Launching your company’s social media presence is a big step – both in terms of shifting to a more engaging and customer-centric marketing approach, and because of the resources you’ll need to dedicate to make it succeed.

As a strategist at MediaSauce, I’m often charged with helping clients launch their social media initiatives. I’ve found that the most challenging thing for most marketers isn’t learning how to use new tools. It’s knowing how to get digitally organized.

Time management, baby.

Now, I should clarify. These tips are for businesses. If you want to spend 5 hours checking out your old high school friends’ family photos, by all means, feel free. Your time, your dime! more

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Whether it’s planning next year’s strategy, thinking about next weekend’s schedule, or exploring the next breakthrough technology, it seems that the pace at which we’re moving forward leaves little time to look to the past. Meanwhile, we each leave in our wake an absurd footprint of information–photos, videos, emails, text messages, voicemails, tweets, blog comments, product reviews, transaction histories, GPS coordinates, grumpy passive-aggressive notes to neighbors, and so on. Will these tidbits of tedium mixed with occasional moments of brilliance become our legacies? more

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I recently spoke at Indiana Construction Roundtable and SMPS – Society for Marketing Professionals first joint seminar on “Social Media are Internet tools used for sharing and discussing information. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter help connect like-minded people, companies, and associations.”  They did a fairly quick interview with me that I would like to share with you.

I used a lot of my recent ISBDC conference information and you can check all those facts over here – stuff like Facebook being up 700% and how communication has risen 18% in overall time online.  Those are big numbers. more

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I get lots of questions about how I personally use social networks to market MediaSauce and myself.

And to tell you the truth, sometimes I think I know the answer to this question and sometimes I feel like I don’t.

Has any of my contacts through Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter generated business for MediaSauce.  Well, sort of.  But maybe it’s not the kind of direct correlation that advertising and marketing delivers.  Or that we think advertising and marketing deliver.

You see, you can’t argue with the facts.  Lots and lots of people are using these platforms.  The increase in usage is tremendous.

Facebook is up 700% in time spent and has over 200 million users – over 100 million unique visitors last month.

Linkedin is up 69% in time spent and has over 41 million users – over 12 million unique visitors last month.

And finally, Twitter, the marketing buzz word for the first six months of this year, is up a whooping 3700% increase in time spent and has over 32 million users – over 19 million unique visitors last month.  This is all from Nielsen, if you think I’m making it up.

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Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting a half-day workshop entitled “Social Media for Cause Marketers” at the 2009 Cause Marketing Forum.  We had a full house partake in this fast moving, high energy workshop. I was very pleased with the audience participation and the solid exchange of ideas.

The highlight of the program was the lively breakdown of five case studies, which starts on slide 99.  The final one (starting on slide 115) was a behind-the-scenes view of www.pledgetoendhunger.com, which includes various analytics and measurements.

All of the slides I presented are included here.  The remaining slides were from the four companies sponsoring the workshop and can be found via www.causemarketingforum.com.

If you attended, what did you think? If you didn’t, what are your questions and thoughts?

Find me on Twitter:
@scottyhendo

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Two Things You Need to Learn From This Post:
1. We will see more and more cause marketing campaigns use social media (for better and for worse).
2. The successful ones will put the cause first and the brand a distant second.

A More Detailed Exploration:
Last Thursday, Ben Kunz from Mediaassociates.com asked me on Twitter:

Do you think @bmorrissey is right? Could SM (social media) cause marketing become SM (social media) pollution?

Ben and I enjoy trading contrarian opinions and I respect his perspective, so I went to check out Brian Morrissey’s post entitled “Here Come the Brand Social Marketing Bribes” about Kraft’s current marketing campaign.
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Listen, these technologies are just tools.  Just like your fax machine (if you still have one of those) or your email.

It’s a tool for communication with other people.  When email came out (does anyone remember life without email?), some people embraced it.  But others, you know, struggled, they fought it, but then they finally had to give in.  And, of course, there were those that got confused and accidentally spammed the entire company.  That still happens.  But it doesn’t happen so much anymore.  And what companies do actual training on how to use email?  It’s just a part of life in the office environment and you should know how to use email.

Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter can all be the same thing – even if it isn’t called by these specific brand names in a few years.  Think companies won’t have an internal Facebook for communicating.  Think a Linkedin type tool won’t hold all your business and personal information.  What we are seeing is just the first shots at these tools.  Email has come a long way in a short time.  Don’t think that these tools won’t evolve as well. more

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[April 30, 2009] Consumers love to contribute to the brands they love most. Discover how your organization can get your most loyal and passionate customers to help you succeed!

Companies around the globe are embracing consumer innovation and conversation to generate new business opportunities. Organizations like Threadless.com and Starbucks are all seeing substantial return on investment from their customer-driven Internet strategies.

MediaSauce invites you to attend this high-impact, result-oriented educational seminar in our “Smart Business In the Digital Age” series. more

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Two Things You Need to Know from This Post:

1. Social media helps people live, work, and play with each other (no matter the distance) by combining age-old ways of social interaction and the capabilities of mass media.
2. You can create transformational change when you use the antennas on the mountaintop to provide a common message and inspire the people in the valleys to interact, spread, customize, and amplify your message.

A More Detailed Exploration:
We have always lived, worked, and played with each other. For most of our history, we did all this in small groups. These groups grew, spreading out across great distances and having great obstacles between us. As our technology has advanced, so has our ability to live, work, and play with others – both near and far away.

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#1 Thing You Need to Know about this Post:
The only sustainable way for you to create wealth for yourself is by improving the lives of others. Starbucks understands this and so can you. 

A More Detailed Exploration
In case you just missed it in the opening sentence, I have an earth-shattering announcement to make:

The only sustainable way for you to create wealth for yourself is by improving the lives of others.

Despite what you might have heard from others, the only true path to long-term wealth creation comes from the careful balance of private gain and social good. Think about it. You create wealth when a lot of people think what you offer to the world is important enough to them that they pay you money and then keep paying you money over long periods of time. more

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