Paranormal Marketing, Big Data Pressures, LinkedIn’s Winning Playbook

The Content Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today, in case you missed it:

Paranormal Activity’s Marketing a Screaming Success

The Paranormal Activity franchise’s social media campaign over the past five years has been a total success story.

Without fans petitioning online, the horror indie would have never made it to theaters outside major metropolitan areas.

Now Paranormal 4 is about to hit theaters, and Paramount is asking fans to “want it” on Facebook for the chance to have the movie premiere in their hometown.

So Much Data, So Little Time

In this sponsored content piece on TheAtlantic.com, IBM’s vice president of corporate marketing shares his thoughts on how marketing executives can use social media to their advantage, the changing role of the CMO in big business, and why big data keeps him up at night.

What LinkedIn Is Doing Right

Forbes.com picked apart the company’s strategy and came up with seven secrets to its social media success.

“It has put together a playbook that harnesses the great strengths of social media in ways that translate into unusually reliable profit growth,” George Anders said.

Why Marketers Need to Think Small

Marketing businesses may want to look to niche social communities for business solutions.

“The membership in highly focused professional communities like Spiceworks and FohBoh.com attract B2B companies, which know that success is more about quality than quantity,” Mashable’s Paul Gillan said.

Social Media Is Not a Mirror But a Lens

TechCrunch’s Gregory Ferenstein reports on how social media can be misleading. 

“Had I just gazed the world through my Twitter feed, I would think Chick-fil-A was on the verge of bankruptcy,” he said, “and also that Ron Paul was president, gay marriage was legal, and President Obama didn’t have a decent chance of losing the election

Apple Almost Ditched iPhone?

Talk about near misses.

Where and what would the iPhone be without its touch screen?

“According to Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of design, the iPhone was almost scrapped completely because of its touchscreen — now a major selling point,” The New Statesman reports.

Gawker Co-Founder Launching Content-Commerce Startup

New York Observer editor-in-chief and Gawker co-founder Elizabeth Spiers is leaving the Observer to start her own company.

Spiers didn’t give a great deal of detail about her new project, but she did tell Ad Age.com, “The startup will focus on content and commerce in the health and wellness arena.” 

83 Million Facebook Accounts are Big Fakes

Miss Precious, the most pampered Pomeranian on earth, might have to give up her Facebook page, with the company cracking down on duplicate and false accounts.

“On Facebook we have a really large commitment in general to finding and disabling false accounts,” Facebook’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan said via CNN. “Our entire platform is based on people using their real identities.”