These days, the hip question to ask is whether to invest resources in SEO or social media. But if you get rid of the silos and instead focus on reaching your audience and solving their problems, you can reach customers via both search and social media more easily than if you just focused on one or the other.

Join Social Media Club Seattle (SMC Seattle) at the Seattle Art Museum on Tuesday, October 25 for a presentation featuring Vanessa Fox, author of the critically acclaimed “Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business.” She’ll discuss the intersection of search and social and how to harness the power of holistic marketing (search AND social) for increased brand awareness.

October Event Details

Date – Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Time – 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Location – Seattle Art Museum

1300 1st Ave.
Seattle, Washington
www.seattleartmuseum.org/

Tickets – $15.00

Parking – Street parking, paid lots, and valet services available

About the Speaker:

Vanessa Fox, called a “cyberspace visionary” by Seattle Business Monthly, is an expert in understanding customer acquisition from organic search. She shares her perspective on how this impacts marketing and user experience and how all business silos (including developers and marketers) can work together towards greater search visibility at ninebyblue.com

She’s also an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners and Features Editor at Search Engine Land. She previously created Google’s Webmaster Central, which provides both tools and community to help website owners improve their sites to gain more customers from search. Her book, Marketing in the Age of Google, provides a blueprint for incorporating search strategy into organizations of all levels.

About the Sponsor:

Efficient Frontier is a leader in online digital marketing, managing and optimizing search marketing, display and social media campaigns for advertisers and agencies around the world.

Context Optional is the top Facebook Preferred Development Consultant and provider of social marketing management solutions for brands on the leading social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Together, Efficient Frontier and Context Optional offer the only unified ads and engagement solution for brands to acquire, activate and drive value from fans across the customer lifecycle.

SMC Seattle and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association have teamed up to present the Talkable Brands Exchange here in Seattle. We’d love for you to register now for the event and come learn from top brands on how they have created and leveraged their brand advocates.

What goes better after a conference filled with learning about word of mouth marketing and meeting some of the brightest minds in the space? Why, spending more time with them at the official closing happy hour hosted by SMC Seattle, of course! Also, you’ll have the chance to go deeper into the topics of the day as speakers and panelists from the WOMMA event will be onhand.

Join Social Media Club Seattle (SMC Seattle) and WOMMA on Wednesday, September 21 for a reception filled with good food, great drinks, and amazing conversations. The event, hosted at Bell Harbor International Conference Center, will be the perfect way to cap off a great day-long event. Don’t forget, WOMMA Talkable Brands Exchange attendees receive free admission to the reception, so sign up today.

There will be giveaways throughout the night, including a pass and lodging for WOMMA’s national summit in lovely Las Vegas, Nevada. So, be there and bring your lucky shoes because you could be headed on a trip filled with great learnings, interesting people, and maybe a little table time courtesy of WOMMA and SMC Seattle.

Register for the WOMMA Talkable Brands Exchange here.

Register for the SMC Seattle Closing Happy Hour here.

September Event Details

Date – Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Time – 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Location – Bell Harbor International Conference Center

2203 Alaskan Way, Pier 66
Seattle, Washington
P: 206.787.3952
www.bellharbor.com

Tickets – Free for WOMMA Talkable Brands Exchange attendees. $10 for non-attendees of the WOMMA Talkable Brands Exchange event (limited to 100 tickets).

Parking – Street parking, paid lots, and valet services available

The world of social commerce is growing quickly. In order to be successful, brands need to not only be on top of technology trends, but also get their audiences. In most cases, those audiences are made up of segments from Generation Z – the socially-connected, always-on, share-til-they-drop audience that fuels purchases and influences their friends.

Join Social Media Club Seattle (SMC Seattle) at WithinSodo on Tuesday, August 30 for a talk featuring Kathy Savitt, Lockerz founder and CEO. She’ll discuss the inherent challenges in online marketing to Generation Z and touch on some of the ways brands are finding connections with these active social citizens.

The topic of social commerce is a hot one, so we’re taking this month’s event to a new space with a great outdoor area. We’ll also have some great entertainment, music, and a great group of people to keep the party going on into the night.

Visit http://smcseaaug11.eventbrite.com/ to reserve your spot!

About the Speaker

KathySavitt is a former Amazon and American Eagle Outfitters executive and is currently the founder and CEO of social commerce company Lockerz. Created from Kathy’s vision to create the homepage for Generation Z, Lockerz has grown from 50 members to nearly 18 million members in less than one year. Kathy believes that the power of Gen Z as cultural disrupters will significantly impact both prior and future generations. Lockerz is funded by Liberty Media, Kleiner Perkins Caufied Byers and Live Nation Entertainment. A major source of her inspiration is her two teenage daughters.

About Our Sponsors

Google Places

Google Places is a local recommendation engine that connects people with the places they love. You can easily find, rate and review places you’re familiar with, share your opinions with friends, and as you and your friends rate and review more places, you’ll see recommendations based on your tastes and those of your friends in your local search results. Google Places is great for users, as it helps them find new places they might like, and it’s great for businesses and organizations to help them get discovered and increase awareness.

Also, stay tuned during the event for a special contest from
Google Places!

Google Seattle on Twitter: http://twitter.com/GoogleSeattle

Google Places Comm. Mgr.: http://twitter.com/charleskoh

Charle’s Google+: http://gplus.to/ckoh

Google Places on the Web: http://google.com/places

Votocracy

Votocracy is a social media platform that harnesses the power and reach of Facebook and Twitter while putting the fun, passion and public engagement back into politics. For as little as $1, any man, woman or teen of voting age can register and start their campaign with Votocracy and gain access to millions of potential supporters through social media networks, daily interactive polls, national advertising campaigns, Votocracy’s online community, and through offline events. The brainchild of a speculative “well if I were President” dinner conversation among seasoned marketing and technology veterans, Votocracy aims to be the great political equalizer and return the voice of politics back to the people. Learn more or jump into the action at www.Votocracy.com

Votocracy on Facebook (app): http://apps.facebook.com/votocracy

Votocracy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/votocracy

Votocracy on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/votocracy

Votocracy on the Web: www.votocracy.com

Photo of show stealer Bill Sleepers courtesy of Richard Wood and Kapchur.us Photography - http://kapchur.us

It has unfortunately been a couple months since I have been able to make it to an SMC Seattle event and while I know that they are ALL

great events, I think I picked a great one for my return.  Another sold out crowd packed Seattle City Hall to hear from Lee LeFever, Jason Reid, and Ben Crawford about how they have used video in creative ways to tell stories and solve problems.

The crowd was introduced to the panel’s talents through three short videos.  From Lee LeFever and Common Craft we saw how they helped explain those pesky QR codes.  Next we watched how Ben Crawford’s team at Epipheo Studios creatively explained what the site Movieclips.com is all about.  Finally, we saw the trailer for the now famous “Sonicsgate” documentary from Jason Reid of R2 Productions.

Through the variety of questions that SMC Seattle VP and President-Elect Shauna Causey presented the panel, each provided insightful experiences that helped the SMC Seattle crowd get a better understanding of what is really important when creating engaging video content.

Make it Quick

There is always a push-pull battle about the optimal length of a video.  Overall, the goal should be to keep it as short as you can, get to your point and cut out the noise.  While some may sit and watch a 5-10 minute video, most want things in a short and consumable way.

Keep it Simple

Many think they need to explain all twenty features of their product in order to get the message across, when in fact, if you focus in on the top one or two you are more likely to engage the viewer.   Make sure the content is written in a way that anyone can understand and follow so they walk away with your main point.

Solve a Problem

With all the information available online, focus on how it will save people time and money and make their life “awesome.”  People are interested in content that will actually help them in some way.  Maybe it is understanding QR codes, or the purpose of a website, or simply getting people informed on an issue.

It’s about the Content

The panel raised a great point with regards to the question about how to create a “viral video” – the fact is that the content is what drives a video to go viral.  You need to have solid content that is relevant, interesting, engaging, and share worthy.  With those things in place, you have a better chance of a video going viral.  Oh, and if anyone ever tells you they will make you a “viral video” – don’t believe them!

Have a complete communication/marketing strategy

The panel agreed that you can’t simply create a video, post online, tweet about it and expect it to be successful.  You need to think about a complete strategy that includes things like; press releases, calling journalists, partnering with media sites, etc. as well as using social media.  Twitter and Facebook are all great ways to amplify the message, but they are not the only things.

Over the course of the event, the panelist provided a number of key elements to making a great video.  To wrap things up, here is the Top 10.  If you have others, please add them in the comments.

Top 10 Key Elements to making a great video

1. Capture the viewer’s attention in the first 5 seconds
2. Show the pain, then show the pain resolved
3. Don’t forget to put your branding on it.
4. Talk with “The Evangelist” – the person that can answer the “why” questions.
5. Focus on the one core thing you want to get out of the video
6. Make it quick and make it real
7. Don’t worry about making it professional
8. Do research on other videos and the styles they used
9. Try and push the limits – Find that edge
10. Make it delightful, otherwise it won’t stick.

———–

P.S – I would be remised if I didn’t mention one final item from the evening, which I think provided perspective to many of us in the social space.  SMC Seattle Board member and emcee for the night, Brian Westbrook, introduced us all to Bill Sleepers, who at 96 years young is the oldest attendee ever at an SMC Seattle event (maybe even SMC global).  Bill, who lives at the Merrill Gardens Retirement Community in Mill Creek helps educate others in the retirement community about social media.  He offered three things that he tries to convey that I think we can all learn from:

1)      Get them to say “Yes” – Don’t be afraid of it.

2)      It help keep you in touch with your kids

3)      Don’t need to study, just do it! All you need is a finger.

———-

Mike Jensen is the VP of Service Delivery for R2integrated in Seattle.  In his role there he oversees a wide variety of marketing, digital, and social media projects for the company’s west coast clients.  A life-long Seattle native, you can follow Mike on twitter at @mjtwit and keep up on his busy personal and professional endeavors on his Posterous blog CHIRPS

Who needs a crystal ball when you can hear a handful of industry leaders provide predictions on the state of social media for the coming year?

Please join us on December 8 as we mix, mingle and learn from a panel that’s teeming with professional chops. With backgrounds that span government and non-profit work to corporate enterprise experience, this month’s speakers will offer a variety of views and tee up some curious conversations about what the future of social media holds.

Thanks to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 for being this month’s sponsor!

Early birds get a ticket! Buy yours now so you don’t miss out. 

December Event Details:

About the Speakers:

Jeremy Bertrand is the Interactive Communications Manager at the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), where he plays a variety of roles, including lead for the WSDOT Web site, Information Architect, user experience designer, content management system administrator, user interface designer, search optimization and review lead, blog writer, and web statistics analyst.

•  Read the WSDOT blog
• Find Jeremy on Twitter

Eugene Cho and his wife, Minhee, are the founders of One Day’s Wages - “a new movement of people, stories, and actions to alleviate extreme global poverty.”  Their strategy is to create a collaborative movement via integrating Human Relationships, Social Media/Technology, and the Power of Story. ODW promotes awareness, invites simple giving (one day’s wages), and supports sustainable relief through partnerships, especially with smaller organizations in developing regions.
One Day’s Wages has been featured in the Seattle Times, Mashable and numerous other publications.

• Find One Day’s Wages on Facebook
• Find One Day’s Wages on Twitter

Kathy Gill has more than 20 years experience in industry, government and non-profit communications, including 10 years experience in digital media — both development and instruction. She teaches at the University of Washington in the Department of Communication, Digital Media Program. She began teaching web-related courses in 1998; from spring 2001 – summer 2003 she taught interface design, web design, and other web courses at Seattle Central Community College. In 2001, she developed a one-day workshop on web usability for eLearning, which she conducts as a contract to MediaPro several times each year.

• Read Kathy’s blog
• Find Kathy on Twitter 

Sean O’Driscoll is the co-founder and CEO of Ants Eye View. Before starting Ants Eye View, Sean was a 15 year veteran at Microsoft Corporation, where he was responsible for developing social media and community-based support models and leading the global Microsoft MVP program. Sean is the co-chair of the influencer council for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and he lives just outside Seattle with his wife Kari, and two daughters, Erin and Lauren.

• Read the Ants Eye View blog
• Find Sean on Twitter

Scott Porad serves as Cheezburger Technology Officer of the Cheezburger Network, the company behind the hugely popular I Can Has Cheezburger? and Failblog.org. The Cheezburger Network is a collection of web sites where millions of people share moments of joy through the humor and wonder of LOL. His previous professional experience includes building industry-leading web properties in online media (ESPN.com), e-commerce and online retailing (drugstore.com).

• Read Scott’s blog
• Find Scott on Twitter

Ryan Turner is director of Social Influence Marketing for the West region of Razorfish, where he devises strategies to help clients improve their businesses by employing social media and influencers. His years in the marketing and technology industries have brought him clients ranging from Boeing to Microsoft, and employers such as ZAAZ and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

• Read Ryan’s blog
• Find Ryan on Twitter

More great speakers to be announced soon!

About the Sponsors:

Big thanks to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Windows Live for sponsoring this month’s event!

Now available on both ATT and T-Mobile, the new Windows Phone 7 is a different kind of phone designed to bring together what you care about most.  Get some hands on time with the phone that provides a glance-and-go experience, is organized to get everything you live easier and faster, and is simply designed to do more in less steps.

• Learn more about Windows Phone 7
• Find Windows Phone 7 on Twitter

Windows Live allows people to do more with their PC’s, be more efficient with their email, interact in real time, and store up to 25 GB of files online with Windows Live Essentials, Hotmail, Messenger, and SkyDrive. Come by and check out some great demos of our new products!

• Learn more about Windows Live
• Find Windows Live on Twitter

*Wild applause from me (Kristy)*

On October 26^th David Armano, SVP of Edelman Digital, came through Seattle and took the time to come speak to our wonderful community. What follows are just some of the evening’s highlights.

Humanizing

David’s presentation focused on the importance of human-to-human interaction, which we so readily refer to as ‘engagement.’ We get to interact with our customers. They are no longer passive. The overlap that occurs throughout all different types of media is a sweet spot of opportunity.

Embassies

Community management is not a new field of work. Think back to message boards and forums, or any digital properties that you inhabit and do not own. David asked us to think of those as ‘embassies.’ Your home away from home, if you will. When working with clients or organizations, it is important to spend time figuring out where it makes sense to set up and staff a digital embassy.

Ambassadors

You’ll need to properly staff your embassy with a qualified ambassador. Your ambassador is responsible for the rules and regulations of the embassy they’re in, while representing the brand with a human voice and in an appropriate manner.

Envoys

Sometimes your organization needs a presence on a property that is not owned or controlled by the brand. David called these ‘outposts.’ It makes sense to have an employee, agent, or member of the public (brand advocate) dispatched to these places to represent the company.

David pointed out that, in his experience, he has seen smaller companies and startups “getting” this community management/envoy engagement better than big brands. Perhaps big brands should be taking a look at these smaller successes for lessons.

Regardless of where your brand chooses to interact, you’ll always want to add value.

Five Cs Which Deliver ‘Lifetime Value’

• Content: A way to start community and engage it.
• Context: Really understanding what your community wants and how they want to engage you.
• Connectivity: The value you provide by connecting people to one another.
• Continuity: The value provided by sustaining efforts over time, ensuring that the community is healthy.
• Collaboration: An opportunity to tap your customers, getting them to work with and for you.

David also outlined some steps to ensure you’re setting yourself up for success in all of these areas.

Step One: Assess Community Needs and Interests

The term ‘listening’ oversimplifies this step, but “what you really need to do is read between the lines and derive insight.” Insights should be coming from people AND data. These insights will inform the way you engage with your community.

Step Two: Develop Rules of Engagement

You need to establish rules of engagement and set up multiple scenarios. Outline these scenarios and their outcomes. Policies and how you engage with your community are different. “It’s like the art of war.”

Step Three: Identify the Right Managers for Your Community

Some people are more inclined than others to thrive in this type of role. Remember you can train certain things. Find the right people that have the potential. Teach them to act as ambassadors, and eventually help them become full community managers.

Step Four: Establish Internal and External Process

Things happen behind and in front of the scenes. Listen, assess, and engage, but also keep process in mind for things like content. You need to have tools and processes in place to manage all of your digital embassies.

Step Five: Train, Equip and Deploy

After they’ve been trained, your ambassadors should be articulate, social, professional, enthusiastic, well-connected, and organized.

Once you have worked through these steps, you’ll be well on your way to building a dynamic, connected, and engaged community.

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about September’s SMC event on how politicians use social media. I mean, was I going to get “campaigned” to?

But since it was my one-year anniversary as an SMC attendee, I didn’t want to miss this one. And I’m glad I didn’t.

What impressed me the most about this panel was how on-topic they were at explaining exactly how they used social media in various campaigns, their best practices, and how social media will impact future campaigns. Check out the livestream, courtesy of the great Greg Young (@CoolGuyGreg) to see what you missed. I’ve also pulled out some nuggets from the event below:

What was your “Ah-ha!” moment when you realized that social media was here to stay in terms of having a meaningful impact in politics?

For Zach Silk, it came when working on Darcy Burner’s campaign in 2006. The campaign was seen to be on the cutting edge of using social media with netroots. Granted, they weren’t using tools and engaging their constituents at the level that is expected today, but they were paving the way for what was ahead by showing how blogs can break down “old media” and connect with supporters in a new way. As Silk put it, social media offers the ability for candidates to communicate directly with their constituents and catapult an unknown candidate into a known candidate.

Scott Stanzel has a different “Ah-ha!” moment with each social media type. During the 2004 Presidential race, he realized that blogs had tremendous power when CBS ran a piece on “60 Minutes” reporting that President Bush didn’t fulfill his national service requirement. From there, Power Line posted a blog called “The 61^st Minute”, which called into question some of the documents that drove that story and, ultimately, brought on the firing of Dan Rather. That’s when Scott said he realized, “Man, this has a lot of power.”

For Allison Byrne Fields, the moment came down to this: ”What got social media to be such a core part of politics” was that the “cost per vote went down, [and] suddenly it became cost-efficient to reach out to young people.” It’s a cost-efficient way to utilize volunteers and tap into the enthusiasm that exists. ”That’s all it is,” she said. “It’s not beautiful, it’s just cheaper.” When applied to politics, social media is just ”door-knocking online,” she added.

How can you be authentic in social media, especially with high-ranking candidates?

 If you want an authentic voice, “ask supporters to speak on your behalf.” – Allison Byrne Fields

“As a candidate, if you want real engagement, you have to let go of the reins a little bit. As a staff, you can’t control them that much. You’re going to make mistakes. But the more you do it, the more you have that real engagement, the more people are going to cut you some slack if you say a dumb thing once in a while.” – Scott Stanzel

Authenticity is the most important currency in social media and politics. You have to be real to connect with people and get candidates to let down their guard and break down the “handled” experience.  – Zach Silk

From the audience Q&A:

How do you make social media interactive? When do you engage with comments and fans?

• If you’re out there and you stand for something, stand up!
• Provide education and foster communication, but you won’t have time to comment on everything. Do moderate comments on occasion, but make those judgments based on the type of community you’ve built, in addition to your staffing, time, and resources.

U.S. politics are very divisive. Do you think social media makes people more or less divisive, or is it an echo chamber?

• Social media allows for more people to engage in the conversation and be more comfortable in doing so. They may not show up to a rally or a debate, but if they can sit at home and dip their toe in the water, that’s great.
• Social media has broken down institutional walls but it’s still the “wild west” — very new and fresh.
• We haven’t figured out all the best values — how to behave and the best mechanisms yet — but they’re working on how to build the tools in a way to create the best level of engagement. For example, allowing anonymous comments at the bottom of a news article isn’t really the best place for dialogue.

What’s the “next big thing” in social media that will impact future elections?

• Geo-location and mobile will vastly impact how to organize volunteers and reach out to people in ways where they can act. It will give campaign organizers a cheaper way that will require less management and engage more people.
• Social media will also provide more authentic, direct communication with candidates and elected officials when it comes to Q&A, in ways that go beyond Facebook and Twitter.

To find out more about social media and the political realm, check out these recaps:

• “Social media is the ‘wild wild west’ of political campaigns” – from Kyle Moore on King 5 News
• More about Allison Byrne’s “Ah ha!” moment from Nicole Parilee’s blog post, “What Got Barack Obama Elected.”

Thanks again to our wonderful sponsor, Woodmark Hotel! It couldn’t have been a better evening – the view overlooking the lake, the warm hospitality you showed us, and the opportunity to meet Woody, the celebrity pup!

Laura Kimball directs social media for Jolkona and blogs at Lamiki.com

“The Oatmeal” is known for super-viral and incredibly funny cartoons and quizzes like “How to Suck at Facebook” and “How long could you survive chained to a bunk-bed with a velociraptor?”

The creator of The Oatmeal, Matt Inman, shared his wisdom on creating viral content and leveraging social networks in a question and answer session led by SMC Seattle board member Brian Westbrook.  The interview itself is great and worth watching, but if you are short on time here are some of the highlights.

How Inman Got his Start
Although Inman started drawing comics as a kid, he sort of stumbled onto creating the comics and quizzes that made “The Oatmeal” famous doing other work. He was working on his own dating site and started using quizzes and comics to market it.  He quickly saw the popularity of the quizzes and comics themselves.  He realized he didn’t want to do a dating site for a living and so he started focusing on comics.

Where “The Oatmeal” name came from
Inman’s handle on the game “Quake” was Quaker Oatmeal.  When he couldn’t think of an SEO friendly name that fit his comics he just picked “The Oatmeal”.

How Inman comes up with funny comics and quizzes
Inman says his secret is to pick a common gripe, like people who suck at Facebook and give it an edge.  He says if you can tap into people frustration you can really hit a nerve.  When you find something really relatable and emotional people will spread it on their own.

A few social media secrets
Inman says playing the newbie will sometimes help you get your work on Digg and Reddit, without getting flamed.  He also says Stumble Upon sends him a surprising amount of traffic so it’s worth sending your content there as well.

What role does SEO play?
While Inman has a background in SEO he says he doesn’t believe that played a role in the success of “The Oatmeal”.  Instead he says creating content that people found funny and linked to, shot “The Oatmeal” to the top of Google searches.  He says if you want to do well build lots of quality content and the organic traffic will come.

There are a lot of good hints on creating viral content in the interview, so it’s worth watching. Thanks to a great crowd for another great event.

Thank you to our sponsors, FILTER and Ascentium!

FILTER is a company dedicated to partnering with clients to solve creative and marketing challenges. In a single, unique agency, FILTER combines unparalleled access to creative resources with creative leadership and project management. FILTER has offices in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Check them out at http://FilterTalent.com and http://twitter.com/FILTERTalent

Ascentium is a tight-knit band of writers, designers, user experience architects, solution architects, developers, testers, analysts, strategists, planners, creative directors, and project managers. The group is dedicated to creating and delivering exceptional experiences—multichannel, interactive, transactional, and social. Check them out at http://www.ascentium.com and http://twitter.com/ascentium.

Nationally renowned speaker and author Jason Falls talk at SMC was our fast-selling event ever, with tickets snatched up in eight hours!  Falls talk lived up to the hype with an audience held rapt with a talk on “Moving the Needle”  (conversations and engagement are great, but alone don’t drive the bottom line).

SMC Seattle July Event: Move the Needle! from SMC Seattle on Vimeo.

Let’s face it, if you are getting paid to do social media for a company, no matter how many great “conversations” you are having with customers if it’s not saving the company money or driving sales it’s going to be hard to justify the budget once the new-fangledness of social media wears off.  Falls pointed to a direction where you can engage customers and still make business owners happy.

And CEO’s are not going to be happy with the “we should be engaging with customers on Facebook, because everyone else is” for long.   More and more business owners are asking if social media is helping the company reach its business goals.  One example used by Falls is Eric Brown of Urbane Apartments.

Brown is asking his people “Are we (through blogging and using Twitter and Facebook) renting more apartments?  Because if we didn’t then social media is just a hobby.”

Falls used some great data that points to just how big a concern this is for business owners.  But armed with that knowledge every social media marketer and community manager can look to ways to make their role indispensable to the company.

Part of that is driving traffic to the place where people spend money while maintaining the customer friendly relationship that makes social media so appealing.  Falls suggested creating valuable content but with the opportunity for people to buy your product as well.  As he put it you aren’t selling, you are helping people buy.

Wiggly Wigglers adds in links to products you can buy in their post.  Indiana Spine Group uses a giant web badge that says we are accepting new patients on their blog about spine health.  But with all the talk on creating valuable content we forget that sometimes people are coming to our company just to buy.  Look at the success of the Dell Outlet twitter feed or the Dollar General circular Facebook page.

Falls also tackled the question that is talked about the most “What is the ROI on social media?”  Falls said that depends on your business goals.  But it is actually not as hard to track as many might think.  You just need to link it to some more commonly used metrics.  For example if you know that 10% of you email subscribers spend atleast $100 and your Facebook campaign drove 10,000 new email signups then your Facebook campaign likely made the company an extra $100,000.

But to that end it’s important to figure out what your business goals are for your social media efforts.  Drive sales? Cut customer service costs? Drive brand awareness?  From there set very specific goals and metrics to prove you are achieving them.  Then when your boss asked “What have you done for the company lately?”  You bust out your list of achievements and go celebrate with champagne (or at least smile to yourself.)

The talk was absolutely jam-packed with actionable information so it’s definitely worth watching the excellent video of the presentation put together by SMC Board Member Greg Young.

To learn more about Jason, visit his blog  http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/

Also if you love seeing great presentations on social media and other geek stuff, join people like you from around the world and register for Gnomedex now.

Thank you to our sponsors: Microsoft Office 2010 and Spring Creek Group

Microsoft Office 2010.

Access to the tools you need to get things done, anywhere. Productivity tools should evolve to meet the needs of diverse users. Office 2010reflects feedback from the millions of people who rely on Office. Why do we like Office 2010? Socialize your inbox with the Outlook Social Connectors for Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Windows Live. Or, use the Web Apps to collaborate and co-author content from a number of browsers. It’s easy and intuitive to create great content to share with friends, family and colleagues with a click of a button.  Office 2010 was built with everyday people like you in mind. Give Office 2010 a spin and see for yourself.

Spring Creek Group

Spring Creek Group is an established social media brand analytics, strategy, and marketing services agency located in Seattle. Whether you need help with your social media accounts or need to run a successful campaign to launch a new product, Spring Creek Group has the experience and passion to help you through the process. The team is comprised of passionate and experienced marketing professionals. Follow them on Twitter: @SpringCreekGrp

http://springcreekgroup.com