friend2Friend- powered campaigns are always focused on truly socializing the brand experience, in a way that never feels forced.”

The Friend2Friend Social Media Platform includes features like social commerce solutions for building Facebook campaigns to share and initiate the purchase of goods,  self-serve campaign solutions, managing sweepstakes and contests.

One of the more notable features is the back-end campaign management system to manage Facebook post content, e-commerce integration, content moderation for campaign photos, videos and comments, in-depth analytics and metrics creation. The social mobile solutions allow brand to extend their campaign onto smartphones and tablets.

Friend2Friend Social Engagement

Brands and agencies increasingly rely on a variety of solutions to pull together an integrated digital media campaign. Service pages on Facebook take in large number of companies, but one of the most illustrative recent examples of brand marketing comes  Universal Pictures. The movie distributor is using Facebook pages along with Friend2Friend’s technology to sell tickets for its new films including Safe House and The Lorax.

“This new social commerce initiative has given our Facebook fans an easy way to share their enthusiasm for going to the movies,” said Leigh Godfrey, Director of Digital Marketing, Universal Pictures. “We saw a terrific response with ‘Safe House’ and fully expect the continued use of this unique tool as fans make plans to see other Universal films in 2012.”

Outside Magazine, on the other hand, is running a daily quiz contests on Facebook using Friend2Friend’s Platform on common misconceptions about fitness. Fans can get prizes and valuable fitness tips, respond with their own thoughts, and share the question with friends without leaving Facebook.

Content Marketing and Social Commerce

There’s been a lot of activity focused on the growing sector of content marketing from other providers too. XYDO launched an email marketing solution for businesses, XYDO Brief, which offers email newsletters on inbox based on users’ social interactions, networks, and foot prints on its web platform.

And LoopLogic announced a platform that found a new way to mix, share, and analyze real-time results of video, while thismoment announced their acquisition of Position2 Brand Monitor, resulting in mash-up technology that enables companies to listen to product- or service-related conversations across social media outlets, blogs, news sites and forums in real time.

Another content marketing startup, Virtue, recently announced its Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform for brands to provide real-time and more comprehensive engagement metrics.