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the Free CMSWire NewsletterThis week, mediafeedia introduced a social media management tool exclusively for Facebook and free at least initially, IDC predicts a massive jump in IT spending by SMBs, Kerio releases v7.2 of its collaboration tool and Pardot upgrades its cloud-based marketing automation platform.
Mediafeedia’s Facebook Management Tool
Starting with social media this week, mediafeedia (news, site) has announced the first social media management tool exclusively for Facebook.
Designed to support companies on Facebook, users can have access to the digital tool at no charge and use its dashboard to manage and publish content on their Facebook pages in a timely, streamlined manner.
Given the number of SMBs that are using Facebook as one of the main marketing tools and the fact that this new release is free, looks like everyone here is a winner.
Using the web-based interface, mediafeedia does not require downloads to operate. Users simply create a mediafeedia account and import Facebook business pages that they currently administer.
These pages will be added to the user's mediafeedia dashboard and synchronized with Facebook. Using mediafeedia's proprietary technology, the dashboard features a selection of free, custom management functionalities for businesses on Facebook, including the ability to:
- Manage multiple Facebook fan pages from one dashboard
- Receive email notifications about comments on fan pages and respond via email
- Post real-time Facebook status updates that include text, images, links and link attachments
- Schedule future wall posts for specific dates and times
- View and edit scheduled messages in a central location
There’s a lot more too. However, mediafeedia is not finished. It has also announced that it will release mediafeediaPRO soon, offering enhanced features for Facebook power users, including a special dashboard for managing multiple Facebook pages, status updates, scheduling and administrator collaboration.
Currently in beta, mediafeedia has raised more than $1 million in angel investment to date and is currently in discussions with investors regarding its next round of funding. If you want to sign up for free, you just need to go to the website.
SMB Spending to Grow
Confirming what we already saw during the week in a Forrester (news, site) reports on IT spending, it seems the urge to splurge is not confined to large enterprises, but is also present in the SMB space too.
In IDC’s (news, site) recently released U.S. Small and Medium-Sized Business 2011-2015 Forecast, it says that, despite persisting economic challenges, SMB IT spending growth has returned more rapidly than expected since the recession officially ended in 2009.
Access to credit is still limited and firms remain reluctant to add new employees, but emerging technologies are disrupting established patterns of IT acquisition for the nearly 8 million SMBs in the US.
Other findings include:
- US SMBs will spend more than $125 billion on advanced technology in 2011, an increase from approximately $120 billion in 2010. These two years of spending growth represent a substantial rebound from 2009, when SMB IT spending declined by 4.2%.
- Smaller firms were more affected by the economic downturn, while upper midsize firms will have the highest rate of spending growth in 2011.
- Notebook PCs will continue to be the form factor of choice and will represent a larger share of total PC shipments into the SMB market. By 2015, the number of SMBs with notebooks will approach 4.7 million.
- The number of SMBs with local area networks will exceed 4.5 million in 2015, as even smaller businesses look to connect their users' PCs.
This is a paid-for report, so if you’re interested check it out here.
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