Marketing and media magazine Advertising Age has compiled a list of the top digital marketers in the US. As is to be expected, there are more B2C brands (like Samsung, Coca-Cola, British Airways, Durex, Dove) in this list but a few B2B marketers (like GE, IBM, SAP) are also included.

What does the digital marketing portfolio look like for these pioneers?

Their marketing mix is quite varied and diverse:

• Shift away from TV to digital video and social media
• Online fan communities
• Real-time social media newsrooms for popular live events
• Social-media driven reality TV series
• Mobile Apps for content, commerce and loyalty
• Product personalization (e.g. your name on a coke bottle) driven by social media and analytics  
• Predictive Analytics for content / offer targeting
• Viral Content (Of course, the holy grail; remember the Oscar Selfies?) and partnerships for exclusive content
• Not just sticking to Facebook and Twitter but experimenting (and tasting success) with other social channels like Vine, Pinterest, Tumblr ,and even SnapChat and WeChat
• Integrating online and offline campaigns (with online / social feeding into TV campaigns for instance)
• Interactive Panels and Displays (linked to online content)

What's driving success?

While these seem very disparate methods, there are a few common threads – like the effective use of social media. It also seems content is still king. Of course, you still need the right underlying technology platforms and tools to effectively run and scale these sorts of marketing efforts. You’ll find that the tools are constantly evolving, and so are best practices for exploiting them.

To stay on top of these platforms, consult our Marketing Automation and Social Technology evaluation research.