By Nicole Burguess
Account Executive, New Media Relations

Social sites that ask, “What’s on your mind?” and “What’s happening?” are now asking, “Where are you?”

Location-based social networking site Foursquare celebrated its first birthday last week. With over 500,000 users and more than 15.5 million check-ins to date, the service has proven consumer demand for location-based networking tools. Hot on the heels of this trend – which has also boosted use of location services Gowalla and Loopt – Twitter and Facebook both announced they would offer similar services to users.

Twitter launched a feature that lets users tweet their locations on Foursquare’s first anniversary. PC Magazine reports, “Once enabled, the site will attempt to discover your location using Google Gears. Then a small pin icon appears on the information line of your latest tweet. Hover over it, and a Google Map pops up with your location in the middle.” This feature is currently live, and users can choose to activate it with a few clicks at Twitter.com.

Also last week, news broke of Facebook’s intent to add location-based features beginning in April. All Facebook users will soon be able to share physical locations as part of status updates. Additionally, a new set of APIs will allow App developers to use this technology in a wide variety of new Apps.

And what that means for social media community managers, marketers and strategists is a multitude of opportunities to bridge “real life” happenings with Web-based conversations. Brand-sponsored meet-ups can now be even more heavily publicized through Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other services as they happen. And local businesses can connect with customers in more relevant ways, boosting hyper-local social media conversations that sites like Yelp have made popular.

Concerns about privacy and security implications of disclosing one’s physical location on the Web remain, but for now all these tools require opt-in, allowing users to choose for themselves,

For more on these new innovations and other trends in location-based social networking, check out:

• Mediapost: “Report: Facebook to Add Location Sharing”
• Inside Facebook: “Facebook’s Coming Location Service: Feature For Users, Platform for Apps”
• Mashable: “Twitter’s Website Now Attaches Location to Tweets”

Today is my birthday.  Turning 41 is almost worse than turning 40: now it feels like I’m fully committed to the whole “in your 40’s” thing.  Oh well – beats the alternative. Birthdays are a good time for self reflection.  Are you happy with your lot in life?  What’s left to accomplish? I’m a pretty fortunate fellow.  [...]

This infographic from We Love Datavis reminded me of a dusty post from the first iteration of "Strategic Public Relations" -- circa October 2002.

After eight years, it still applies. So in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I am foisting this content on you once again.

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One of my mentors always told me about the art of strategic neglect. He took the concept from the book "On Becoming a Servant-Leader."

It's a fancy way to talk about basic time management and effectively managing your work.

Basically your customers are an infinite vessel. You could work 24/7 on their requests and never be "DONE" with your work. As a result, you must practice the art of strategic neglect. Strategic neglect realizes that there is typically more work to be done than there is time and energy to do.

Therefore it becomes just as important to know what to neglect as it is to know what to do. Prioritize your projects, focus on the most important item and neglect those less important items until they become a priority. You will be more effective.

Things to do/Time uploaded by theonlyone

This year’s SXSWi was a cacophony of parties, cowboy hatted street teams and networking with a few panels and prepared speakers tucked in between. My extreme desire to sift logic from chaos and the peace of a few hours of distance has left me mulling the following 4 takeaways:

Content Creators Must Get Paid – If you braved the distraction of a fire alarm and came back into the building, you were privy to an educated man’s verbal smackdown the likes of which I had not previously seen in public – Marc Cuban vs. Boxee’s Avner Ronen. Cuban artfully beat the drum that pay tv is going to continue to dominate (and that cash is king –  jabbing at Boxee’s “revenue free” model again and again). Avner had a bit of a “home audience” advantage being surrounded by self-admitted geeks who don’t like paying for anything. But if stolen internet content wins – who will pay for great content to still be created? TV shows do not have the same tour-for-cash out that music artists have used to weather the a la carte iTunes model. Later speaker Ze Frank also mused this same dilemma – being unable to monetize his awesome web content, but unable to break into the Hollywood revenue model in a meaningful way. I have no idea what the future holds, but someone needs to get paid or the only shows being made will be for the least common denominator.

Publicizing Public Information is a Violation of Privacy – If you followed the tweetstream from Austin this weekend, you probably saw that the most substantive traffic from any session seemed to come from the very meaty presentation from MSFT-based social network researcher danah boyd (@zephoria). This is a talk that will be worth watching in its entirety (read the transcript here), but if I was struck by one takeaway it is the difference between “public” information – information that can be obtained in some way – and information that we want publicized. danah boyd strongly believes that taking something that someone has written on a public site – say a forum about travel – and using it an ad or republishing it on an aggregator – is a violation of the author’s privacy because it violates the social norms and reasonable assumptions under which the author originally shared. It was a great reminder to begin all digital strategies with the purpose of adding value to all audiences – readers and content creators alike.

QR Codes are Coming – Previously categorized as “big in Asia”, SXSW badges boasted QR codes that, with the addition of an “app for that”, allowed users to share their information with the capture of an encoded 2D barcode. The advent of this technology is just another reason to think about danahboyd’s talk and what you decide to keep private, public, or publicize in social media.

Geolocation is a Foregone Conclusion – While pre-SXSW discussion seemed to be dominated by “geolocation is the new Twitter” discussion, by the time we got to the event, it was simply accepted as a given and everyone was on to the next topic. The only discussion I did hear was a bit of debate between hometown fave Gowalla and Foursquare.

Word of mouth practitioners often find themselves in uncharted territory. The majority of the digitally led programs being developed or put into the marketplace simply could not have existed two years ago.  Sometimes not even two months ago.

As a result, planners and strategists in our industry rely on piles of research to gain insights into what’s likely to work for a particular audience. Some of that research comes from inside our own walls, sometimes we consult outside experts and publishers to make sure we know as much as humanly possible about a particular topic. The latter can come from peer-reviewed academic journals or independent publishers like eMarketer or Forrester.

Beyond those sources, though, there’s been a sharp uptick in research from a new universe of resources.  Some doing great work.  Some not.

Here are a few warning signs that suggest you could be relying on some shaky data…

Ghost Towns

Look out for research that relies on a low number of participants. This number is sometimes expressed by the variable (n = ) in the methodology section. There’s no hard and fast rule about the minimum number of participants in a valid survey but use the audience segment as a guide. A 100 person survey charting the online behavior of commercial architects? That’s probably okay. A 100 person survey asking moms about their favorite websites? Alarm bell central.

Rookies

Whenever I land on a new piece of research, I immediately go to the about section, especially if the publisher isn’t one I’ve come across before. New publisher doesn’t always mean bad research, but be extra cautious with research from an unfamiliar source and ask yourself “is there really no way to get this same data point from the likes of Pew or eMarketer?

Fish Hooks

Don’t bite on a campaign that’s cloaked as research. There’s nothing to prevent an organization from publishing data that’s not representative of a comprehensive audience segment. Selective sampling creates catchy headlines (e.g. 9 out of 10 doctors…) but you’ll get burned if you rely on this sort of thing for a communications program. To avoid getting hooked, simply ask yourself: Who conducted the poll and who paid for it?

Fuzzy Math

Before getting too deep in the data, flip to the methodology to make sure all the vital signs of a healthy research document are present. These include a date range, number of participants (see #1) and margin of error (indicative of sample size).

Also look for the confidence interval (CI) which tells you the reliability of the data set. A margin of error of 2.5% and a confidence interval of 95% simply means that if you ran the same survey 100 times, 95 of those would land within 2.5% of the original results. Think of this as a stress test for the research.

Conclusion Leaps

Simply put, watch out for leaps between the data and interpretation of data. I tend to focus on the raw results and let my specific project, client, and audience determine what it means in a particular instance. Though often times, the raw results are intermingled along with pieces of editorializing. Make sure you know the difference.

What other guidelines or tips do you use in your own research?

[Hat tip to Ogilvy's Dr. Jennifer Scott, Managing Director of Research & Insights, for her counsel in this post and general research assessments]

I can’t say I was surprised to see #CowboyTodd have a better time at SXSW than I would have had I gone. After a brief scare in which the gunslinger was misplaced by the deliveryman, causing him to miss out on the shenanigans at the Funnel Cake Fandango, the Cowboy proved himself to be a “stand-up” [...]

Sharing, friending, commenting, checking in, retweeting…the level of participation social media platforms have ushered into the business world have delivered opportunity as well as issues.

Consider the average marketing planning cycle. Many marketers organize around an annual plan with campaign strategies that have specific start and end dates. But you can’t flip Twitter and Facebook on the day a campaign begins, expect results and then flip them back off at the end of the campaign. Social media is a commitment not a campaign.

Can You Hear Me Now?
Consider a brand’s social media presence to a telephone. If you turn the phone on and give the number out to consumers, that phone is expected to work 24/7/365. This can create a challenge when identifying the right resources and the right content required to engage with consumers across social media platforms.

Goals Drive Resources
In a recent article, MarketingProfs’ Ann Handley outlined the varied approaches to supporting a Twitter account, blog or other social platform as well as the pros and cons for each approach. But in all instances she suggests supporting them with a specific person that is identified by name and can even be found on Google. Putting a name in front of a brand is not always well-received. Brands are used to being anonymous and in line with exacting identity standards created to achieve a single, consistent brand voice.

Brand Voice vs. Social Voice
But social participation works best when it is done by an individual. That may sound silly or obvious. But many companies operate its Facebook page or its Twitter account anonymously without identifying the person actually responding to customer inquiries and comments. This detracts from the effectiveness of the effort.

Companies including Sharpie, Sodexo and Best Buy all have their own unique social voice and it’s brought each brand positive results.

Making Marker Fanatics
CPG brands know their fans and Sharpie is no different. Positioning themselves as enabling creativity, Sharpie has gone from being a marker to being an unmatched design tool harnessing creativity and amplifying self-expression. A quick search of Flickr alone shows how extreme this can become. By personifying their brand through folks like “Sharpie Susan” Wassel, they have a fan club that continues to grow and inspire itself.

An Appetizing Corporate Culture
Sodexo relies on social media to help detail its culture. The foodservice giant has to staff a 100,000 person -- and growing -- workforce. Kerry Noone personifies its HR function with amazing results. Noone notes that Twitter alone has saved them $300K in Monster.com advertising.

Listening. And Responding
Best Buy has evolved the farthest by pushing its brand and its social voice to ultimately become one and the same. Through Barry Judge’s self-admitted experiment, opening the doors to direct customer input and using Twitter to connect it’s blue shirts to any customer on Twitter, it’s been an evolution for the electronics retailer.

As detailed below in a comparison created by Shiv Singh, you can see how a brand's voice and its social voice differ. But in all instances, Best Buy’s used social media to become a customer service channel and connect real customers to real employees. It’s even apparent in Best Buy's advertising. The results have helped the brand immeasurably in the very competitive market of consumer electronics.

Social Voice Best Practices
As sites like Twitter attract brands, some stumble when it comes to finding their voice. Should the tweets/status updates be made by one person or multiple? Should these people be identified or should they remain anonymous? While there are several approaches, the more a brand is represented by a real person the more engaged it can become with its customers. Here are some basic tips to consider.

1. What does Google already say about the people representing your brand?
2. Sign Tweets/Posts. Something as simple as ending tweets sent on my work account with ^KD show when it’s me doing the tweeting.
3. A picture will help reinforce that real people are behind the brand. This could be the avatar, this could be the background, but the more attempts at making a personal connection, the better. This is actually one we need to implement. Our Twitter page needs the personal touch of a pic.
4. If a brand does not have the staff for multiple people representing the brand, it should consider promoting “online office hours” noting when the brand is most likely online.
5. Consider that a person representing doesn’t have to be the brand, they merely help reinforce it.
6. This person should have a passion for the brand. It won’t work if “Skippy the Wonder Intern**” is updating a brand’s Facebook page.
7. Consider any online tool to help make a connection. While a brand might focus on Facebook and Twitter, sites like Flickr, Twitpic, YouTube and Whrrl (http://whrrl.com/ ) to tell a richer story. Keep in mind that all of these sites lead back to the brand.

The end result of understanding and finding a brand’s social voice can bring dividends in customer satisfaction, human resources, research and development more. It all depends on a brand’s goals and focus.

** Hat Tip to friend and blogger Daniel Lally who, while never having met Skippy, created him to personify the intern shouldered with “doing Twitter” and “making the Facebook.”

Cross-posted to Empower MediaMarketing's blog, Social Study.

Last week, I attended a webinar from WOMMA where WOMMA General Counsel Tony DiResta discussed the importance of disclosure across social media. This conversation normally focuses on brand-blogger relationships but the same best practices and government guidelines may also affect your Facebook Page.

Here are five things to keep in mind about your brand and disclosure on Facebook.

1. Employment is “Consideration”: The FTC requires that any consideration from an endorser be disclosed; “consideration” includes anything that might sway endorsers’ words and this includes employment. Make it clear to employees that posting an endorsement or review on your Facebook Page without disclosing that they are employees is unacceptable, this also includes commenting on other Facebook Pages or Facebook content just as it does commenting on blogs.
2. Video Contests: If you are soliciting Facebook videos about how much fans love your product to be in the running for a million dollar prize treat this the same as you would if you were requiring a blog post about your product as a contest entry. Help fans by requiring that they include a link to your contest rules or a including the contest name in the video description- this disclosure will protect your fans and will raise awareness of the contest.
3. Disclosure in Celebrity Status Updates: Status for Sale is forbidden by the Facebook User Guidelines but do make sure that any celebrity spokes people disclose their relationship with you should they be posting about your products a lot. There is no standard format for this disclosure, the status update might include (sponsor) in the text or the celebrity might list the sponsorship or spokesperson relationship prominently on their Page information.
4. Disclosure of Celebrity Photos: If celebrities and influencers are seen using your products in paid advertisements or at your events it’s understood that these are paid endorsements and no disclosure is needed but a photo of a celebrity using your product lacking any description or context is more ambiguous. To be safe, if you are posting photos of paid celebrities or event attendees using your products make sure to add a note to the album description or under each photo as to where the photo came from.
5. Disclosure in Foursquare: One great question from the webinar was around Foursquare and whether free products or gifts given to a Mayor needed to be disclosed- Tony confirmed that they do. Since many people are now using Facebook and Foursquare together I thought this was worth including.

Remember to use common sense with social media campaigns just as you do traditional advertising campaigns and keep your customers’ best interest in mind. And no matter how much you study this stuff don’t forget the gut check: if you think you might need to be disclosing something you probably do.

A special thanks to Tony DiResta for his input on this- for continued discussion and updates about best practices and guidelines check out Tony DiResta’s blog on the WOMMA website see the full disclosure webinar here.

When SXSW, one of the largest gatherings of minds and enthusiasts in the digital world, didn’t feature more than a handful of panels on the intersection between health and social media - an “unconference” event called SXSH sprung up to fill the void. Yesterday that event came together in Austin and included speakers and pioneers in using social media to communicate for health issues in regional hospitals, government agencies, health insurers, nonprofits, epatients and pharma companies. Just about every part of the healthcare world had some sort of voice in the discussion as everyone gathered to share ideas on how the industry as a whole might use social media more effectively by building greater trust.

The day long discussion featured many highlights, starting with a talk from Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong about the power of health based communities online and how important real time information is to improving healthcare and the patient experience. Greg Matthews from Humana shared how a health insurer can innovate internally and use that to improve patient relationships and Jenn Texada from MD Anderson shared how she and her communications team use social media tools to interact directly with patients for customer service. David Hale from the National Library of Medicine presented an innovative new database to help identify unknown pills called Pillbox and Fabio Gratton shared how to build a movement through a case study of the success of the #FDASM movement in November of last year around the FDA hearings. In the “unconference” part of the day, companies such as ReachMD and WEGO Health talked about their communities and content and how they help bridge the gaps between patients, doctors and healthcare providers.

In the final session of the day, I tackled the question of trust. A central issue in healthcare communications, the session posed the question: why don’t people trust us? Or more specifically, what creates the culture of distrust online that so often causes negativity towards some companies in healthcare and what could we as an industry do to combat this? Our aim in the session was to brainstorm ways that healthcare organizations could overcome these barriers and build more trust and credibility. The entire room then selected what they felt the strongest ideas were and I promised to compile the results into a single blog post - which you’ll find below. In the spirit of the unconference, all of us who managed to be part of the great discussion would love to hear your thoughts on any other ideas that we could add to this list too …

1. Listen to and implement ideas from the community. Being part of a community or interacting with individuals is a great first step, but the real trust that can be built from this comes when people see some sort of action come as a result of the participation in a community. It is not the act of listening, but the impact of that listening which makes it real.
2. Have shared values on good health. Often the distrust in healthcare organizations stems from a belief that priorities are mismatched. Our priority as a patient is to get healthy, and their priority seems to be offering more medication or delivering care in a more “efficient” way. In order to build trust, it is crucial that people feel our ultimate goals are aligned toward making them healthier. We need to focus on prevention instead of promotion.
3. Answer your patient’s or customer’s concerns directly. With social media tools, people have the ability to broadcast their thoughts and desires. Often they are doing so because they are seeking a response. Having a smart listening program that can help you find these queries and a strategy for responding goes a long way towards demonstrating that you care and truly want to help.
4. Aggregate or curate useful information. Sometimes the problem isn’t a lack of information online, but a dearth of it. When information is scattered all over, it can become very confusing about what is credibile and which things to trust. One of the simplest roles for any healthcare organization to take is that of a curator of great content. By doing this, you can create resources for people that will be useful and demonstrate your commitment to their needs.
5. Serve as a resource or guide for the community. One of the things that many organizations neglect is actively using the experts that you may have internally. When it comes to marketing and communications, part of the role should be to unlock the best voices from within an organization (many of whom may not necessarily be in the marketing or PR departments). By bringing these voices out and encouraging them to share information, you can connect patients and customers to the individuals who can truly bring insight and deliver thoughtful and useful information.
6. Set expectations on what you do and why. Lack of trust can be based on a misunderstanding of motivations. There are times when people may assume that a policy or practice is done simply for financial reasons or because of legal motives when actually there are other concerns they don’t know. Being as transparent as possible about your decision process and thinking can go a long way to remove this misunderstanding.
7. Focus on setting a clear mission for employees. The most trustworthy organizations often are the ones that have a very specific and defined vision that everyone is working to implement. When the message coming from employees is consistent, it goes a long way towards establishing a belief in the organization from outsiders because they know what the group stands for.
8. Communicate results and outcomes. Large organizations in particular are often good about communicating outcomes or results in financial terms on a quarterly basis or some kind of cost related metric, but not as good about communicating impact of their efforts in human terms. To inspire belief, it is often the results in human terms that people respond to far more than the financial ones - so refocusing on how that story is told becomes vital.
9. Recognize both sides of the issue or data. Many people inherently believe that data and reports presented by many healthcare groups (and pharma in particular) is delivered with a strong bias towards whatever is most self serving for the group. When information is not presented in a more balanced way, the likelihood that people will not believe it is entirely credible goes up.
10. Build trusted long term relationships. Beyond all the other suggestions, the one thing that establishes a foundation for everything you do are the trusted relationships with influencers and individuals that you build online. You need a group of people who know enough about what you do and the real philosophy and thinking behind your actions that they can serve as vocal advocates for your brand if needed.

The inimitable Onion News Network reveals just how hard it is to fill 24-hours worth of stuff (contains some NSFW language): This topic strikes home for me.  It was literally the subject of my very first blog post at PR-Squared, about 6 years ago!  It was also covered recently — briefly but pointedly — by Matthew [...]

I caught up with our own Thomas Crampton last week in Istanbul. Thomas runs our teams across Asia and one of the big events coming up this year is the Shanghai World Expo.  To help inform our work and our clients who will participate in some way or another, Thomas developed some great research on the current buzz throughout Chinese social media on the Expo. I had a chance to ask him about what he found:

Q: Can you tell us briefly what the Shanghai World Expo is and what it may mean to China, its government, business leaders and even the people there?
A: Shanghai Expo has been billed as one of the largest events of its kind in China. While people outside of China may not have heard of the event, the organizers expect a extremely large domestic audience.

Q: You did a unique survey of what the Chinese people were saying online via social media about the Expo, what surprised you most?
A: One of the biggest surprises about the discussions online was the intensity of discussion taking place more than three months before the event began. While you might expect sponsor and the government to speak about the event, it was interesting to see the level of discussion going on among China’s netizens.

Q: Can you tell two of the insights in the survey?
A: The report gives insights into how individual citizens and companies are already gearing up for the Expo. In terms of Chinese citizens, the report shows that they are concerned about ticket prices and taking action. Among the initiatives are group purchasing of tickets and rural citizens asking for advice on how to buy tickets.

Q: How could brands engaging in the Expo use this survey to their advantage?
A: By understanding the concerns of consumers looking at the Expo, companies can find ways of offering value to those who may visit the Expo. One interesting example in relation to the ticket prices is one company, , that is offering tickets to Expo at the original price. The promotion costs them very little - the difference in ticket price is very small - but the publicity and discussion about it has been fairly extensive. As we follow the Expo with these publicly available reports, companies will be able to see possible hooks for their own Social Media strategy.

Shanghai Expo Chinese-language Social Media Buzz

View more documents from 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy PR Worldwide.

While I can’t be at SXSW in-person this year, I’m sending a proxy.  Literally. If you are headed to Austin, allow me to introduce you to … “Cowboy Todd.” Inspired and designed by my friend David Alston and his crew at Radian6, this 6–foot tall cut-out will be making the rounds of the party circuit, “Flat Stanley”-style. David’s [...]

I dove into my “Big Thinking” folder recently and emerged with a slide from the “Social Media Trends for 2010” deck created by Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group, discussing organizational models for corporate adoption of Social Media. Who is in control of this Social Media stuff?  What are the best practices? These questions come up a lot, [...]

By Marian Short
Senior Account Executive, MediaQuotient

According to Shel Holz, while some small companies may feel more hesitant about engaging consumers through social media, doing so can potentially benefit them more than their larger competitors – while using a smaller marketing budget.

A new survey by the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business shows that not only are more small businesses turning to social media venues for increased ROI and heightened visibility, but 75 percent of respondents discovered ways of improving efficiency and almost half identified new products and services that utilize social media. Incredibly, one CEO actually slashed his marketing budget by 80 percent by successfully using social media channels. Mashable reported that Facebook and LinkedIn lead the pack for small-business social media engagement and was intrigued to see how much Twitter adoption rates will fluctuate.

Although the work’s already started, it’s only now that I can tell ya’ll about a recent Big Win for the SHIFT team. As noted in a recent PRWeek article (sub. req’d), SHIFT was recently named as the Consumer Agency of Record for Quiznos. We’ll be handling both consumer PR and Social Media assignments for this well-known, edgy [...]

How can brands leverage social media to drive sales and lead generation?

While social media spending is on the rise for both B2B and B2C companies, many brands are still realizing the full potential of online engagement for business development and lead generation.  Next week, I’ll be presenting ideas to the Silicon Valley Capital Club on how brands can best leverage the social web to drive word of mouth buzz and, ultimately, sales opportunities.

Below, I’ve provided a sneak peek into the insights I plan to cover, however, I’d welcome your feedback and stories as to where your organization experiences the greatest online business development success:

1.      Listen first – What does this really mean in terms of lead generation?  Essentially, it’s absolutely critical to know where your customers and competitors live on the social web what issues are most prevalent in your space.  Read blogs that are relevant to your space, look for webinars about key issues and use Google blog search to understand what trends are most discussed among your customer base.

2.      Set clear goals as to what you want to achieve – Start with one or two measureable objectives that are attainable within a specified timeframe and build from there.  It’s okay to begin with a pilot project, allowing you to easily retool your plan if your objectives are not tracking toward success.

3.      Add value to the online conversation – After listening to what is being discussed in your space, be ready to offer something more than a “quick hit” opportunity to buy your organization’s products or services.  Share insightful content, develop webinars, offer product demonstrations or training, create live events and answer questions.  Be viewed as an industry resource and seek to establish rapport and validation within your targeted audience.

4.     Empower employees to tell your story – Intel (disclosure - they are a client) published their social media guidelines as a best practice and several organizations have done the same. Intel’s policy clearly states that employees should “stick to your area of expertise and provide unique, individual perspectives on what’s going on at Intel and in the world.”  Who better to tell your organization’s story to the world and add a human element to your brand than your own employees?

5.      Paid and Organic Search – Ensuring your content can be easily found is absolutely critical when there is so much competition for eyeballs on the social web.  Investing in paid search and ensuring your web properties use consistent keywords/metatags to assist with organic search results are both instrumental.  Google Trends and Google’s keyword tool are free resources that help identify the search strings that will work the hardest for your digital content.

6.      Make your corporate website relevant to the sales process – Too many brands miss opportunities to capture attention and add immediate relevance to the customer once the customer finds them online.  I’ve listed some ideas on how an organization’s website could immediately strike greater engagement possibilities:

• Develop a blog and use it as a sales tool/testing ground. Posts should be brief, incorporate photos and/or videos that help in telling a story and speak in a conversational tone.  Be ready to respond to comments and questions in a timely fashion, noting which topics have the most traction for your prospects.
• Analyze where people are clicking, use trackable URLs (bit.ly offers metrics) and regularly review the metrics
• Offer Q&As with happy customers and how the product offering is being implemented, using both video and text
• Socialize the press area and more visible areas of your site, ensuring content is shareable and interactive
• Incorporate product and service reviews via third-party applications that live within your web platform

7.      Broaden your digital footprint and develop a content calendar – While it’s critical that your organization’s website offers relevant content, it’s also a good best practice to allow your content to live beyond the confines of your organization’s web platform.  Posting engaging content on LinkedIn, Facebook brand pages, YouTube and Fast Pitches can only help extend your reach and produce better search results for your brand.  Additionally, ensuring that content is produced on a regular basis and is timely (i.e. teases a tradeshow presence, product demonstrations are scheduled with product announcements, etc.) can offer a much richer experience for your potential customer.

8.      Don’t neglect Twitter as a business tool – It’s fairly easy to integrate Twitter into your sales strategy without much effort.  By using a management tool like TweetDeck or Seesmic to track specific keywords/lists, organizations can hyper-target those who are most interested their space.  Twitter can also be very powerful as a customer service mechanism, for introducing special offers and for answering questions about products and services.

While there are a number of ideas I haven’t covered here, I’m hopeful this list will generate some additional thinking on how organizations can best leverage social media for sales and lead generation.  What are your thoughts?  What’s worked well for you?

Blogwell is winding through Cincinnati on April 7th and Cincinnati Social Media is proud to be partnering with them on the event. According to the folks from GasPedal and Social Media Business Council:Duke Energy, AT&T, Hilton Worldwide, Tyson, Dell, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, and Rogers Communications share case studies... Kevin Dugan

Blogwell is winding through Cincinnati on April 7th and Cincinnati Social Media is proud to be partnering with them on the event.

According to the folks from GasPedal and Social Media Business Council:

Duke Energy, AT&T, Hilton Worldwide, Tyson, Dell, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, and Rogers Communications share case studies in corporate social media. You’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal.

Get practical, how-to advice on creating great content, getting management buy-in, educating employees, keeping lawyers and regulators happy, simple and ethical disclosure, and engaging fans. You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and get answers from people who have been there, done that — all in four hours for $250.

While this event is worth attending just for the above line-up, the adage about the best conversations taking place in the hallways usually applies to social media events like this. Meeting some of your online friends and colleagues in person, and making new ones, is another takeaway you'll have with Blogwell Cincinnati. 

But Wait, There's More!
To ensure that's the case, Cincinnati Social Media is hosting a Tweet Up the night before Blogwell Cincinnati. Stay tuned for details, but all speakers and attendees are invited to attend and get a jump start on the co-mingling. Speaking of Cincinnati Social Media, members are entitled to a 20 percent discount off admission to BlogWell. If you're not a member of Cincinnati Social Media, head over to our LinkedIn Group to sign up. We'll be providing the discount code to our members shortly (like within 24 hours of this post shortly).

In the meantime, mark your calendars and get registered. If you're out of market (road trip!) but cannot attend (dang it), you can bet there will be some content streaming freely from Duke Energy Center that day. There will be two official Blogwell live bloggers in addition to the live tweeting and other random content that is sure to be published.

Some of our clients have asked us to serve as moderators on their Facebook Fan Pages. I know such pages are a dime-a-dozen on Facebook, but we are talking about some big-league brands in this case.  Names you know.  “Fan clubs” of which you may well be a member. Although we strongly adhere to a full-transparency ethic [...]

I am truly excited to welcome Melanie Collins, formerly the top sales executive at Marketwire in Boston, as SHIFT’s new Director of Business Development. Melanie is a master networker who eclipsed sales quotas during her tenure at the wire service.  In her new role — which we created for Melanie — she will focus on attracting major B2B [...]