Mattel, Inc,  which is the company that makes Barbie and Ken dolls, has launched a digital marketing campaign to reunite the two famous dolls.  If you were not aware, in 2004, on Valentine’s day, Ken and Barbie split up, and have been separated ever since.

What Mattel has done is create kenandbarbie.com where you can go and vote on whether Barbie should take back Ken.  Since the split in 2004, Ken and Barbie had let separate lives, but now Ken wants Barbie back.  So the digital marketing and social media campaign has begun.

Ken and Barbie first met in 1961, and had been dating throughout the decades until 2004 when they decided to split up.  Ken started to date Blaine, who was an Aussie surfer.  Apparently Ken’s true love is Barbie, and now you can decide!

Mattel has created Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare accounts for both Ken and Barbie.  Barbie has nearly 1.9 million likes on Facebook, while Ken only has 30,000 likes.  Clearly, the world has a love affair with Barbie.

I think that Mattel has an interesting concept using digital and social media marketing techniques.  This can definitely go viral as Mattel has the money to invest to spread the word.  We all know that it only takes a small percentage of users to become aware of something to start spreading it to their friends which then goes viral.

So, How are people voting?

While many small business owners perceive social media as worthless for expanding their businesses, a new survey shows that it can be a very potent lead generation tool.

Small businesses rated Facebook the most beneficial social networking site, with one-third of respondents reporting it was at least somewhat helpful. It was also the social network most likely to be used. Use of LinkedIn was less common, but the business-oriented site was claimed as beneficial by 21% of small businesses, compared with 19% that said the same of Twitter.

The No 1. roadblock, however, was the perception that “our customers do not use social networks,” claimed by 31% of small businesses. Nearly as many complained that they did not have the time or staff available to do a good job with social network marketing.

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If you’re using twitter for your small business, you better read this. The popular microblogging platform has added a paid business accounts.

“Businesses are under no obligation to sign up to a paid account, but doing so will provide them with a “special layer of access”, including feedback and statistics, said Stone. Many big name brands and companies have embraced Twitter as a way of communicating directly with consumers and engaging with customers. Personal accounts remain free.

Stone also confirmed that Twitter would consider signing deals with other companies to license its content and live streams to other sites. He didn’t rule out the possibility of partnerships with news agencies and media organisations, which often use Twitter feeds as part of their newsgathering operations.”

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