Is Your Social Media Strategy Stalling Because You’re Not Doing This One Thing?
HubSpot’s Dan Zarrella shares some interesting stats and advice on boosting engagement of your content through clear and concise calls to action, in this guest post on CopyBlogger.com.

Can Social Media Improve Your Workers’ Productivity?
Contrary to the opinions of many corporate execs, social media can be leveraged to make employee time more productive and less of a time waster. Find out how via this Business Insider post from Ramon Ray & the Smallbiztechnology.com Team.

Take the Grunt Work Out of Monitoring Social Media with mBlast
Take a peek at Diana Huff‘s review of a pretty cool looking tool for taking care of your social media monitoring tasks. I’m definitely looking forward to kicking the tires on this one.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR
Personal Branding Expert Dan Schawbel interviews author David Meerman Scott about the release of the third edition of his best selling book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

Facebook Page redesign: 10 things admins should do RIGHT NOW
Since this week’s first pick filled you in about all the Facebook Page changes, this post from David Griner on TheSocialPath.com will guide page Admins in the right direction on what key things they should change first.

Marketers use social media for Valentine promotions
Valentine’s Day is upon us and many marketers have turned to social media in order to promote their related brands. USAToday‘s Bruce Horovitz share examples of six brands who are vying for your Valentine’s Day attention in the social space. On a related note, our client Corey McPherson Nash asks your opinion of the new “romantic” messaging from Teleflora, in this “Tired or Tacky Hearts” post.

Top Ten Things That Get You Unfollowed/Unfriended
Are you still trying to learn the ins and outs of proper etiquette when navigating the social landscape? This post from Peter Shankman provides a good list of DON’Ts to keep you on the right track.

Cyber graffiti with WiFi network names as advertising
Author David Meerman Scott shares this entertaining post on how brands can potentially cash in on some free advertising by leveraging the publicly-broadcast name of their WiFi access points with some creativity.

What makes a blog successful?
Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk shares stories of blogging success straight from her own experiences.

Create social media guidelines to engage your customer
This post from Daniel Burrus on TechJournalSouth.com is one in a series containing advice on creating social media guidelines. This pick zeros in on the importance of establishing clear and consistent focus across the company.

A Call for Social Media Guidelines
The topic of social media guidelines continues with this post on PharmExec.com – recapping some of the biggest issues facing the health care industry as it attempts to engage in social media.

A Few Guidelines for Drafting Social Media Guidelines
This post from Chris Crum rounds out a trilogy of picks on social media guidelines and features video interviews with Wayne Sutton and Patrick O’Keefe.

Customer Data via Twitter
Adam T. Sutton from the Sherpa blog recently interviewed Craig Greenfield, VP, Search and Performance Media, Performics, where they discussed how his team uses Twitter. The result was six takeaways that show how Twitter contributes to the Performics team’s success.

Privacy is dead, and social media holds smoking gun
Mashable’s Pete Cashmore guest posts on the CNN Opinion blog with this piece on how social media is changing the face of privacy.

Your Company May Own Your Tweets, Pokes, and YouTube Videos
Jermiah Owyang discusses content ownership between employees and companies and includes an attorney’s perspective on the topic.

The new rules of business-to-business marketing & PR
David Meerman Scott’s keynote from the Business Marketing Association’s annual conference has been made available online for the first time. Pop some corn and settle in for 45 minutes of great B2B marketing information.

Since many of the attendees were from smaller companies, I stressed that any business – big or small – could benefit from implementing some form of social media strategy into their organization. An example I used to help make my point was to compare Starbucks with the Crème Brulee cart in San Francisco. Both businesses are using Twitter and seeing great results to drive business to their location, but one is a multi-national chain and the other is a small food cart roaming around San Francisco. They couldn’t be more different, yet they are using the same tools to connect and engage with their loyal fans.

If you don’t think you need help managing your social media efforts, you might want to take a closer look at the time investment required to ensure it’s done well. Sure, some of you may be able to manage it all while also running your business, but to do it right, it needs to be more than an afterthought – and most executives just don’t have the bandwidth to focus on doing both jobs effectively at the same time.

You also aren’t likely to have the time to “be everywhere” – listening, engaging, responding – but a dedicated social media professional can do this for you. Consistency is crucial to ensure results. A dedicated focus on social media efforts = a quicker time to value.

You also don’t want to have a “Nelson” moment by not paying attention to your brand online. Some examples I used during the Chamber Breakfast included Domino’s Pizza and United Airlines to show the difference between a brand listening and responding immediately (Domino’s) and another that chose to ignore for more than a year (United).

So, what should you look for in a social media professional? We asked David Meerman Scott this question while attending SXSW Interactive earlier this year. You can check out the video here, but I summed it up with this intricate graphic I call “The Anatomy of a Social Media Professional.”

As David also pointed out in his interview with us, when you are seeking help with your social media efforts, it’s important that you do your homework and make sure whoever you hire has the qualifications needed to get the job done. If they aren’t out there practicing what they preach, or if they can’t point to any ROI as a result of their efforts, than you might want to keep searching.

What do you think? Do you think a dedicated social media professional is necessary in business? What qualities do you think a social media professional should have – did we miss anything in our anatomy slide? We would love to get your thoughts in the comment section below.

So without further ado, for your viewing pleasure check out what some of this year’s SXSW Interactive attendees had to say for themselves. I am sure you will recognize a few of your friends and hopefully have a few laughs along the way.

A special thanks to everyone who participated and shared their two (and sometimes more) words and thanks for all the memories. See y’all next year – SXSWi 2010!

Disclaimer: The video quality and lighting varies slightly due to the ‘extreme’ shooting conditions of SXSW. :)

Translation: This was my first attempt and I didn’t lug around all the lighting and sound equipment with me for these impromptu shots, so some responses were a little more difficult to see/hear, but you get the point.

Music: Dan Tharp, Guitar Suite I – Movement I and II
Camera: Kodak Zi6 HD

Along with attending the many sessions the conference has to offer, we will be conducting several informal video interviews from the event to share on this blog. We have already confirmed some great interviews with David Meerman Scott, Chris Brogan, Justin Levy, Peter Kim, Steve Garfield, Michael Langford, Mike Lewis and others, and we are looking for more! If you are a tech blogger/reporter, entrepreneur, social media enthusiast or just a big thinker who would like to speak with us at the show and tell us about your innovative spirit, please let us know – we’d love to connect in Austin to learn and share more.

If you are not attending but would like us to try and catch someone specific for an interview, please send us a note or post some suggestions here – we’ll do our best to catch those folks on video. Also, send us your suggestions on the “must see” events, parties, and activities we should plan on attending. We don’t want to miss anything!

Here’s what we’re looking forward to:

• The Accelerator, in which about two dozen startups will demo their services or products before a panel of judges; venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki and tech journalist Brad King will emcee the event
• Core Conversation: Why Gen Y Won’t Friend Your Brand
• Guy Kawasaki’s Keynote Interview with “The Long Tail” writer Chris Anderson
• Core Conversation: How to Create a Great Company Culture
• Opening Remarks by Tony Hsieh of Zappos
• Core Conversation: Advertising is Entertaining – Who’s Selling Out?

And so much more! We look forward to seeing you at SXSWi!

Contact/follow us at:
Christine Major – cmajor [at] perkettpr [dot] com or DM at @cmajor
Heather Mosley – hmosley [at] perketpr [dot] com or DM at @mosleyppr

Community Managers Must Deliver ROI: Commandments For Surviving a Recession
Jeremiah Owyang provides sound advice to Community Managers on how to step up their game, provide continuing value and (most importantly) help keep their jobs in these tough economic times.

Are we really ready to move beyond Social Media 101?
Many of us in the PR and Marketing space have been teaching the basics of Social Media for quote some time now. Some might think its time to elevate those teachings to the next level. However, LiveWorld’s social media evangelist Bryan Person shares some incite in this MediaBullseye.com guest post on why that’s not the case and advises those who teach to “keep beating the drum.”

How Lisa Genova used social media to turn a self-published book into a NY Times bestseller
Best selling author David Meerman Scott shares an abbreviated version of fellow writer Lisa Genova’s success in using social media to propel the promotion of her book “Still Alice” all the way to the top of the charts. Her complete success story and many others can be found in David’s latest book entitled “World Wide Rave.”

Podcasters report their top 3 podcasting tips (Part 1 & Part 2)
Marketing consultant Devon Dudgeon shares TONS of podcasting tips in this two part post. The tips were submitted by seasoned podcast veterans around the globe and are aimed at those who have been thinking about getting there own podcast off the ground.

Why blogs matter
“Q: Who reads blogs? A: Journalists”; Shannon Paul delivers another thought provoking post that shows why blogs might just be the ultimate tool in your social media arsenal.

Image Credit (sans modifications): Jade Gordon

Lose Control – Heck, you already lost it, but it’s all good

If you can’t beat them, join them. Smart corporations are quickly realizing the value in giving up control of their brands and putting it into the hands of their customers.

I really enjoyed David Meerman Scott’s keynote “World Wide Rave: Creating triggers to get millions of people to spread your ideas and share your stories.” During his presentation, David shared six “Rules of the Rave” from his upcoming book entitled “World Wide Rave” which will be available March 3, 2009.

According to a description from the book’s microsite, a World Wide Rave is when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products. Whether you’re located in San Francisco, Dubai, or Reykjavík, it’s when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web. It’s when online buzz drives buyers to your virtual doorstep. And it’s when tons of fans visit your web site and your blog because they genuinely want to be there.

One of his six “Rules of the Rave” and a key theme from the conference was “Lose Control.” According to Scott, the new rules of marketing mean you have to give up control to reach your customers. Don’t require people to give up their information to get information because it’s not working. If you make your information totally free to the public then you are likely to get a better response.

Sometimes you have to give a little to get a lot – and it works. David offered the example of how the Grateful Dead was the first band to allow its audience to record live concerts. This practice ultimately made them the most popular touring band in history.

Another great example was the Cadbury Gorilla video. Cadbury created a video of a drum-playing gorilla set to Phil Collins’ – In the Air Tonight. Now Gorilla’s have nothing to do with the Cadbury brand and the viewer didn’t even know it was Cadbury behind the video until the end when its logo appeared. What was even cooler than this video concept was that people actually took the content (content creation again) and made mash-ups of the same video to different music and released their own version. And within each and every one, the Cadbury brand appeared at the end. That didn’t cost them a dime for that additional exposure – excellent!

This isn’t your grandfather’s marketing

While the concept of new marketing is really exciting, we need to remember, as Christopher S. Penn pointed out, that new marketing is not a shiny new object so don’t treat it as such. Instead, look at it as another tool in your toolbox. There are ideas that have been done way before the internet existed that you can incorporate into new media. It’s a balance of finding what will work best for your organization.

So before you decide to jump in and incorporate some new media into your organization be prepared to stop, listen, create and let go. Visit www.GoNewMarketing.com for more information on upcoming New Marketing Summit events throughout 2009.

Photo Credit: Steve Garfield

After reflecting on the experience and all the information absorbed during the two days, I’ve selected three common themes that resonated throughout.

• Listen, Listen, Listen
• Content Creation – Be the Publisher
• Don’t Be Afraid to Lose Control

In order to keep the size of this recap in check, I’ll be breaking each of the take-aways into separate (“snackable”) posts.

Your Customers Are Talking About You – LISTEN!

Mike Lewis, President of the Business Marketing Association of Boston kicked off the conference with a video of him at Quincy Market in Boston asking random people what they thought “New Marketing” was. Surprisingly, what he found was that most people actually got it. The old form of marketing, according to Lewis, was to talk “at” people – one way communication. New Marketing is about listening and engaging with your customers.

The “Listening in a Blizzard – Social Media Monitoring, and the Future” panel with David Alston (Radian6), Candace Fleming (Crimson Hexagon), Todd Parsons (BuzzLogic), Tony Priore (Biz360) and Mike Spartaro (Visible Technologies) continued the discussion on the importance of listening. They really hit the nail on the head when they said “…your customers are out there talking about you on the Web. They are blogging, commenting, making videos, etc. about the brands they either love or they hate (probably more about the ones they hate).”

Alston, during another discussion he presented at the Social Media Breakfast (#smb9) on October 16th expanded on the theme by asking the question “if someone was outside your place of business shouting about how much your company sucked, how long would it take for someone to run out to them to get them to fix the situation?” The same philosophy applies to relationships online.

When people are talking about you, take the time to listen and engage with them. If it is a positive comment, take the time to thank them and be sure to save that comment, retweet it (if you are using Twitter) and favorite it! If the comment is negative, reach out to that person directly and help them. Taking that extra step can turn a bad situation into a very positive one.

At PerkettPR we work with several of our clients on their social media initiatives to help them listen and engage in online discussions. The results have been incredible, and customers that might have, at one time, left the company, are now happy again and talking about their positive experiences with their social media spheres.

New Marketing means using today’s many social media resources to better listen, understand the issues, and get directly involved with your customers to make a positive difference in their experience with your brand.

Stay tuned for the next part of the New Marketing wrap-up series coming up tomorrow.