Managing elephant-sized social media blunders
Reuters small business writer Deborah Cohen shares an informative Q&A with global brand strategist Jonathan Salem Baker that contains helpful tips on managing social media blunders like this week’s “elephant hunting” video released by GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons.

Top Companies Still Bashful About Social Media Presence
Frank Reed, managing editor for the Marketing Pilgrim, starts off a new blog series with this entry that highlights a recent Ad Age report that revealed less than half of Fortune 50 companies promote their social presence on their corporate homepage.

Report: Social Media Worth the Time
There’s no doubt that executing a well thought out social media strategy takes time. However, you need to stick with it and be consistent in order to reap the rewards. Inc.com‘s contributing editor Courtney Rubin shares some interesting stats around this topic and small business.

Getting real about social media budgeting
This post from Rich Karpinski on BtoBOnline suggests that Salesforce.com‘s recently announced acquisition of Radian6 might be a turning point for marketing teams to really focus on their social spending, and he provides highlights of last year’s Altimeter survey from Jeremiah Owyang to show what an aggressive social budget looks like.

The Metrics of Social Media
This post by Danny Brown expands on social media metrics and the importance of clearly identifying what you want to achieve, how long you want to spend achieving it and actually doing the measuring. He also suggests a variety of metrics to consider when getting started.

Social Media for Business (to Business)
Dave Evans from 2020Social provides several examples of how B2B organizations have adopted social media strategies into their organizations.

Taking the First Steps in Social Marketing
Gary Halliwell explains why tying social media profiles to your CRM records is a great first step in the right direction for getting started with Social Marketing.

5 Easy Ways to Drive Social Media Fans to Action
Building a large online community is great, but driving them to action is essential for the bottom line. Peter Wylie from SocialMediaExaminer shares these practical examples to help increase your community engagement.

9 social media topics that need to die
This Ragan.com guest post by Amber Naslund from Radian6 debunks nine  ideas in social media that we’ve all heard repeated – and that at one time were practically touted as gospel. The post provides a nice wake-up call for those still new to the social media space.

Attacks Exploit Growing Use of Social Media
Michael Cheek highlights findings from the “Blue Coat Web Security Report for 2009” which shows that cyber criminals are migrating to social networks as fast as the rest of us.

Dating Advice for PR Pros
This post on Jeremy Porter’s Journalistics blog provides an entertaining read that compares media relations to the process of dating. Don’t miss this one!

What Makes Videos Go Viral – And Should Marketers Even Care?
While there’s no magic formula for creating a successful viral video, the most popular ones do share a few common characteristics. This MarketingVox post shares some of those as well as the success that Coca-Cola had with their recent vending machine viral campaign.

- Artwork: Chip Taylor

But now it’s called “Social CRM” which was defined by the Rock Star Panelists as a return to basics. The philosophy is good relationships = good sales.

This is not a new concept. Back in the days before Sprawlmarts, we had what some lovingly referred to as “The Mom and Pop shops” where the owner actually knew his customers and interacted with them personally. This resulted in customer loyalty and repeat business. My family has owned and operated its own party & novelty store, Ballard’s, for the past 30 years. My father still greets his customers and helps each and every one of them personally – you can’t get that at a big box store anymore.

While we are getting down to basics, the tools in which we use to do so are very different. Rather than that face-to-face interaction you might have received at a Mom and Pop shop, businesses are engaging in the same type of interaction, but using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to make those connections – no matter where their customers are. It has revolutionized the way in which companies do customer service, and if done right, is extremely powerful. Look at Zappos. They refer to themselves as a customer service company that sells footwear and clothing. Zappos is doing customer service right and leveraging online tools to do so. Any business, large or small can do the same.

What companies do you engage with whom you feel are doing it right? And, more importantly, what is your favorite Rock Band song to rock out to?

Cross-posted from http://www.christine-major.com

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.

Do companies own their brand or do the customers own the brand? There are a lot of differing opinions on the subject. I believe companies own the brand – they just don’t have sole control over it (and really, never did – the Internet just makes this more glaring).

Companies set the stage for their brand by communicating their intentions, credibility and value. Customers help shape the brand, collaborate on its direction and share it (good or bad). Today, more than ever, the customer takes the brand a company presents and either accepts it or rejects it – spreading the word or influencing change (as Dell experienced with IdeaStorm).

A huge part of what direction your customers take the brand depends on the company keeping their brand promises. Smart companies recognize this and welcome customer influence by embracing them, conversing with them and inviting collaboration. That means listening and taking action based on customer feedback.

What do you think? Follow and join the conversation here (type in #tweb2) or visit Radian 6′s Twebinar to watch the recorded version and learn about future Twebinars.