The idea behind using social sharing in email campaigns is to encourage and let members of your database do the sharing of the emails they are receiving. In addition to an extended brand awareness this is a superb way to augment email lists – which appears to be the mandate of many marketers these days – in particular retailers who are looking to drive customers to both their e-commerce sites and bricks and mortar locations. While the email campaigns are being socialized – it makes pretty good sense that you stand to enhance SEO results (search engine marketing) without spending alot of additional effort.

For those that are just starting out to build an email campaign – social media is a great way to begin building a relationship and build the list. “A homebuilder in Indianapolis ran a “12 Days” promotion during the holidays on Facebook, with prizes including free furniture for an entire home.  Twitter also was used to create interest in the promotion.  As news of the promotion spread and people signed up for the contest, the company was gathering names and email addresses for a future email list.  While marketers are used to driving prospects to their Web site and building campaign lists this way, social media is unique because it disarms prospects by building a connection with them in advance.” (example quoted from Media post)

Posting questions and or polls can help with research that can be leveraged on social media sites such as Linkedin and then linked back to your website or syndicated to your Facebook and Twitter pages. Asking people to share their ideas and give their opinions is a good way to start to engage your customers and let them know that you are interested in what they think. This can prove as invaluable research, while helping a retailer decide on the right frequency and timing of emails as well as information on how their target market best wants to connect.

With the addition of mobile and text messaging being the largest and most frequently used feature on a variety of mobile devices in North America- combining all of these tools together with creative campaigns that include offline, in-store and online initiatives – will provide the continuity – to tap into the social computing behaviors of many rather than just some.

How are you building your email lists while engaging your customers and keeping that relationship ongoing?

Best Nicole

Now the internet has changed the face of PR and how these professionals are operating. Twitter can disperse news in real -time and the companies who used PR to promote positive relationships or  images for a brand – now have the opportunity to engage directly with their customer and can create relationships that allow those customers to promote those relationships with their friends and family with the speed, breadth and transparency that traditional PR methods just cannot reach.

Interestingly I have had some great meetings with some very skilled PR people in the last few weeks as we here at SHARE – look at our various projects – and the mix of offline and online marcomm tools needed to make a marketing campaign powerful and profitable. There are still many viable uses for PR as well as the integration of social media as a PR tool. Mashable.com has posted an article today by Erica Swallow – who in this post spoke to several PR professionals who provided their take – on the future of long standing PR tools, such as the press release, the evolution of social platforms, building relationships and current limitations with solutions for the challenges that arise leveraging social media.

With the advent of Twitter and sites like HARO  for which I subscribe – where you can help a reporter out by answering to a post, as a source for an article of interest. “Rather than having PR reps make the first moves all the time, now members of the media can put out requests for pitches from particular types of experts.” For me the most powerful statement to that – is that the author Erica Swallow used HARO to write this article and received 200 quality responses. I personally get several HARO feeds daily and am always looking for someone who might be interested in my expertise as part of an article they may be writing.

At the end of the day PR and social media is about the human factor of building and engaging in relationships. Social media has changed that relationship – as it is no longer a one way dialog – but rather one that can be shared “a bonus for both the company and the customer”. Melding the two together can be a powerful duo!

Best Nicole

Public relations specialists were some of the first people to embrace the power of social media, and as a result they are often the ones leading the way in the social space, whether they are consulting with clients from an agency point of view or strategizing on an in-house PR team.

In the past decade, the Internet has had a huge impact on how PR professionals function. As of late, social media is changing the face of PR, as well. We interviewed 14 PR pros on the future of public relations and how they see social media changing the industry. We collected their thoughts on how social media will affect the future of the press release, the evolution of social platforms, current limitations and solutions for those impediments, connecting with other PR pros, cost savings, and building relationships.

The Future of the Press Release

During the past few years, we’ve witnessed a shift towards what some are calling the “social media release.” Services like PitchEngine, PressLift, PRX Builder, and MindTouch are bringing the press release into the new millennium with embedded multimedia and easy distribution through various channels, including social media and e-mail. We asked our PR experts about the future of the traditional long form press release, and we received quite a bit of feedback that showed that while it is here to stay, it will continue to be influenced by the brevity and accessibility of social media.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn, founder of Mopwater Social Public Relations, commented on the importance of the social media release and how it enables readers to share and interact with it:

“While I don’t believe the press release is dead, it has been transformed, to become this living, breathing thing. If a release doesn’t have a social element — that is, a way for viewers to comment or share to their social networks — it doesn’t have legs.”

The format of the press release isn’t the only factor in its evolution. In an e-mail interview, Vice President of BLASTmedia, Lindsay Groepper, discussed how distribution of the press release will continue to be key to its future:

“When I first began my career in PR more than decade ago, we would e-mail or fax (gasp!) the full press release text to the press. What we see now is new methods of distributing the info, driven by social media. Rather than e-mailing a press release, PR people are sending journalists to custom landing pages created just for that specific announcement, contacting them via Twitter with a BUDurl link to the release, or even directing them to a YouTube video with a message from the CEO making the announcement.”

PR professionals are now experimenting with these new distribution channels. Likewise, many are finding that the form of the press release isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for every channel. Vistaprint’s Public Relations Manager Jeff Esposito believes that the press release will continue to evolve into multiple iterations for various audiences, channels, and situations:

“Over the next five years, I think we’ll see three types of press releases that will assist different audiences. The first is in a video format where there will be a short description followed by a link to a video giving information on the news from a company source, hitting on the five W’s and also offering sound-bites that can be used for stories or added to a news story. The second iteration will be a further evolution of the social press release that is being used today, except more brief and more focused. The final is similar to what we see now with company boiler plates, stock quotes and additional information.”

In the end, the press release’s future may simply depend on media consumption trends, according to David McCulloch, director of public relations at Cisco Systems:

“In the past couple of years, we’ve seen a marked shift in [the press release's] format to reflect the accelerating societal shift from mass consumption of media (“push” media) to personalized consumption or “pull” media. That’s a shift that has led Cisco to spend less time telling reporters and bloggers what it is we expect them to write, and more time helping them understand how what Cisco is doing might fit with their interests.

“…[I]t’s pretty clear where the press release will go next: It’s going to get shorter; link to more sources; be focused on simplification and explanation; and it’ll come in many more flavors. Practically speaking (assuming the SEC keeps pace with media evolutions), that means the press release of the future will deliver its content in text, video, SMS, microblog and podcast form, to any choice of device, whenever the reader decides, and preferably it will be pre-corroborated and openly rated by multiple trusted sources.”

Kelly McAlearney, an account supervisor at Edelman Digital, agrees that based on natural progression, the press release will continue to get shorter, for concision’s sake:

“Engagement with journalists and consumers has evolved considerably over the past five years, to shorter formats. Often, we find that our most effective pitches are our most succinct. And interactions have naturally become more concise as many brands are in constant, direct contact with consumer audiences and media via online channels.”

Lou Hoffman, CEO of The Hoffman Agency, brought an interesting perspective to this conversation. He said that the backlinks generated by press releases are reason enough to continue syndicating them, even if the contained information is of little use to the audience. He speculates that if search engines were able to point out and devalue republished news releases and their included backlinks, companies would find better ways of dispersing news:

“I don’t think the news release will die in the foreseeable future, say the next five years. Even if the syndication of this content has little impact on the target stakeholders, they’ll still be generating backlinks, which by themselves deliver a decent ROI.

“Looking beyond five years, I could see the algorithms of search engines becoming smart enough to discern whether a backlink comes from syndicated content, which in turn causes it to greatly reduce the value of the backlink. In other words, even if a news release is syndicated on the Wall Street Journal, with all the “authority” that comes with the site, the search engine figures out that it’s nothing more than a republished news release, so scores the backlink super low. If this happened, we would see the volume of news releases significantly decline.”

The Evolution of Social Platforms

The social media platforms with the most value must be used by a client’s target audience and be a meaningful place for brands to connect with consumers and journalists. Our PR experts said that mass social platforms, like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, will continue to be important on some level, but niche, industry-specific networks will be of greater value in the future.

“The most important platforms for PR pros in the future will be the ones most targeted for their clients,” said Cara Stewart, founder and principal at Remarx Media. “Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are ‘fun;’ getting nitty-gritty into community sites that are industry-specific is less ‘fun,’ because PR pros have to really understand clients’ technologies, business models, services and more. Really, it’s more about PR pros becoming better PR pros and understanding their clients’ businesses, as well as what their clients do … Social media is not a one-size-fits-all solution.”

Social media platforms will continue to evolve, but “A PR person’s job remains the same,” said Heather Whaling, founder and president of Geben Communication. “It’s critical that we’re innovative and staying on top of the latest and greatest; however, we also need to avoid ’shiny object syndrome’ and instead make recommendations based on the client’s business needs.”

Once the industry settles in to a standard for finding the right platforms for each of its clients, the next step is measuring success. Miller Littlejohn pointed out that the PR industry is moving from placing importance on broadcasting to highly valuing monitoring and measurement:

“Right now, the most important tools are the broadcasting tools … But in five years, the most important tools will be the monitoring and measurement tools — the tools that can tell you what happened to your message once it got out there. [T]he tools that can demonstrate (and quickly demonstrate) return on engagement will be winners.

“Free measurement dashboards will also be winners. Right now, there are a few ways to measure mentions of your brands for free, but they are extremely limited in how much and what you can measure at one time. You can pay thousands of dollars per month for a nice platform to measure your brand on the social web, but most smaller brands and small businesses can’t afford that. I think if someone develops a more sophisticated social media and PR measurement and monitoring dashboard and offers it for free, that will be a rock star tool.”

There is also a growing demand for social platforms that make it easier for journalists and PR reps to contact one another. Help a Reporter Out (HARO), PRNewswire’s ProfNet, NewsBasis, and Media Kitty are all enabling the communication lines to run in both directions. Rather than having PR reps make the first moves all the time, now members of the media can put out requests for pitches from particular types of experts. In fact, I used HARO to write this article and received nearly 200 quality responses.

Current Limitations & Solutions

While PR pros are experiencing lots of successes with social media as is it today, our experts pointed out quite a few limitations with the current offering of social platforms that will need to be worked out for continued adoption, understanding and success across the industry.

• Broadcasting vs. Listening: Our experts pointed out that a vast majority of the PR people out there are using social media as a broadcasting tool for sending out press releases and recent client news. The next gen PR pros will use social media as a listening and communicating tool. Scott Bauman, vice president of Greenough Communications, elaborates:
  

  “In the future, I think we’ll see more … real-time interaction that demonstrates the brand is actually listening. This begins to build trust, which is highly valuable and highly perishable. This means continued growth in listening platforms (such as Radian6), but less for reporting (just showing share of voice, for example) … In the end, the real change is a more fluid, immediate, and nimble PR/communications practitioner, instead of one who simply follows a PR plan and rigidly adheres to it.”

• Finding the Right Audience: Many of our experts agreed that while the mass social platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, are useful, the niche, industry-specific communities provide just as much, and sometimes more, value for clients. The current issue, though, is that finding these communities is quite tough and involves a lot of scattered research across the web. In the future, directories with the ability to search for target demographics across a broad range of social networks would make the process of finding the best platforms with the right audiences much easier.
• Imperfect Data: With measurement becoming one of the most important features of social networks for marketers and PR pros, data is the key to enlightenment. “Social media provides a lot of information, but it’s also imperfect data,” said Chuck Tanowitz, founder and principal at PR and social media firm Fresh Ground. “So the trick is knowing what to accept and what to dismiss.”Tanowitz gave the example of the mayor of his home city of Newton, Massachusetts. Mayor Setti Warren has just over 700 followers on Twitter, which wouldn’t put him into the “influencer” category on most social measurement tools. However, in real life, he’s quite influential. Tanowitz notes, “It doesn’t tell you much. Yet, when he got elected [as mayor], he received a call from President Obama, so he obviously has the ear of some influential people. You can’t learn that from Twitter.” For now at least, social measurement data should be taken with a grain of salt.
• Social Stream Aggregation: Nicole VanScoten, a public relations specialist at Pyxl, believes that the future of PR is all about a one-stop social dashboard for easy social media management. She says, “Right now, we’re forced to pay attention to a whole host of different networks. I think we’ll continue to see more aggregation here … People will continue to develop programs that save us time.”Tools like Hootsuite, TweetDeck, CoTweet, Postling, Vitrue, SocialTALK and more, aim to make it easier for businesses posting and monitoring across platforms. While there isn’t one perfect management tool quite yet, over the next five years, it’s probable that one or two clear leaders will emerge.
• Client Buy-In: Lastly, PR pros are still finding it difficult to obtain client buy-in for investment in social media. Currently, a large part of a PR pro’s job involving social media is educating clients of its use and benefits. The solution here is data. As success measurements continue to improve, the case for social media will become much clearer.
  

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  Connecting with Other PR Pros

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  As more and more independent PR professionals launch their own consultancies, the independent PR community at large is becoming an important place for individuals to get advice. Social media is driving those relationships.

  LuAnn Glowacz, an independent PR strategist and founder of PR firm WordCove PR notes, “My most valuable business connections are other independent PR and related professionals in Austin, who I connect with daily on Twitter and Facebook. We refer each other, give advice to each other, co-work and socialize together. It’s like having co-workers and employees while keeping the paycheck all to myself.”

  Glowacs also connects with other PR pros every Wednesday at the #SoloPR Twitter chat, moderated by her colleague and PR/social media consultant, Kellye Crane. Crane also runs a blog and LinkedIn group for Solo PR. Glowacs commented on Solo PR: “In my opinion, it’s the top social media resource for indie PR pros. [It consists of] very high-caliber PR pros from around the country helping and learning from each other.”

  Twitter chats seem to be popular among contemporary PR pros. Stewart and her team at Remarx attend the #B2Bchat on Twitter every Thursday to keep up with social media trends and share their own knowledge of the space. And Whaling co-moderates the popular #pr20chat, a weekly exploration of social media’s influence on public relations.

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  Saving Money and Putting It to Good Use

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  Social media has the ability to save companies lots of money through enhancing traditional and online campaigns. INgage Networks‘ Corporate Communications Manager Kathy Saenz explained how her company saved $270K in expenses via social media. They had previously paid $250K annually for an external PR agency, and $20K in events budgeting for venue, traveling and promotions expenses. They saved all of that money by bringing their PR in-house and focusing on social media. Instead of running large events at expensive venues, they now run webinars. Of their latest webinar, Saenz said, “It was a targeted B2B audience we wanted to reach; [we] broke record attendance numbers. We didn’t have to pay for anything as a result. Great exposure and big money saved.”

  For PR professionals, social media also saves time and money by yielding higher response rates to pitches. VanScoten explained:

  “It’s amazing to me that I get a MUCH higher response rate when pitching reporters via Twitter than e-mail. I would actually go as far as to say that every time I’ve pitched a reporter via Twitter, I have gotten some sort of response (often resulting in a story for my client). Via e-mail, I have maybe a 50% response rate. The phone call response rate would be my lowest.”

  As these success stories become more publicized and the PR industry begins to see the cost savings behind social media, it’s inevitable that the stragglers will jump on the bandwagon.

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  The Human Factor

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  No matter which tools PR pros use to connect with media members, the most important factor is the human factor. Public relations and social media are both about creating and fostering relationships. Our PR experts agreed and emphasized the fact that personal relationships will continue to propel the bond between social media and PR.

  Dave Delaney, social media coordinator at Griffin Technology explained, “Today, not only can we send a press release to a valuable group of media contacts, but we can now take that message wider using social media. Whether our communication is a press release, blog post, or a tweet, the important thing is remaining relevant and engaging our friends, fans and followers.”

  Emphasizing relationships, Hoffman also discussed his agency’s use of social media:

  “We’re definitely using social media to connect with journalists and customers, but this outreach involves a news release maybe 20% of the time tops. The other 80% of the time we’re talking with journalists, bloggers and other influencers about issues and macro topics. In short, we devote most of our outreach to helping our clients serve as industry and business sources, as opposed to promoting their products.”

  McAlearney reiterated the importance of building relationships with influencers. “Regardless of how an announcement is shared -– via wire, blog post, tweet, or otherwise –- the critical step has historically been, and will remain, the human element. By directly reaching out to key media and influencers with whom we maintain relationships, we’re able to ensure their timely awareness of the news.”

  Groepper backed up that point in saying that “Despite the changing landscape of press release distribution, the most effective communication for a PR person still remains unchanged: Building relationships with the most influential press in your space. Having key relationships is what helps drive the type of media the client is seeking, and no press release can accomplish that in its place.”

  “In truth we’re talking about the same positive PR practices that good PR people have been doing for decades,” Tanowitz concluded, “They read and understand their target audience, then help craft stories that speak to and with that audience.”

Personally I have met some great people via social networking – for both business and pleasure with some great connections on Facebook in particular. What I really have enjoyed most – was building a relationship online that has continued offline. In some instances I was able to meet some of the people that were local and in others our relationship and business has moved to phone conversations. In both instances the old “traditions of relationship building and networking“  enhanced – when you have the chance to take that next step to connect with someone in person – or even by phone where you can hear their voice and build a chemistry of conversation.

In Canada online bank ING Direct has had alot of success using social media as a communications tool – both by their CEO tweeting and as well as company employees. They have had and announced what they call “tweet ups” across the country and are now opening ING Cafe’s for people to connect in real time – have a coffee, access to free internet and learn more about saving money as they say! They have seminars on various topics such as the importance of using credit responsibly – which in this economy is a worthy seminar to attend!

Mashable.com posted an article that originally appeared on the American Express Open Forum. This article written by Stephanie Marucs who walks you though – how to organize a successful meetup. A meetup is defined as a ” planned event where like-minded people meet and typically chat over cocktails and listen to a guest speaker. Organizing one of these events is an excellent way to establish yourself or your business as a “go-to” person in your industry.”

For anyone who has hosted a dinner party with success – you all know how important the planning and details can be! The reward is a vast new viable and fun network that you have to access both online and offline!

Best Nicole

1. Why Your Meetup?

Next, you need to craft a clear lead statement that explains exactly what your Meetup is about. Break it down so that people will understand what type of conversations you hope to develop.

2. Create a Meetup Group

Meetup’s services make it easy to get the group rolling. Create your group, and choose your location, the group’s name, headline and your lead statement describing what the group is all about. Pick a theme for your group’s page; you can choose from several templates or create your own.

The next step is important. Pick up to 15 topics that describe what your group is targeting. Picking the right keywords is how you’ll find the right members for your group. Meetup’s site offers some good suggestions and shows you how many groups already exist under each umbrella topic.

Then pick a pricing plan. Meetup is free to join, but if you want to actually start a group, pricing will run as low as $12 a month. With more than 6.5 million people signed up and over 60,000 groups formed it’s the simplest way to organize a group and reach out to the most people.

Now that you have created the group, you’re officially the “organizer.” Seventy-two hours after you have created the group the site sends out an alert blast to everyone who has listed the topics or keywords you choose to categorize the group, and invites them to join.

If you have contacts who aren’t members of the site but that you know you’d want to attend, send off a personalized e-mail informing them of your new group. You can also tweet the link to your group’s page so your Twitter () followers get the message as well.

3. Grow Membership

Don’t rush to create an event right away says Yuli Ziv, who organizes the Meetups for her group Fashion 2.0 and is the co-founder of My It Things and Style Coalition. Ziv’s group has more than 1,000 members, and she has organized 20 Meetups since 2008. She advises that you wait for the membership to grow before you announce your first event.

Once you decide to put a Meetup event on the calendar make sure you announce it and give yourself some time to promote the event so that people can RSVP.

4. Format

Julia Kaganskiy organizes the 1,300 member strong Arts, Culture and Technology group. A former social media strategist and community manager for an entertainment agency, and current Digital Learning department intern at the MoMA, Kaganskiy held her first meet up nearly two years ago as a way to meet people in the specific communities she wanted to work in.

For her first event, Kaganskiy says she ran more of relaxed gathering because she wanted to get a feeling for who would come out. “I wanted to see what fields people were in and find out what they were really interested in. I worked the room and got a sense of what kinds of questions people wanted to explore.”

Fourteen Meetups later, Kaganskiy now creates each event with a different theme or topic and invites top industry leaders as guest speakers. Sometimes she’ll invite a few speakers to speak for 30 minutes or she’ll invite four or five guests with a variety of viewpoints to each speak for 10 minutes. Either way, the goal is to get the conversation flowing.

5. Venue

“Find a bar on a Monday or Tuesday, and most places will be thrilled to have you. If it’s a low traffic area they’ll be more than happy to have you bring in 50 people for a couple of hours,” says Kaganskiy.

Once you have space set there is always the question of if you’ll have enough. In places like New York City, space is often an issue.

As Fashion 2.0 has grown in membership, Ziv says that they have outgrown the venues where past events have taken place. To avoid turning people away, Ziv suggests capping the number of people admitted if there is enough interest. “Some events are better in an intimate setting,” she says. “A big event doesn’t mean a great event. It could be 30 people and be just as relevant and interesting as one with 100.”

Once you have established yourself as a group, Ziv suggests making a wait list if too many people RSVP to your event. “It can make people more excited. It means it’s a special event and people want to be a part of it. This way you can encourage people to RSVP early,” she says.

6. Day of the Meetup

If you’re in a private room at a bar or restaurant, try to make sure that the staff know who you are and that they’ll communicate to arriving guests where the event is being held.

On the day of, don’t forget your Sharpie pens, name tags, and the RSVP list. Have someone besides yourself man the door, so you can take care of last-minute needs. If you decide not to cap your admission number, make sure to have a sign-in sheet so you can get everyone’s contact information.

7. Sponsorships

Initial Meetups tend to be low-key affairs, but once you’ve organized a few and keep gaining members, sponsorship is a great way to make your Meetup more professional and enjoyable, while taking the costs off your hands.

Getting sponsored can happen in different ways. Fashion 2.0 was lucky enough to find some of its sponsors within some of its own members according to Ziv. “We have executives in the group and it’s to their benefit to tell their companies about a relevant group with great people who they would want to reach out to.”

The benefits of being sponsored mean that Fashion 2.0 can afford a bigger venue and host events with an open bar, which definitely attracts people. “It really takes it to the next level and makes it a serious event. The fashion industry has high standards and people expect a big production,” she says.

Another way to find a sponsor is through Meetup’s website. Three years ago the website noticed that groups were starting to get sponsored by local businesses.

“Running groups were sponsored by the neighborhood running store, and we saw that there was an opportunity for big brands to come in and support these groups,” said Cindy Laning, the account manager for Meetup sponsors. Since organizers pay to use the site, Meetup is committed to supporting the success of each group, and found that groups grow, on average, 7 percent faster with a sponsor.

Laning explained that organizers have the option of whether or not they would be interested in sponsorship, and Meetup reaches out to groups who they think would benefit from working with, including dozens of top brands like Columbia Sports, Dove, Vitamin Water, Equinox, Blackberry, Huggies and Microsoft.

“The point is to get as many groups sponsored as possible. We reach out to the group and act as the middleman between them and the brand.”

According to Laning, Meetup has a 75% opt-in rate for sponsorship, which insures that brands are welcomed into the community. “We get qualitative feedback; brands come in and they recognize these communities by financing them or with other things. The groups are so grateful for that support, that when it comes time to make a purchase decision they are likely to use the brand that has been helping them out. It’s a pay it forward mentality.”

8. The Future

“Running the Meetup was the single most important move I’ve made in my professional career thus far,” said Kaganskiy. “It positioned me at the center of this community that I was just making my way into. It allowed me to create my own networking opportunities. Because I’m creating a public service by organizing these events, I’ve gain a lot of respect.”

9. Keep Connected

The event may be over, but your work is far from done. Now that you’ve met all these new people, it’s your job to stay connected with them via your group’s Meetup page, but also through other social media platforms. Follow your members on Twitter and Facebook (). Keep your community buzzing. Was there a controversial question that generated a lot of discussion? Tweet it after the event and keep people thinking about you so that they can’t wait for the next event. For example, John Hyland and Anthony Quintano of the NYC DSLR Meetup, keep up with their members via Twitter to keep conversation rolling before, during and after their Meetups.

At Fashion 2.0 there is a whole conversation on Twitter in addition to the event. Ziv says members all follow and support each other, and foster new discussions.

Kaganskiy uses her personal Twitter account to promote the group and says that following up with members on other networking sites really helps to cement the relationships. She reflects, “I was an outsider looking in. Now I have friends at every major museum in the city, and it is because I maintained those connections I made at the Meetups.”

I have been using Twitter for more than 2+ years and it has certainly evolved since I began. You can list the people you want to follow and read regularly so that they do not get lost if you have a large amount of followers. You can target search the topics and people you are interested in and join in and share conversation. You can speak directly to people, retweet great tweets from others that exposes others to the people you whose ideas you SHARE and you can access all sorts of realtime info. that is much easier to spot, then the mountains of email that can fill up your inbox.

For your business – you have the opportunity to track the mentions of your brand, speak to customers, promote specials, events launches and ideas, you can address customer challenges in real-time as they come up and better yet you have the opportunity to find sales leads , potential customers who may put the word out that they are looking for just what you are offering. The New York Times features and article written by Kermit Patterson that provides some great tips on how to get started with Twitter – in order to receive some of the many great benefits that many businesses such as SONY, Best Buy, Bravo and Red Bull are already leveraging.

At the end of the day it is about engagement and building relationships with your customers and their families friends and so the breadth of reach is infinite. Start small, start listening, start sharing and most of all, have fun! As always – you can find us on Twitter and we are always happy to hear from you at www.twitter.com/bcadgroup!

Best Nicole

Does Twitter still leave you scratching your head?

Many businesses are struggling to make sense of Twitter, but even if it strikes you as an enigma or hype, consider this: many of your customers are already there.

Twitter has more than 100 million users and is becoming a free forum for business. Companies are using Twitter to engage in highly personalized interactions — sometimes right to the phones in our pockets. Twitter recently introduced a program of “promoted tweets” that will display ads in some search results, although this program remains limited to a select group of Twitter partners, including Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull and Sony Pictures. Eventually, Twitter plans to offer advertising more broadly, but until then small businesses can continue to make productive use of the service.

FIRST OF ALL, LISTEN What are people saying about your company? Unlike conversations by phone or e-mail, Twitter conversations usually are not private, and listening is fair game.

One company that has built a sophisticated listening post is Avaya, a global communications provider in Basking Ridge, N.J. Avaya uses third-party applications to track mentions of its brand name and has automated alerts for dozens of keywords for products and competitors, said Paul Dunay, Avaya’s global managing director of services and social marketing.

The company follows up to 2,500 Twitter postings a week, often from clients with technical issues, he said. “If we see those, we’re on them in 15 or 20 minutes,” Mr. Dunay said. “That’s providing killer support and customer delight.”

Avaya also looks for sales leads and opportunities to replace competitors. One day, a company posted about its quest for a new phone system. Mr. Dunay replied, introduced himself and offered to put this person in touch with an Avaya strategic consultant. “Within 13 days, we were able to convert that one tweet into a $250,000 sale,” he said.

DO NOT BE BORING Humphry Slocombe is a 14-seat ice cream shop in San Francisco that has gathered nearly 300,000 Twitter followers — far more than giant competitors like Ben & Jerry’s, Baskin-Robbins or Dairy Queen. Not bad for a small business that began posting on Twitter only last year.

“We started using Twitter just because we have zero money for any kind of advertising or promotion whatsoever,” said Sean Vahey, co-owner and operations manager. “We have a product that changes daily. Our customers were asking, ‘How do you keep us up to date on the different flavors?’ Twitter was the perfect answer.”

But there was an issue. Mr. Vahey’s first impression of Twitter could be summed up in six characters: boring. So he decided to make his account edgy, occasionally rude and always entertaining. The shop’s Twitter bio: “ice cream with attitude.”

The store posts updates to its menu, which features 100 ice cream flavors including prosciutto, milk chocolate tarragon and foie gras. “As soon as we put it on Twitter it moves,” Mr. Vahey said. “It’s an instant response.”

A LIVE VERSION OF A FAQ Some companies use Twitter as a customer service desk. Whole Foods is one of the largest retailers on Twitter, with 1.7 million followers. Marla Erwin, a Whole Foods staff member who oversees the account, estimates that customer questions generate three-quarters of its Twitter traffic.

To Whole Foods, Twitter is a live version of a FAQ. The theory is that if one person has a question, others will as well. One sign of a company that engages with followers is a page filled with @ symbols (Twitter shorthand for a reply to a specific person). “You absolutely have to remember you are part of a community and you have to offer value to that community,” Ms. Erwin said. “It’s not about you. If all you do is talk about yourself, your audience will be instantly bored.”

CREATE A FOCUS GROUP Twitter can be your portable focus group — one you do not have to pay for.

Chrysta Wilson owns the small Los Angeles bakery Kiss My Bundt. She likes to experiment with new recipes and use Twitter for customer feedback. “It absolutely is like a focus group, except the beauty of it is I don’t have to go and find people who are interested or knowledgeable about baking,” Ms. Wilson said. “My universe is already there — my Twitter followers and Facebook fans.”

When Ms. Wilson wanted to try a new maple bacon bundt, she posted about it, put up photos and invited followers to stop by for free samples. Their feedback helped her perfect the recipe, which is now a favorite. She has more than 1,900 followers. “It’s great for getting input — they become your sounding board,” she said. “It’s a way to break out of the business owner’s bubble and get an outsider’s perspective.”

SOAPBOX FOR THINKERS For some, Twitter serves as a high-tech bully pulpit.

Tim Berry has an enviable job. The founder of Palo Alto Software, he stepped away from day-to-day management into an emeritus role of evangelizing about small-business planning and management.

He posts about interesting articles, blog links and anything that strikes him as surprising. “The key thing is being interesting,” he said. Mr. Berry said he believed that his Twitter stream generated 10 to 20 percent of the traffic that came to his company Web site. If he can pique interest and establish himself as a trusted authority, he said, customers are more likely to buy his products and services.

“If you’re just selling, it doesn’t work,” Mr. Berry said. “If somebody starts selling, I stop following them.”

Mari Smith, a social media speaker and trainer who lives by the rule “always be marketing” and has amassed more than 68,000 followers, agreed. Ms. Smith will not post a traditional “push” marketing message that explicitly advertises an event like a webinar. Instead, she might post something that arouses people’s curiosity and include a link.

For Ms. Smith, Twitter is a way to maintain a personal touch — and scale it up. “Whether I’m chitchatting, retweeting, @replying, talking about my personal life, my products or services, it’s all marketing,” she said. “People buy people before they buy products or service. They’re buying into you.”

The payoff: Ms. Smith said half her business came through Twitter.

STARTING SMALL IS FINE Quick! What famous architect designed the pyramid outside the Louvre in Paris?

If you saw that question move across your Twitter stream (the answer is I. M. Pei), you must have been following La Boulange, a French cafe and bakery with 11 locations in the San Francisco area. La Boulange has fun with Twitter posts, like a Twitter trivia bingo contest or daily posts of New Year’s resolutions like “eat more chocolate.” La Boulange has about 1,000 followers, but for a local business, even a few hundred loyal followers can be extremely valuable. “Twitter makes it possible for small business to retain that personal touch,” said Anamitra Banerji, senior product manager at Twitter. “Interacting with a Twitter account is almost like walking into a corner store. There’s a closeness and intimacy that small businesses have really leveraged on Twitter.”

So it is with La Boulange. “It’s not so much about the number of followers,” said Emily Doan, La Boulange chief of operations and principal Twitterer. “It’s about making that connection and relationship to people. It’s keeping our company fresh in their minds each day.”

Most people want to just dive in and side step this strategic planning – as it is so much easier and much cheaper to just put up your own pages and get started. Which by the way I advocate – if you do not dive in – you cannot understand how this social media, networking community building, engagement and collaboration works. This must not take away from the importance of the strategy to understand who those influencers are and how to connect directly with them.  Relationships can mean profiling them and having them speak about your products, providing them with special offers or product trials prior to launch. Being true with the ways that you engage them and allowing them to provide their thoughts opinions and challenges – rather than “selling” them is an honest way to say – you appreciate their support.

Mashable.com provides some great examples which is why I feature their articles so often. Author Ben Straley gives some great ideas on how to connect with your top 1%. As I said in my speech understanding where they go and how they connect is vital – but it is also important to understand how they want to connect with you. Are the on Facebook, that now commands 41% of the social media traffic as reported by comscore media or are they on Twitter, Myspace or Linkedin? Are they spectators where they read blogs and newsletters or are they posting comments and engaging with the things they like to read?

This vital information will clearly allow you to tap into sourcing the influencer you are looking for. Your commitment to them will  encourage them to galvanize their  followers to your community and the followers -to whom follow them – do the same. This traffic boost can only lead to growth in sales for your business and better yet a vibrant community to which you can engage and connect with the people who love what you offer.

Have you identified your influencers and the ways that you are  targeting them?

Best Nicole

our brand has 10,000 Twitter () followers and 2,000 fans on Facebook (). Does that mean your social media marketing efforts are paying off? Maybe not. As the old adage goes, it’s quality, not quantity, that counts.

Recent data that Meteor Solutions collected from across more than 20 brand marketer clients shows that the type of friends, fans and followers a brand amasses on social media sites matters more than the number. On average, approximately 1% of a site’s audience generates 20% of all its traffic through sharing of the brand’s content or site links with others. And these “influencers” drive an even higher share of conversion. These very important Internet users can directly influence 30% or more of overall end actions on brand websites by recommending the brand’s site, products or promotions to friends.

As this data shows, successful social media marketing isn’t simply about amassing thousands of followers, but instead precisely identifying the most influential members of your audience and recognizing them for their value. By directly engaging one influencer with exclusive opportunities, special offers, and unique content, you are indirectly engaging thousands of other people who are part of this influencer’s social sphere.

Sounds pretty enticing, right? But the challenge in crafting a successful marketing program that activates influencers is two-fold. First, you have to use the right data and traffic analysis tools to find out who your most influential followers are. Second, you have to connect with these people in an authentic, “non-salesy” way, and truly build a relationship with them –- because if you overly “sell” to your influencers, you’ll burn a bridge and potentially turn your biggest fans into your worst detractors.

Here are a few concrete tips brands can use to get started marketing with influencers.

Find Out Who Is In Your 1%

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Find Out What Your 1% Likes to Share

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After you’ve identified these individuals, use your social media analytics platform to dig down into the content they like to share most often. Do they tend to share deals and discounts? Or do they prefer to share links to your branded entertainment content, like YouTube () videos, social games and contests, or informational articles? At this stage, you can separate your 1% into groups, such as “shopping mavens” who love to pass along deals and discounts; “experts” who love to share new research, top-10 lists, how-to articles, and other educational content; “gaming gurus” who like to share information about contests and games; or “entertainers” who like to share movie trailers, YouTube clips, and social media apps.

Find Out Where Your 1% Goes to Connect and Share

Now you need to identify which social networks, blogs, forums, and websites your 1% hangs out on, and which methods they use to share your content (e-mail, social updates, tweets, etc.). One thing you’re likely to find out is that while Facebook and Twitter undoubtedly play major roles in the spread of your brand’s content, major social networking sites are not where you’re likely to find and reach your 1%.

Think about it — if you are someone extremely passionate about cars, are you really going to bore and alienate your family and friends on Facebook? Some of them might (and lose friends and followers in the process), but for the rest, they have a blog, post comments on other blogs, and interact with niche communities of like-minded influencers, advocates, and fans.

Finding these sites and communities on the web requires some sleuthing. Aside from digging deep into the traffic data provided by your social media analytics platform, another way to find these niche sites is to follow a number of active “experts” on Twitter in your topic of choice. Ask them where they go to learn about and share the content that matters most to them.

Find Out What Motivates Your 1%

Do your influencers share content about your brand in pursuit of fame, fortune, or a bit of both? Understanding what motivates your 1% to share is key to finding out what makes them tick, and what types of content they will respond to favorably.

For most people that spend time creating and sharing content, it’s not about fortune, it’s about fame. They share links with friends and their wider social network because it makes them feel important, special, and useful. That doesn’t mean influential people don’t like deals as a rule — they’re just like the rest of us in that regard. But they respond most positively to the attention and recognition they get from sharing useful content and valuable information with others.

For example, we’ve seen on several marketing programs that the percent of incremental unique visitors to a site from shared links more than doubled when the names of the top sharers where posted on an online leader board, and top-sharers were given access to exclusive content.

Make ‘Em Famous

Use your company’s Twitter and Facebook pages to call out public achievements, like funny or useful YouTube videos on relevant topics posted by your top 1%. Blog () about an interesting article, post, or tweet an influential member of your customer base has written, and let them know what you’ve done. And make sure to extend special offers or direct access to top company executives to your influential users. A big part of making these people feel special involves granting insider access to people, deals, or information that is limited to a select few.

Conclusion

Author David Berkowitz very cleverly writes about the 10 Plagues of Social Media. These blunders in the world of social media are paired with  a counterpart from the ancient rendition. The most important thing is that – this is a study and understanding of a medium – which is no different than the study and understanding of traditional mediums such as print, television or radio. All of them have appropriate channels and uses in order to reap success. Social media is not different.

Climbing up Mt Everest without a Sherpa or the proper gear is likely – to lead you to some serious challenges along the way. Make sure that as you engage with social media – you have taken the time to understand not only the technology as the quote says above – but your target community as well. Success lays ahead – but – metered out to those who seek the professional guidance to avoid the plagues as all costs.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Best Nicole

In honor of the season, where some celebrate the ancient story of slaves’ exodus from Egypt, it’s time for a new telling of the ten plagues: the Ten Plagues of Social Media. All are paired with a counterpart from the ancient rendition.

Note that some debates remain as to the ancient plagues’ literal meanings. When in doubt, I deferred to biblical scholar Robert Alter’s translation of “The Five Books of Moses.”

1) Blood: Lack of transparency

Whenever marketers aren’t fully transparent as to who they are and what they’re promoting when reaching out to consumers and online influencers, they cloud consumers’ trust just like blood clouded the Nile. The demands of transparency also fall on the content producers whenever their contributions can be considered influenced by other parties.

2) Frogs: Oversharing

Imagine trying to get a good night’s sleep with millions of frogs croaking up a storm. Now try staying on top of what’s happening with your social graph when so many of their updates are dedicated to what errands they’re running or how much they had to drink last night. Oversharing can wind up hurting relationships, and rightfully makes some question how much value social media adds to their lives.

3) Lice: Campaign-based thinking

It’s hard to get lice out of your head, and there’s no easy cure for shaking off campaign-based thinking, either. Campaign-to-campaign and quarter-to-quarter thinking prevents marketers from reaping the long-term benefits of social marketing.

4) Flies: Autoposting

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare, and other sites are not all the same, but the way some marketers unleash hoards of content, you might think the sites were interchangeable. Posting the same content in the same way across every social site is efficient for the producer, but diminishes the experience for the recipients. Marketers need to think twice about nearly any kind of automated messaging. There’s a place for it; headline and deal feeds are some that can work as syndicated feeds while managing consumer expectations. The first instinct should be to avoid this, though.

5) Pestilence / livestock disease: Lack of internal communication

I don’t want to refer to your colleagues (or mine) as livestock, but you depend on your colleagues for your livelihood and putting food on the table, just as our ancient forbears relied on livestock. When marketers and their agency partners aren’t in close communication, and when there isn’t communication internally with any of those parties, it amounts to a plague on their livelihood.

6) Boils: Lack of Integration

In this case, the plague fits the crime. Social marketing campaigns should be planned just as tightly in conjunction with other marketing programs as boils are connected to victims’ skin. Perhaps it’s not the most pleasant analogy, but these are the ten plagues, not the ten happiest things to ever happen.

7) Hail: Talking at consumers

Sometimes, reading marketers’ updates in social channels feels like walking through a hailstorm. You get pelted by a self-aggrandizing update here and a limited-time offer there, and you can’t wait to run for cover. Conversing and asking questions can soften the blows and make it more like a day at the beach.

Locusts: Bright shiny object syndrome

If you’ve ever seen a swarm of locusts on National Geographic Channel or Discovery, you’ll appreciate why this was the first plague association to come to mind. Look at all the locusts move from field to field — blogs to MySpace to Second Life to widgets to Twitter to Facebook to augmented reality to Foursquare — sucking the life out of them and then looking for their next meal. Marketers can shed their locust exoskeletons by figuring out what works and sticking with it, even while exploring new opportunities.

9) Darkness: Lack of vision

When you see marketers fumble royally in social media, you’re usually witnessing a marketer that didn’t plan ahead. These fumbles can often arise when a marketer is dealing with a crisis, but they can also come up when marketers are more successful than they anticipated, such as when too many consumers take them up on a deal. Plan for the best and the worst, and be prepared to act when either arises to prevent darkness from descending on your social programs.

10) Death of the firstborn: Death of marketing as we know it

The death of the firstborn plague is the most permanent. There has been a similar plague on marketing and media: rising consumer expectations of some form of two-way communication. For consumers like myself who grew up writing letters to brands that pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised me, this is deliciously empowering. This plague will kill off some marketers who can’t adapt.

Egypt wasn’t undone by the exodus, or any version of it that has been passed down to us. It remained a capital of the ancient world for over a thousand years more and has been a pivotal part of many great civilizations and cultures since. Plagues may afflict us and they may kill off the weak, but the springtime exodus saga tells the greater story of rebirth and renaissance. If there’s not a promised land for marketers per se, may we at least heal from these plagues to uphold brands’ promises to consumers.

Mashable.com has a post, written by Soren Gordhamer, that is titled “7 Lessons for Better Networking with Social Media.” Gordhamer says “Many of us are on both sides of this relationship— sometimes making the connection, sometimes receiving the invitation.” His article is a good tool to use with actionable tips on improving your networking skills.

Tell us about your network and some of the things that you have learned to best utilize your network for 2010.

Best Nicole

Social media allows us to discover, connect, and engage with new people of interest. While most people are open to new connections and receiving messages from people they don’t know, there is a fine line between reaching out and “spamming.” The challenge is to make a connection clearly and effectively without wasting people’s time.

Many of us are on both sides of this relationship — sometimes making the connection, sometimes receiving the invitation. To help navigate these waters a little better, I’ve outlined seven key lessons for improving your social networking skills.

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1. Find a Person’s Preferred Communication Channel

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If you want to contact someone you have never communicated with before, do some research. Find the person’s preferred communication channel. If they have a website, check out their contact page and see if they encourage people to contact them in a particular way, and follow their suggestion.

It also helps to discover what level of participation they have on various social networks (Twitter (), Facebook (), YouTube ()) to see which places may be best to engage them. When is the last time they posted on Twitter or Facebook? Do they respond to the @replies they receive on Twitter or comments on a Facebook page? Get a sense of their preferred means of communication, and make contact where they are.

Lesson: Go where they are.

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2. Say Just Enough

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This cannot be emphasized enough, and it is probably my toughest challenge. In the age of social media, we may be able to get the attention of more people, but we get it for a much shorter amount of time. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make, is that they send long e-mails or social media messages explaining all the reasons they want to connect. You are likely have not earned not earned the five minutes of the recipient’s time that it will take to read that message.

Brevity is built right into Twitter, making it a great platform for making a first connection. However, if you use other channels, keep it simple. If there are 700 words you eventually want to get across, include only 50 in the first contact. Let the person choose if he or she would like more. You can fill in the rest later. I prefer a less complete 50 words than 700 words that tell me more than I need to know.

Lesson: Less is more.

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3. Don’t Expect a Response

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I often see e-mails with phrases like “Please respond,” or “please get back to me.” Unless it is an old friend or a colleague, if you are contacting someone new, you are not entitled to a response. If the person wants to get back to you, he or she will. It is much better to say “If this is not of interest, feel no need to get back to me.”

At times I hear people complain because they reached out to someone and never heard back. The fact is most people do not have the time to get back to everyone who contacts them to say, “not interested.” Open a door without adding pressure. There may be times to follow-up, of course, but don’t do so with resentment or frustration.

Lesson: Say what you need to and then let it go.

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4. Clarify Early

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This may seem like common sense, but don’t wait for the last line of your message to say that you want to meet for lunch, or ask your contact if he’d like to speak at an event. Put it right up front. If he cannot provide what you’re looking for, he’ll know sooner rather than later, and will appreciate you for it.

Lesson: Say it up front.

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5. What You Want is Not the Point

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You may think that what you want is a phone call or lunch meeting to discuss your big idea. But communication is more than any one project or meeting. What you really want is an authentic connection.

In a very real way, it doesn’t necessarily matter if the person is interested in discussing your project idea. What matters is whether you are making a connection.

If you focus on the relationship more than the specific request, and the person has a pleasant experience reading your opening communication, it is likely the door will remain open for possible collaboration in the future, and the next e-mail you send will more likely be fruitful.

Lesson: No one knows what the future may hold, so make the moment count. Ensure the door stays open, even if no one is walking through it right now.

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6. Be Open Without Needing

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Needy never goes over well. Statements like “I really need to talk to you,” or “it is essential that we speak,” show your general insecurity. There is a huge difference between being open to collaboration and “needing” it.

Do not make contact until you find that place in yourself that is totally comfortable with any outcome, including a strong “no” or no response at all. Only then can you make authentic contact. When you do, openness rather than need will come through in your words.

Lesson: Speak from openness rather than need.

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7. Give Space

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The key questions people have when someone new reaches out to them, particularly those who are quite busy, are “Do I have time to bring this person into my network? How much time will they take?”

Therefore, it is generally not helpful to send too many e-mails. Doing this may send the signal that you are going to take a lot of the recipient’s time and send numerous e-mails every day, and communicating with you will take great effort.

Instead, give communication some space. Unless something is very timely, let a bit of time pass before sending a response. Let communication have some breathing room. Once there is some level of trust, you can experiment with more immediate information exchange.

Lesson: Focus on thoughtful instead of continual contact.

Mashable.com posted an article a couple of days ago by Josh Catone, that was originally featured on the American Express Open Forum. This article backs up the thoughts I open with today. It addresses the conversation I have with anyone who asks me about what we do and how we approach building a digital strategy with our clients. In our case, our ace in the hole is that we began (long before social media was on the radar) in the world of branding and marketing offline by engaging with our customers. We are now able to use that knowledge to integrate an online profile that becomes a seamless extension of what a client may be doing in a traditional space and knit the two mediums together. Building cultures and defining brands through those cultures, is how you will be able to gain success over time. This post shows some ways that you can do some preliminary searches and talk to people offline to find out how they best will connect with you via social media—so that when you finally dive in, they are ready to swim with you and invite others into your pool!

Best Nicole

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Twitter, Facebook. LinkedIn, MySpace, Foursquare, Brightkite, Posterous, Tumblr. The list of social networks and social media tools goes on and on, and as a small business owner, the biggest limitation you’ll run up against when planning to use social media is not likely going to be cost, but time. Utilizing social networks and web tools properly requires a significant time investment, both for learning how to use the networks and setting them up, as well as maintaining an active presence and building a community. Unlike corporations, most small business owners do not have the ability to hire a dedicated social media or online community manager.

How does a small business owner know where to invest their time and resources?

Talk to People

Asking these sorts of questions of your customers can be invaluable. You’ll learn which sites the people who buy from you use, and what uses of those social media products and services would be most useful to them. By spending a couple of weeks talking to your customers and getting their feedback, you’ll be able to hit the ground running and dive into social media already knowing that your time and resources will be well spent.

Do Some Preliminary Searches

Even after talking to customers, before you commit to putting a lot of time and effort into building your presence on a specific social media network, you should do some searches to see what’s out there. It’s possible that your customers are already on the network and talking about your business. And it’s probable that your competitors already have a presence there. Spend some time searching around the network or tool to see what’s there.

Start by searching for your company name. Are your customers already talking about you? What are they saying? The types of things they’re talking about might inform how you should utilize that platform. Next search for your competitors and evaluate how they’re using the platform. What seems to be effective for them? Is it something you can emulate? Finally, do some more general searches for keywords related to the product, service, or industry you’re in. You might be able to attract new customers through social media, but only if the people in your key demographic are using that social network.

Keep Communications Channels Open

I think that in the world of business today, your website reflects not only  your brand—but gives you the chance to show what you can do. Are you in the space that you are selling? So in our case, digital advertising and social media is an area where we are experts. When you come to our site we open with a blog. We prominently display one click access to our other social media sites (in our case linkedin, facebook and twitter) and we offer what, for many creative agencies, is most important: work examples with mini case studies that outline what the mandate was for each work sample. As Randy Pausch, the former Carnegie Mellon Professor who passed away of Pancreatic cancer, so eloquently stated in his “Last Lecture” (as a message to his young daughter), “it is a persons actions—what they do and not what they say that matters most.” In our business, when a client asks us for a proposal it will be our work creatively, our technological innovation and our participation in the world of social media that will best display our expertise.

This all brings me back to “thought leadership”: how it is defined and how it is accepted as all our businesses strive to be different in this changing economy. The consumer now has the opportunity to directly connect with and engage the brands that are vying for their attention and purchase commitment. Wikipedia defines thought leadership as “a buzzword or article of jargon used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights (thinklets).”

My question becomes this: as I continue to SHARE my thoughts each week on this blog, is my “thought leadership” and creativity based on how I present information (always keeping in my mind my brand, SHARE, which is defined by the creativity of our work) and SHARE my ideas regarding my chosen topic, while supporting my beliefs with the words of others? Or do I only post my own ideas and simply SHARE links—sending those that I want to stay on my site off to that referred link to learn more—in order to establish that this blog belongs to my innovative thoughts alone? A great start for conversation. I feel both have merit as did the conversations and criticism that led to this post. Innovation, leadership, transparency and honesty  are all components, from my perspective, that will be defining factors in how successful your social media marketing efforts will be once you understand your target audiences social computing behaviour. Is leadership based on acts or words? Great beginnings for conversation. So from now on, on Monday’s and Friday’s I will continue to discuss this conversation instead of sharing my thoughts on the great posts that I find. I will save the sharing for Tuesday through Thursday.

I hope that I have sparked some thoughts and innovative ideas in you, the reader, that will encourage you to leave your comments and thoughts regarding my post on Monday!

Best Nicole

Thank you for your ongoing support and for all the comments and connections that we are making with our readers. Linkedin groups and connections have been really great and we are so happy to hear from everyone regarding our posts. Keep it coming!

We would love to connect with you on Facebook and have added a fan box for BCAD Group on this blog. We want to build a community where we can have an ongoing dialog about the many ideas we write about on this blog and the issues we haven’t yet touched: your thoughts or whatever may be on your mind!

We want to know—Who Do You Think You Are Talking To?

Best Nicole