Consumers not only read online reviews before visiting local businesses, but they form their ‘first impressions’ of such businesses based on such online reviews.

Research by RatePoint shows that 76 percent of consumers read online reviews before buying from a company they’ve never used before. Meanwhile, 81 percent look for online reviews before engaging local businesses that provide in-home services.

Daily deal sites promise consumers great deals from local businesses. And they promise local businesses the chance to reach new customers and attract repeat business. It’s a win-win, right?

Well, it’s only a ‘win’ for local businesses if daily deal sites do, in fact, generate repeat business. Yet, the research seems to be mixed when it comes to how effective they are in attracting repeat customers.

For example, a June 2011 MerchantCircle survey found that while 58 percent of small businesses offered daily deals to acquire customers, 42.4 percent wouldn’t do so again because their efforts did not result in customer acquisition.

What is the average click-through rate (CTR) for Twitter’s Promoted Tweets advertising platform? Does advertising on Twitter’s Promoted Products ad platform work? And does it drive traffic, leads, sales and other marketing results?

According to a report by eMarketer, Promoted Products’ advertisers are seeing 3-10 percent engagement levels, where ‘engagement’ is typically defined as someone clicking on the link in a Tweet.

Food and beverage companies are failing to optimize their social media marketing efforts, according to a recent study. Over half (54 percent) of food and drink industry professionals admit they don’t measure the return on investment (ROI) on their social media marketing investments.

According to the survey of over 500 food and beverage executives by U.K. based just-food and just-drinks, a further 18 percent ‘did not know’ if their business measured the ROI.

Car buyers prefer good-looking websites, and are more likely to be satisfied with automotive websites with attractive colors, low visual clutter, well organized content, large fonts and minimal links, according to research by J.D. Power and Associates.

J.D. Power and Associates’ ’2011 Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study’ measured the usefulness of automotive manufacturer websites during the new-vehicle shopping process. In the May 2011 study, 10,400 new-vehicle shoppers were asked evaluate websites in four key areas: appearance, speed, navigation and information/content.

A recent study of 12 million employees at U.S. companies reveals the most social media-savvy companies, industries, jobs and cities in terms of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn usage.

According to the 2011 study by NetProspex (http://www.netprospex.com/np/social), the most social company is The New York Times, followed by Intuit and Juniper Networks.

The days of a life insurance sales person coming to your home or office and selling you life insurance may be slowly coming to an end, if a new study by LIFE Foundation and LIMRA is any indication.

The organizations’ ’2011 Insurance Barometer Study’ shows that while two thirds of consumers (64 percent) still prefer to buy life insurance from an insurance or financial professional, that number is down from 1996, when 8 in 10 (80 percent) preferred to buy the product face-to-face.

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has slammed plans by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to allow just about any word to become a top-level domain (TLD).

The ANA has written to the president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Rod Beckstrom, flagging major flaws in the new TLD program.

Website and domain name auction site, Flippa, has released its inaugural State of the Website Economy report, focusing on domain names.

Among the interesting findings of Flippa’s State of the Website Economy July 2011 are that websites and domain names with .com domain extensions have a 124 percent greater chance of selling on Flippa than .co domains, and that dashes in a domain name reduce the average sales price by 26 percent.

Domain name and Internet services provider Tucows Inc. has acquired German domain name registrar EPAG Domainservices GmbH for approximately US$2.5 million (€1.75 million) in cash. Tucows will pay €1.5 million to purchase the shares of EPAG from QSC AG and €0.25 million to settle a working capital adjustment.

EPAG, based in Bonn, Germany, is an ICANN-accredited registrar which manages more than 400,000 domains and over 200 Top Level Domains (TLDs). Tucows intends to continue serving EPAG’s customers and resellers, as well as integrate EPAG’s domain services into its own OpenSRS wholesale domain registration service.