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Great news, your boss has selected you to create and manage the company’s new social media initiatives. Now like many marketers currently experiencing a similar situation, you probably immediately thought “why me?” and then quickly thereafter “how do I get started?” First off, it is important to note that social media is not synonymous with Twitter or Facebook. According to Duct Tape Marketing, social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value. Second, similar to any other marketing campaign, you must start by defining your target audience and then setting specific objectives that can be measured. Read More

On June 11th, the 2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament will kick-off in South Africa and captivate a world audience for 31 days. In honor of the event, Nike created a commercial directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (who is best known for directing “Babel” and “21 Grams”). The commercial which clocks in at over three minutes and features a “whose who” of international soccer stars (Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba, Franck Ribery, Fabio Cannavaro, Cesc Fabregas, Andres Iniesta, Landon Donovan, Tim Howard, Thiago Silva, Ronaldinho and Theo Walcott) and guest appearances by tennis sensation, Roger Federer, basketball superstar, Kobe Bryant and even Homer Simpson Read More

On May 25th, I participated in the Social Media Plus Summit at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. The event included a series of lectures geared towards different business audiences (i.e. Sales, Marketing, Executive, Human Resources, etc) and exhibitors showcasing their products/services. A scan of the crowd showed a diverse audience made up of several hundred individuals hoping to learn more about social media. Below is a summary of the sessions that I attended and the lessons learned Read More

It is one of the biggest questions you will hear in any open forum on Social Media: Which department owns social media? It is a main topic that I will be covering at a panel discussion with the PRSA on June 8th in New York. But I wanted to outline my thoughts here and summarize some of the key sides of the debate.

While attending the SocialMediaPlus conference in Philadelphia on May 25th, I listened to the famous Frank Eliason from @ComcastCares. In his purely interactive session, Frank received this question: Do you see social media creating a convergence of marketing, PR, and customer service? Frank answered that he did not believe these areas would “converge”. Read More

Just last year, I became a mother for the first time. My son just turned one (time flies, doesn’t it?) and after being a full time mom and performing various social media marketing tasks throughout, I’ve learned that there are many parallels that can be taken from parenthood that also apply to social media marketing. Read More

In April, a Cinco de Mayo-inspired Facebook promotion drove 8,000 new fans and 370,000 active interactions for El Monterey, a frozen Mexican food brand based in Dinuba, Calif. The “Save on Cinco” campaign asked Facebook fans to share their family savings tips within a branded, game-like Facebook app. Other fans interacted with savings tips (by rating, commenting and sharing) to earn points redeemable for BOGOs, branded merchandise and other prizes. All interactions took place within Bulbstorm’s Idea Challenges application for Facebook promotions Read More

A colleague of mine, Michael Brenner, has stated numerous times that the role of marketing is to help our companies gain and keep customers. This is a unifying principle for both marketing and sales teams and should act as the foundation for your campaigns. The question becomes, how do you achieve this? In most marketing organizations, the single most important way to keep customers is to build satisfaction and loyalty, while the best way to gain new customers is through positive referrals from your existing customers. Read More

For the launch of SAP Crystal Solutions, SAP has created a new Facebook App that analyzes your friend network. The analysis is presented in an easy to read dashboard that helps answer the questions “How valuable are your Facebook friends?” and possibly more importantly “Is your network more valuable than your friend’s network? Read More

Recently a colleague forwarded me a recording of a social media webcast featuring Guy Kawasaki titled “Exploring the Power of Going Social” that was originally hosted by WebEx on May 12th, 2010. For those that are not already familiar with Guy Kawasaki, he is the founding partner of Garage Technology Ventures, co-founder of Alltop, an accomplished author and a former Apple Fellow. Whatever you do, do not call him a social media expert – he does not believe these individuals exist – rather he is someone that is successfully using social media to achieve results Read More

Social media marketing is a real opportunity to drive business success. Without planning, your business social media marketing can fail or worse, represent your company badly. Are you using social media as part of a strategy or because you feel you should Read More