The potential to make money off of social media has been a prospect for most business for the past several years. However, the problem most have is figuring out how to make that happen. It's a long way from starting a Facebook page or creating a Twitter (News - Alert) account to actually generating commerce that can be attributed to either. Moontoast LLC is a company that was founded to do the hard part for its clients and directly interact with customers through social media.

Just recently, Moontoast scored $5 million in Series B funding with the help of the Martin Cos. LLC. This round of funding comes just a year after Moontoast successfully raised $6 million. The company says that the investment money will help in the development of advertising tools such as its “Social Activation Platform,” which launched 90 marketing campaigns in the fourth quarter, and the hiring of new employees for marketing and product development.

Moontoast uses some really interesting strategies in order to generate views and attract attention. Marcus Whitney, co-founder and chief of technology at Moontoast, explains that “The majority on impressions served up by social advertisers are the result of a 'like'. On Facebook (News - Alert), the ad isn't some display image, but rather related to the content on a Web site. It's in a story form an entertaining.”

What this seems to indicate is that Moontoast is taking social engineering to the next level by incorporating advertising content that users might not realize is advertising in the first place and simultaneously collecting user data for ads and purchases. While not an entirely novel approach, Moontoast does appear to be quite successful so far. Moontoast works with well- known brands such as Universal Music Group (News - Alert), Nike, Time, and Lexus.

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