THE LIST: Companies Recruiting on Twitter
∙ Accenture: @Accenture_Jobs
∙ ACULIS, Inc.: @aculis
∙ ADP: @ADPCareers
∙ Allstate Insurance: @AllstateCareers
∙ American Express: @brandonpatton
∙ AOL: @theregoesdave
∙ APCO Worldwide: @Jessica_lee
∙ Apple: @timesse
∙ Assurant Solutions: @AssurantCareers
∙ AT&T: @ATTjobs and @therecruiterguy
∙ BAE Systems: @kellyviglione
∙ Blackbaud: @stephmcdonald
∙ Burger King: @BKCareers
∙ City of Kingston: @kingstoncareers
∙ Clearspring: @ihireu4cs
∙ Compuware: @scottboren
∙ comScore: @comScoreJobs
∙ Davita: @DavitaJobs
∙ Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu: @JoinDeloitteUS
∙ Disney/ABC: @DisneyABC
∙ Ecolab: @Ecolab_Jobs
∙ EDS: @tinahuckabay
∙ EMC Careers: @EMCCareers and @EMCCollege
∙ Ernst and Young: @Ernst_and_young
∙ Excellaco: @excellaco
∙ Follett Software: @FSCCareers
∙ Forrester Research: @forresterjobs
∙ Fullhouse Interactive: @fullhousecareer
∙ Hallmark: @hallmarkcareers
∙ HCA: @acareerathca
∙ Hershey Company: @HersheyCompany
∙ Hewitt: @HewittCareers
∙ HomEq Servicing: @dcastrodale
∙ Hitachi Consulting: @havrilla
∙ Hyatt: @hyattcareers
∙ Intel: @Jobsatintel
∙ Intercontinental Hotel Group: @IHGeCareers
∙ J.B. Hunt: @WeHaveFreight
∙ Kaiser Permanente: @JennStockton
∙ Kaplan Test Prep Services: @KTPA_Careers
∙ Keller Williams Realty: @KWCareers
∙ Kissito: @kissitocareers
∙ KPMG: @KPMGCareers and @recruitingtruth
∙ Kroger: @KrogerWorks
∙ LexisNexis: @LN_Recruiting
∙ Mattel: @MattelRecruiter and @mattelmba
∙ McCormick & Schmick @Careers_At_ MSSR
∙ McGladry: @lifeatmcgladrey
∙ Microsoft @JobsBlog
∙ MTV Networks @MTVnetworksjobs
∙ MTV Games @MTVGamesJobs
∙ New York Times: @NYTimesRecruit
∙ nGenera: @nGeneraCareers
∙ Odyssey Financial Technologies: @OdysseyCareers
∙ Raytheon: @Raytheon_Jobs
∙ Razorfish: @RazorfishJobs
∙ Region 10: @LisaatRegionTen
∙ RWRoundarch:@RWRoundarch
∙ Sodexo: @sodexocareers
∙ Southwest Airlines: @SWALesa
∙ Spotsylvania Medical Center: @CareersAtSRMC
∙ Starbucks: @Starbuckscareer
∙ Take Care Health Systems: @TakeCareJobs
∙ Thomson Reuters: @steffenson and @TRCareers
∙ Time Warner Cable: @TWC_Recruiter
∙ Twitter: @jobs
∙ United Parcel Service: @UPSjobs
∙ University of Pittsburgh Med Center: @UPMCCareers
∙ United States Department of State: @DOScareers
∙ Verizon: @VerizonCareers
∙ Warner Brothers Entertainment: @WBCareers
∙ Whistler Blackstone: @WhistlerJobs
∙ Wipro: @WiproCareers

Thanks to Walt Kasha for compiling the list and posting it to LinkedIn.
You can find Walt Kasha here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/waltkasha

SEO Cat Wants Yer Link Juiz

My 5 SEO Key Takeaways:

1. On-site Optimization includes:

• Page Title
• Meta Description
• Use of header tag h1, h2, h3 with relevant content (keywords) inside
• Alt text on images
• Freshness of content, relevance of content to keywords you’re ranking for
• Robots.txt
• Sitemap.xml
• Canonical URL w/target keyword in the URL (ex: http://www.geoffabrown.com/seo-what-i-learned-from-smcla instead of http://www.geoffabrown.com/post.php?id=32)

2. Off-site Optimization includes:

• Inbound Links, the more the better
• Inbound Links from .GOV and .EDU (even better)
• Domain Age is considered
• DMOZ Directory Listing
• Social Bookmarking counts as inbound link “votes” (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon)

3.  The rules are constantly changing as people find ways to trick the system.  You need to keep up on the latest via some of the following sources:

• Search Engine Land: Search Engine Land is the industry’s leading online publication for the latest search news, research and anaylsis, commentary and expert advice. Led by search authorities Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman, an experienced editorial staff and wide range of contributors produce the most comprehensive coverage in the industry.
• SEOMoz: SEOmoz serves as a hub for search marketers worldwide, providing education, tools, resources and paid services to help every SEO to be the best they can be.
• Alltop’s SEO Page: Alltop aggregates RSS headlines from all of the top search engine optimization news and headlines from across the web.
• Matt Cutts (Google Engineer) Blog: Matt is the head of Google Webspam and provides an inside view on Google’s search engine. This is his personal page, and isn’t primarily focused on SEO, but if you dig a bit you’ll get some good info.
• Google’s YouTube Videos for Webmasters: This is the official YouTube channel for Google Webmaster Central, your one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions, introduce you to offerings that can enhance and increase traffic to your site, and connect you with your visitors.
• SEOChat: Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization – SEO Chat
• SEOBook: SEO Book.com is a leading SEO blog by Aaron Wall covering the search space. It offers marketing tips, search analysis, and whatever random rants come to mind.
• Sphinn: Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. It’s designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.
• Brent Csutoras
• 10e20: 10e20, LLC is THE Global Internet Marketing & Web Solutions Company® dedicated to helping small and mid-size companies meet and exceed their Internet marketing goals. Each day we strive to deliver a strong return on your investment.

4.  Do your research.  Use tools to analyze keywords, competitors, your own site’s analytics and your rankings.  Lots of data analysis is a constant method of measuring your methods and learning which ones work.  Here are some of the best tools discussed:

• Trellian SEO Toolkit: includes everything you need to optimize and promote your web pages, to increase your web site traffic and search engine visibility.
• StumbleUpon Toolbar”>StumbleUpon Toolbar (Firefox): discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.
• Instant Messaging: To communicate to people that it’s time to spread the link love and get busy with the social bookmarking, tweeting and re-tweeting.
• Majestic SEO is a company that offers a service for SEO that Barbara recommends for competitive link intelligence.
• SEO Toolbar by SEOBook.com: The SEO Toolbar pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market directly in the search results.
• Yahoo Site Explorer: Use this tool to see who is linking to you. Or, better yet, use it to see who is linking to your competitors! Pages here are listed by rank, so pay close attention to those that show up first and learn from them.
• Del.icio.us Toolbar (Firefox): Quick and easy access to save sites into your del.icio.us social bookmarking stream.
• Digg.com/tools/firefox”>Digg Toolbar (Firefox)
• Google Keyword Tool: type in a keyword and get back tons of information about volume of searches, trends related to that term, local and global data about that keyword and synonymous words.
• Google Keyword Search-Related Keyword Tool: similar to the keyword tool, but adds what Google thinks is related based on search patterns
• SEO Quake (Firefox or IE): allows user to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study on the fly.
• Google Webmaster Tools: a one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions, introduce you to offerings that can enhance and increase traffic to your site, and connect you with your visitors.
• WordTracker: a must have resource for any search engine marketing professional. It combines both a respectable search term database with tools that make mining the information easy.
• Google AdWords: Once you have an account, you have access to key information about keywords, the cost of keywords, related keywords and more…
• Google Trends: understanding trends and predicting user behavior is more than half the battle when it comes to creating compelling content that gets picked up.

5.  Social Media can play a big role in getting you the inbound links you need to rank higher.

• Socialize your content.  Have others vote it up.  Randomize the Diggs, Stumbles, Tweets, Facebook links, etc… to make the traffic to your page as organic looking as possible.  A thousand Diggs from your office isn’t going to help your cause.
• Be generous with your support of others and they will reciprocate.  Duh.
• It’s a bit of a fraternity.  The top Diggers might be a tough group to crack into, but that isn’t saying it’s impossible.  See what they like and what they vote up and tailor your content to entice them to vote you up.  Also, ping them on their social networks and see if you can get a good ground swell going for your post.
• Be everywhere.  Google isn’t the only search engine.  YouTube, iTunes, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter are just a few of the many places people search for things.  You owe it to yourself and your conent to be in and rank in as many of those places as possible.
• Tailor your site to make it easy for people to bookmark, submit, share, and comment on your content.  It’s an impulse to bookmark or Digg something, make the barrier to entry as easy as possible.

Thanks again to the great panelists who made it all possible:

• Sean Percival (PR5): Sean Percival is an online content producer from Los Angeles, California. For work Sean is the Director of Content for Tsavo, for play the founder of lalawag.
• Jeffrey Henderson (PR4): Jeff is an Internet entrepreneur and founder/CEO of Adept Marketing Concepts, a firm offering SEO, reputation management, website design, domaining and sales outsourcing.
• Tony Adam (PR3): works for Yahoo! as an SEO Manager for it’s Audience Marketing group. His “About Tony Adam” page is worth visiting.
• Barbara Boser (PR3):Barbara Boser is a “Social media consultant, wife, mom, marketer.”

Editor’s note: This is first guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

Please note this is not a top-10 list, nor are these listed in any particular order. It’s also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in the comments. If you’d like to Retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Take Social Actions: The nonprofit organization Social Actions aggregates “opportunities to make a difference from over 50 online platforms” through its unique API. It recently held the Change the Web Challenge contest in order to inspire the most innovative applications for that API. The Social Actions Interactive Map won the $5,000 first prize. The result is a virtual tour of the world through the lens of social action. “People are volunteering, donating, signing petitions, making loans and doing other social actions as we speak — all over the world. To capture the context of the where, this project uses sophisticated techniques to extract location information from full text paragraphs.” You can also join the Social Actions Community, which is powered by Ning…which now boasts more than one million individual social networks.

2. Twitter with a Purpose: This list could be exclusive to Twitter. The micro-blogging sensation was featured on our first two lists (a three-tweet), and it’s certain to be a fixture. From Tweetsgiving, the virtual Thanksgiving feast, to the Twestival, which organized 202 off-line events around the world to benefit charity: water, it’s become the de facto tool for organizing and taking action. Tweet Congress won the SXSW activism award, and celebrity Tweeps Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Rose Tweeted their two million followers about ending malaria. Max Gladwell recently initiated the #EcoMonday follow meme as a way to connect and organize the Green Twittersphere.

3. Visit White House 2.0: Inside of its first 100 days, the Obama administration has managed to set the historic benchmark for government transparency and accountability. The President’s virtual town hall meeting used WhiteHouse.gov to crowdsource questions from his 300 million constituents, complete with voting to determine the ones he’d have to answer. All told, 97,937 people submitted 103,978 questions and cast 1,782,650 votes. The White House continues to raise the bar with its official Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter channels. In so doing President Obama is not just setting the standard for state and local government in the U.S. He’s establishing the world standard. The Obama administration is spreading democracy not by force but through example. Because you don’t have to be an American citizen to be a friend or follower of White House 2.0.

4. Claim your Zumbox: What happens when all mail can be sent and delivered online to any street address in a paperless form? That’s the big question for Zumbox, which has created an online mail system with a digital mailbox for every U.S. street address. And while the answer to that question remains to be seen, it promises to be as liberating as it is disruptive. A key quality for Zumbox is that it’s closed system much like that of Facebook, only instead of true identity it’s true address. This will enable people to better connect with their communities including their neighbors, local businesses, and the mayor’s office. The primary agent of change, though, might not be that this uses street addresses but that it enables direct and potentially viral feedback, which is a virtue that e-mail and the USPS do not offer. The first methods are to request exclusive paperless delivery and to block a sender, but others are certain to evolve such as real-time commenting and ways to share mail with friends, family, and colleagues. Welcome to Mail 2.0. (Disclosure: Zumbox is a client of Rob Reed, the founder of Max Gladwell.)

5. Host a Social Media Event: This is the year of the social media event. No meaningful gathering of people is complete without an interactive online audience, especially when it’s so easy and cost effective to pull off. Essential tools include a broadband connection, laptop, video camera, projector, and screen. Add people and a purpose, such as entrepreneurship. Promote it through social media channels, and you have a social media event. A recent example in the green world is the Evolution of Green, which was hosted by Creative Citizen, a green wiki community. It celebrated the launch of a new Web property, EcoMatters, while also establishing a new Twitter tag. By posing the question, “How can we go from green hype to green habit?” and including the #GreenQ hashtag, it sparked a conversation between attendees and the Twittersphere in real time. Thus was born a new mechanism for getting answers to green questions via Twitter.

6. Travel the World: More than anyone else, Tim O’Reilly knows the potential for social media to change the world. In his opening keynote at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo, he called for a new ethic in which we do more with less and create more value than we capture. This provided the context for SalaamGarage founder Amanda Koster, whose presentation followed O’Reilly’s. The idea is that social media has enabled each of us to have an audience. Whether through Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, or a personal blog, each of us can have influence and reach. What’s more, it can be used for good. SalaamGarage coordinates trips for citizen journalists (that means you) to places like India and Vietnam in conjunction with non-government organizations like Seattle-based Peace Trees. The destination is the story, as these humanitarian journalists report on the people they meet and discoveries they make. Their words, images, and video are posted to the social web to gain exposure and because these stories just need to be told.

7. Build It on Drupal: You may not have noticed, but the open-source Drupal content management system (CMS) has quickly become the dominant player on the social web. While we still prefer WordPress as a strict blogging application, Drupal has emerged as the go-to platform for building scalable, community-driven Web sites. It powers Recovery.gov, a key part of President Obama’s commitment to transparency and accountability. PopRule uses it as a social news platform for politics. And Drupal will soon become the platform for Causecast, a site where “media, philanthropy, social networking, entertainment and education converge to serve a greater purpose.” This is especially significant because Causecast CEO Ryan Scott is transitioning the site off of Ruby on Rails because Drupal has proved more efficient, user friendly, and cost effective. (Disclosure: Max Gladwell founder Rob Reed is co-founder of PopRule.)

8. Green Your iPhone: Looking for an organic diner within biking distance that has a three-star green rating? There’s a app for that. It’s called 3rd Whale, and you can download it for free. (Except that the star rating is actually a whale rating.) Complete with Facebook Connect, this iPhone app locates green products and businesses in 30 major North American cities. It uses the iPhone’s dial function to select a category (food), sub-category (restaurants), and distance (walking, biking, or driving). In Santa Monica, this might give you Swingers diner for its selection of veggie and vegan fare. You could then get directions from your current location using the iPhone’s built-in Google map, rate your experience on the three-whale scale, and write up a quick review. 3rd Whale recently released a new feature that integrates green-living tips, which can show how much energy or waste you’ll save by taking a given action.

9. Unite the World Through Video: Matt’s dancing around the world video inspired many to tears. Today, more than 20 million people have viewed his YouTube masterpiece, where he performs a kooky dance with the citizens of planet earth. The most recent example of this approach is Playing for Change, which connects the world through song. The project started in Santa Monica with a street performance of the classic Stand By Me and expanded to New Orleans, New Mexico, France, Brazil, Italy, Venezuela, South Africa, Spain, and The Netherlands. The project was superbly executed via social media, complete with a YouTube channel, MySpace, Facebook, and Blog. It’s received tremendous mainstream media exposure and also benefits a foundation of the same name.

10. Rate a Company: The conversation about corporate social responsibility (CSR) takes place across the social web on blogs, Twitter, and YouTube, but a central hub for this information and opinion is still to be determined. SocialYell seeks to address this by building an online community around the CSR conversation, where users can submit reviews of companies together with nonprofit organizations and even public figures like Michelle Obama. The major topics are the Environment, Health, Social Equity, Consumer Advocacy, and Charity. The reviews are voted and commented on by the community in a Reddit-like fashion with both up (Yell) and down (shhh) voting. The site is relatively new and still gaining traction, but there’s no question that a resource like this is needed to shine a bright light on CSR and and other related issues.

11. Publish a collective, simultaneous blog post on a universal topic: As Nigel Tufnel might say, this list goes to eleven. Let the #10Ways conversation begin…

Final note: This is Max Gladwell’s third list of “10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media.” The first was posted a year ago today on Sustainablog.org, and the sequel followed five months later. If a single headline can capture the Max Gladwell raison d’etre, this is it.

Photo Credit: Marc Salsberry @wmmarc All rights reserved.

I reached out to our panelists to provide written answers to the questions we intended to cover at the event (there were 10, we got through about 4 or 5) and they were quite prolific in their responses. Here’s what they had to offer in writing:

Panelists
Babette Pepaj – Founder, BakeSpace.com (@bakespace)
Rob Frankel – Frankelbiz (@brandingexpert)
Anne Plese – Cisco Systems, Cisco Systems Data Center Networks Blog <–answers pending (therefore not represented in print below)

Moderated By
Geoff Brown , SMCLA (@geoffabrown)

What is a brand? How do you define it?

Frankel – You’ll hear a lot of different definitions, which is why I wrote The Revenge of Brand X. In there, I make the case that “Branding is getting your prospects to perceive you as the only solution to their problem.” And it seems to work. Too many people confuse branding with awareness and identity, which are executional elements of brand implementation. Brands begin with a brand strategy.

Pepaj - This is a loaded and very broad question – A brand is a promise of quality and a set of expectations that inspire an emotional response.

YouTube accounts for 10% of all internet traffic. 5 of the top 10 websites are social. There are about 20 new blog posts written every second. How important is social media as a platform for brands?

Frankel - Social media itself is a very important platform. But its power is second only to its susceptibility of misapplication. At its best, social media allows masses of individuals to take a personal ownership in a brand. At its worst, social media fosters a sense of entitlement to its participants. It’s the brand’s task to know which tactics are – and are not – appropriate and effective for its brand. It’s vital that a brand not lose control of its brand via social media.

Pepaj - We work with brands all the time that have not been involved previously with social media. Their goal is to listen to consumers, join the conversation and reach new customers. With so much noise on the Web, it’s important to understand that not all social media sites give brands an equal opportunity to achieve their goals. A doctor might do very well on Yelp, YouTube and Twitter, but may waste time and energy building a Facebook Fan Page. Why? Because the message needs to be useful and provide real value to the community.

Social media allows a brand to participate in conversations that would otherwise occur on a peer-to-peer level between trusted friends. This means that your brand message should be appropriate for conversation among peers, as well as easy to share. Otherwise, your social media campaign will have little impact.

What about employees using the social web? How much does each individual’s personal brand effect the brand as a whole?

Frankel - As we saw last night, you’re going to hear differing views on that. From my point of view, I believe that allowing employees to represent a brand on the web runs the same risks as whistleblowers publishing tell-all books. Not a healthy risk that any brand should take.

As for an individual’s personal brand, it gets subordinated to the corporate brand, unless the corporate brand is the personal brand. Lee Iacocca personified Chrysler and the brand rebounded. Bob Nardelli can’t fill those shoes, and Chrylser is about to become a ghost.

Pepaj – If your employees participate in social media, it’s inevitable that people will connect them with your organization. That’s why it’s important to bring everyone on the team up-to-speed about what they should and should not share online. An employee might innocently share personal thoughts that in turn expose proprietary information. In addition, you want everyone involved with the organization to communicate a consistent, accurate message… so you have to keep them informed. Your employees represent your organization, so everyone should be on the same page.

How can companies use social tools to build their brand?

Frankel – I strongly support the idea of Branded Community® and have been running one profitably since 1994. If managed properly, social media can pay out in real, trackable ROI – which is just what CEO’s and CMO’s are starving for. Social media like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are not the answer. The first two are placeholders until better solutions emerge. Twitter is a different animal, and applied properly, can do a lot – for now. Soon, I hope, Branded Community® solutions like http://www.i-legions.com will be accepted as the social medium that strengthens brands with real, tangible ROI. I devote a whole chapter to this in my book.

Pepaj - Here’s a simple check list:

1. Identify the right medium for your message
2. Spend some time using the target sites to understand how they work and how their members interact. If it’s a niche site like BakeSpace, you may also be able to speak directly with the publisher to better understand how your brand can fit within the community.
3. Add useful content specific to the community – members will take note if it’s useful and/or entertaining. For example, KitchenAid has a profile on BakeSpace that the company uses to answer questions about its products. There’s no heavy sell, but rather a genuine and transparent effort to provide useful information. The company also uploads photos from food-related events to give our members behind-the-scenes access. Another brand that’s active on BakeSpace is Reynolds, which added a chat application during its Thanksgiving promotion to answer our members’ questions about holiday cooking. ABC uses its BakeSpace profiles for Desperate Housewives and other shows to connect with fans and share sneak peak clips of each episode before it airs. Each of ABC’s TV series-branded profiles provide recipes inspired by recent episodes, which are shared with BakeSpace members on a peer-to-peer level.

The old model for online communications was about driving traffic to a destination site. Now it’s more about going to where people are and participating there. How important are metrics? What kind of metrics do you pay attention to? What do those metrics tell you about the effectiveness of brand building using social media?

Frankel - Yeah, the old model of “amassing eyeballs is a throwback to unemployed offline media reps. It’s never been effective on the web, but it has been the only sales pitch that marketers have been able to memorize and regurgitate consistently, so it continues to survive.

That’s why I hit at metrics and tangible ROI so hard: It’s the only argument that’s going to permanently dislodge “eyeball” theory, because metrics will prove it out.

Pepaj – It’s true. The old model involved building a platform and breaking it up into channels to create a circle of information and the never ending click. Then the Web moved towards niche and connecting one-on-one with the right consumer. Now, it’s about extending your reach through many networks. When we do a promotion for one of our brand partners, it takes place in a cohesive simultaneous conversation on BakeSpace, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other online communities, as well as on my personal blog and in our newsletters. By creating a cohesive campaign, you can tap into conversations happening across the Web.

What’s the key to gaining SOV on the social web?

Pepaj – Share of voice on the Web can be tricky. Here are some tips:

1. Less is more – Say something useful in as few words as possible.
2. Allow someone to easily share your content in many ways so the consumer can choose their method to spread the word.
3. Listen actively and be part of the conversation.
4. Team up with a publisher who can guide you through the process and make sure your message is presented in a way that’s consistent with your branding and the way the community shares.
5. Have patience – Rome wasn’t built overnight and neither will the deep connections you want to make with consumers.

What’s different about brand-building on the social web vs. more traditional mediums? Is it more effective? Less effective?

Frankel – Why choose? The web has experienced decades of huge growth and is still behind television and other media in terms of usage. Every brand has its own combination of effective media. It’s wrong – and wholly unfair to a brand — to shove its fate into a cookie cutter media plan.

Pepaj - Traditional media serves as a gatekeeper between you and your audience. While you have to deal with that gatekeeper, you’re able to present your brand’s message the way you want it through press releases and PR outreach.

Publishing news and content through social media takes time. You need to first set up the accounts, create a passionate following and a thoughtful campaign that will inspire “friends” or followers to listen and share. While it might seem less expensive, it’s very time consuming. Most brand campaigns have a set timeline so social media should be looked at as a continuous process.

The best combination is to have a social media account ready so when you have timely news to distribute, you have an avenue to do so. You’ve built a fan base that will listen and help push your content across to their networks for very little cost. I think a combination of the two is the most effective way. Use social media as a tool, not a solution in itself.

Word of caution – while it might appear that social media moves your content quickly and is more effective, your brand’s message might be changed or flipped on you and could send the opposite message.

Just remember that most of your consumers are still based offline. Not everyone knows what Twitter is or has a Facebook profile. So when you’re talking to consumers through social media, think of them as connectors for reaching the people they know offline. In addition to engaging with them online, you want to encourage them to have a conversation about your brand around the dinner table.

How can you make sure that your social media efforts are integrated into the larger communications strategy?

Frankel - Once again, most people look at social media sideways. It’s new. And new, to most corporate managers, equals risk. And corporate managers hate risk. In fact, most avoid anything new because to them, risk is code for “possible failure.” Especially now, during a recession, nobody wants to risk anything – unless you can remove the risk by showing tangible ROI.

Pepaj - When you’re creating a promotion or campaign, you figure out which social media avenues fits the campaign best. Once you figure out content distribution, build into your outreach ways for consumers to share the information with their peers. And don’t forget to think outside the box…

For example, Kodak came to us to help promote a new printer because they wanted to reach our specific demographic. The challenge was finding a way to connect Kodak and its printer with our members in an organic way. We gave it some thought and helped Kodak create a “recipe in a jar” campaign that encouraged our members to print and package recipes as gifts. We also hosted a giveaway to promote the product. This approach enabled Kodak to reach its target demographic while giving our members a nifty recipe and gift-giving idea.

Name some specific tactics that you’ve employed to build your brand online.

Frankel – I like to use cases of my own branded community, FrankelBiz.com, because it exhibits the leverage that the community can exert to make real changes. In my case, Amazon.com allowed a nut case to post a clearly fallacious review of my book. The guy was a nut case, but Amazon was not convinced. I appealed to the FrankelBiz community to contact Amazon on my behalf. The result was that the nutball’s review was removed.

I am currently using FrankelBiz, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in a similar case: Apple’s iTunes has stalled approval for our iPhone application, LittleWingman. We are using social media to get people to click the link at http://www.LittleWingman.com where they can watch our one minute video and automatically send a letter to iTunes expressing their support for us. Too early to know how effective that one will be.

Pepaj - From day-one, BakeSpace has helped brands transcend banner advertising and join the conversation with our members. Each new ad campaign is designed to preserve the site’s grassroots sensibility and help members connect with one another, as well as with brands, in new and exciting ways.

Over the past two years, BakeSpace has hosted a series of uniquely engaging promotions for food-related brands such as KitchenAid, Reynolds Parchment Paper, Sara Lee and McCormick, as well as consumer product and entertainment brands such as Kodak, ABC, Universal Pictures and FOX Searchlight. Our campaigns include:

• Custom Branded Profiles
• Unique Recipe Feed with Sponsored Recipes
• Branded Food Mentor Profiles to share useful tips
• Social Market Research/Conversational Marketing
• Branded Recipe Channel
• Interactive Recipe Pages that can include videos, branding, slide shows, chat and photos
• Custom Promotions and Giveaways

To read more about our Unique Recipe for Social Media Advertising: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/BakespaceCom-937739.html

Which companies are getting it right? Who can we look to for examples? (Zappos comes to mind, who else?)

Frankel - I’m going to avoid this one, because I still think the medium needs to evolve into Branded Community or at least something like it.

Pepaj – I think Ford is doing some interesting things with a program called “iroadtrip”. The company donated a vehicle to four bloggers who are very active on Twitter. They helped make a program possible by offering the vehicle for the road trip. However, the road trip didn’t focus on their brand, but interesting content. While waiting in line at a pizza truck at SXSW, I noticed a badge that said iroadtrip and the entire team was there. My first question was about the ford truck photo that was part of a practical joke. So I associated the trip with Ford.

Whole Foods – While I was at SXSW and I saw a tweet about @WholeFoods hosting a food tech event. I put out a message and within the hour I got a thoughtful reply, but unfortunately the event list was closed. An hour later I got a private message inviting me to the event which was held at their flagship store. They had no idea who I was or if I could be of value to them, but they knew I was a foodie. The Whole Foods twitter feed isn’t about what’s on sale or store info, it’s about useful content someone who’s passionate about food will appreciate.

There are a lot of companies participating in social media and benefiting from joining the conversation. What’s nice about social media is that you don’t have to be a large corporation to make an impact.

Connect With Our Panelists!

You will find Rob Frankel online at:
http://twitter.com/brandingexpert
http://frankelbiz.com

You can connect with Babette and the Bakespace.com community at:
http://www.bakespace.com/?babs – Check out my Recipes!
http://www.twitter.com/bakespace
http://www.facebook.com/pages/BakeSpacecom/19188237540 – Our Fan Page

In anticipation of the March SMCLA gathering to discuss “Building a Brand Through Social Media”, we thought we’d offer up a brief primer, a series of quality links, and a few questions to stimulate thought. It’s always amazing to see what this group comes up with when we all put our minds to something, so let’s have at it, shall we?

Can you use social media to successfully build or manage a brand? The sheer volume of Google results available to this query seem to suggest a resounding “YES We Can!”. For those who don’t want to read all 8 million results, here’s a quick primer on what you can do to get started. These are viewed as entry level tactics that are mostly free to use and easy to configure. If you or your brand are already doing these tactics, go ahead and skip to the questions section to really sink your teeth in to what we hope to explore at our next meeting.

Quick Primer

Building a brand online requires a three tiered approach: generate content, monitor conversations about your brand/industry, directly engage with people in a meaningful and relevant way.

Generate Content
Be a good writer or hire one. It all starts with well written content that provides value and encourages people to comment, borrow, re-post, and to come back for more. You can gain trust, reputation, and respect based on the quality of your content. Become trusted sources of information within their specific industries through blogging, document uploading, producing and publishing audio and video to fully blanket content channels with sources of information about you and your brand. Adding professionally produced photos, videos and audio is an extra level of polish that you may wish to invest in as the quality of your content reflects directly upon the quality of your brand.

Tools Used:

WordPress		www.wordpress.org
Blogger		www.blogger.com
Blogsome		blogsome.com
Movable Type		www.movabletype.org
Textpattern		textpattern.com
B2evolution		b2evolution.net
LiveJournal		livejournal.com
MSN Spaces		spaces.msn.com
Squarespace		squarespace.com
TypePad		www.typepad.com
Yahoo 360		360.yahoo.com

Blog tools credit: Forbes.com Best of the Web

Automated Dissemination (Makes Me Giggle Too)

Now that you’ve produced all this great content, you really want to get it in front of the people you’re targeting with your brand and your product. Assuming that they will all take a minute to drop by the one place on the Internet where your content lives is a bit naive. Taking that content and pushing it out into as many streams as possible is absolutely the way you’re going to engage with as many people as possible. Thankfully, automation of posting and Social Media networks makes this part very effective. One of our very own LA Tech stars, Sean Percival (@seanpercival), gave a very insightful presentation recently at “Startonomics” detailing out how he uses automation and aggregation to push his content out as far and wide as possible and how to follow and capitalize on trends.

Tools Used:
A full summary is available on PR 2.0: http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html

Power Tools Used:
Friend Feed
Twitter Feed
Social Too

Monitor Conversations
Okay, now that you are a beacon for the world to tune into, it’s time to stick your nosy brand-building self right into the middle of all the chatter out there. My boss was once misquoted on a conference panel as describing Twitter as a “large cocktail party”. Ever since, whenever I read blog comments, I picture these people leaning into a circle of conversation to add their two cents. That visualization is actually a pretty good metaphor for what you should be doing when you monitor the conversations occurring all over the Internet.

Tools Used:
Google Alerts
BackType
Twitter Search
Technorati

Engage

Carrying the cocktail party metaphor right along, try to apply the same level of social engagement one would expect if you were to introduce yourself into that circle of people. Barging in and announcing your product without really getting a feel for the conversation or the people engaging in it won’t get you the results you want. In fact, you run the risk of turning people off due to your lack of finesse. Ease yourself into the conversation by listening to what the people are talking. Offer sage words of wisdom that are relevant to their post and actually help them or provide value to them in some way. Perhaps your product is exactly what they need…wouldn’t that be magic? At any rate, don’t be a poor conversationalist when you transition monitoring into engagement.

Food for Thought / Questions for the Next SMCLA

Good examples of Social Media Brand Building

• Zappos (@zappos)
• Whole Foods (@wholefoods)
• Wine Library (@garyvee)
• Planet Chiropractic (@chiropractic)

Bad examples

• Heavy Handed Comment Entries
• Spam-like outbound messages and auto-replies
• Large brands with non-existent social media presences

Questions
1. What are some more advanced ways to go beyond these basic tactics for social media brand management? (What’s NEXT?)
2. How does a larger brand use social media to manage their reputation? deal with a crisis? solicit product feedback?
3. Your questions and more via comments or tweets using the #smcla hash tag. See you at the next meeting (details to be announced soon)

Helpful Resources

Sources used to research this post:
http://mashable.com/2008/07/18/building-your-online-brand/
http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html
http://www.maxgladwell.com/2008/06/be-a-beacon-first-principle-social-media/
http://www.maxgladwell.com/2008/12/social-media-predictions-2009/#more-1109
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3302506/The-Socialization-of-Your-Personal-Brand-by-Brian-Solis
http://www.seanpercival.com/blog/2009/02/12/video-of-my-startonomics-talk-social-media-is-dead/

Written by: @geoffabrown

Twenty-Six Twitter Tools To Track Tweets

Finding the Tweet Spot – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships

This is the first blog entry I’ve done for SMCLA. Please head over and let me know what you think!

http://www.socialmediaclub.la

Our next meeting will be early March.

Please go ahead and watch them. Then head on over to http://socialtoo.com/survey/view/1221 and take the survey. If you are on Twitter (and you should be by now), you can real-time comment on the ads by adding the #superbowlads hashtag to your post.

You can do your ad research and background info checking over here at Mahalo.com