Roundup: Wildfire, Monetate, LinkedIn releases to push global engagement

First up, Monetate is opening a London office and expanding their services into the Eastern Hemisphere. The company reports they'll enter African, Middle Eastern and European markets.

"The decision to open an office in London is a direct result of the interest we are seeing from brands in EMEA that want to deliver a more relevant online customer experience," said Monetate CEO David Brussin. "We anticipate that under Mike Harris' leadership, we will rapidly grow our overseas presence."

Harris comes to Monetate from leadership roles with Omniture (Adobe) and Touch Clarity.

And from LinkedIn a new targeting product which should help brands using the social network better target content within the LinkedIn structure. Called LinkedIn Targeted Status Updates, the product helps users create more targeted and relevant content updates to their follower lists. Philips, an early adopter of the platform, saw a 106% engagement increase using the product.

In a recent study LinkedIn found consumers are following companies/brands in the social space to look for company news (61%); giving these consumers more targeted and relevant information is another way to push that engagement level higher.

Finally, Wildfire is releasing YouTube channel management tools, enabling brands who use YouTube to distribute or share video content more control over that content.

"Now you can bring your brand's 'owned' content to the world's second largest social network, capitalizing on the communities that are unique to YouTube," said Victoria Ransom, CEO of Wildfire. "Videos are the most shared content type across all social networks, which makes sense because people love to watch, browse, share, and vote on videos."

The Wildfire YouTube Brand Channel Management enables brands to push branded promotions, content and social sharing features to their subscribers and integrate with other socnets including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

Tags: branded social media, branded video, LinkedIn, Monetate, online advertising, social marketing, video content, viral marketing, Wildfire