By Page Sands, R2i

I recently analyzed a company’s social media practices using R2i’s 4 Ways to Leverage Social Media.  What I realized is that most companies are adept in using the message distribution qualities of the tools, but are not as strong in using them to develop relationships with customers.

By Paul Duning, publisher, Capitol Communicator

It is back to school season and, for those that have college kids, social media is the communications platform of choice for today’s e-MOMs. Learn how Gloria Bianco uses the internet to monitor and impact her son Jeffrey’s college experience.

Thought Leadership Series: Paul Vogelzang interviewed Cary Hatch, president and CEO of MDB Communications, for a Capitol Communicator TV interview on "disruptive advertising"  sponsored by CDIA (www.cdiabu.com).  The Capitol Communicator TV Thought Leadership Series podcast is up in iTunes now.  The video and a transcript of the interview follow:

By Rob Whittle, president and CEO of Williams Whittle and Williams Whittle Digital, and Read More »

By Lindsey Hill, R2integrated

Sort of like a middle school dance, girls on one side of the room, boys on the other…marketing and technology teams often find themselves in similar situations. Yes, marketing and IT professionals do come from different worlds, but I would argue that they intersect more often than not and that both parties should really embrace that.

By Phil Rabin, editor, Capitol Communicator

As soon as Rep. Joe Wilson was identified as the person whose angry and audible outburst disrupted President Barac Read More »

Ernie Mosteller, an award-winning creative director at  Brunner Digital, posted a piece in Adotas about video on the web. The piece is reprinted below and, as you will note, he states that there are good, cheap web videos. There are bad ones, too. Just like there are good expensive web videos, and bad ones to go along with those. It’s not the price that makes it work, or fail. It’s the idea. 

By Matt Goddard

In the last part of our series on The Social Media Marketing Framework the focus is on market research.  Brands have relied on market research since branding and marketing first became an actual “thing.”  As individuals we do market research all the time.  Any information we have about how the people around us will react to a statement, offer, or excuse can be invaluable and certainly help with whatever goal we are trying to reach.

Rick Gardinier, Chief Digital Officer, Brunner Digital, posted an interesting item in Silicon Angle titled "How Can We Be Creative if We're Drowning in Data? Here's Rick's piece:

by Robert Silverstein

I read that the company that publishes Reader’s Digest magazine is filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Citing a decline in circulation and an inability to fully finance its debt, the company will undergo a corporate reorganization and hopes to emerge from bankruptcy in a strong enough position to continue to survive. But, the question that those of us in the publishing business should ask is

by Matt Goddard

Our series continues with the third part of our social marketing framework: How social media execution can help accelerate our message. Message distribution has always relied on sharing; in fact the entire concept of word of mouth marketing was based on peer-to-peer sharing. We also know that word-of-mouth is very powerful because

The DC office of Fleishman Hillard provided us with the following trends worth tracking: MediaPost reported that people's online behaviors are becoming more integrated into their offline interactions and, in a second item that Starbucks surpassed Coca-Cola as Facebook's most popular corporate brand; and CBC News reported: After their $3,500 Taylor guitar was broken last year by United Airlines baggage handlers at Chicago's O'Hare airport, Canadian band Sons of Maxwell appealed to the airline for compensation. Instead, they got what they describe as a "runaround" and a denied claim. Frustrated, the folk group's lead singer Dave Carroll took to YouTube with the first of three songs he promised to write about his experience.

Budgets continue to be slashed.  Brands are disappearing.  Media is getting more and more fragmented.  The only thing getting bigger is our federal deficit.  So, asks Scott Morgan, president of Brunner, Read More »

By Matt Goddard

In the last post we talked about the first part of our social marketing framework. Now we are going to talk about part two – creating your own community.

The first thing I want to talk about is creation of a community; you can’t just create your own community. Communities take time to form and when we try to build a place on the web and then expect all our community members to show up, we usually come up empty.

Here's another in a series of Paul's Picks from Capitol Communicator publisher Paul Duning. Check out the video. Need we say more. Also, thank you to all who attended or participated last night at our Connecting Communicators event. It was fun.

By Matt Goddard, R2integrated

My last blog post outlined four major categories for a social media marketing plan.   Despite the many different social approaches to social media marketing, we argued that there are only four real categories:

1.    Reach out to an existing community
2.    Create your own community
3.    Accelerate your message through sharing tools
4.    Perform market research

My next set of posts will look at each category individually, examining a specific company and the tactics they utilize.   We will also review customer behavior.  If tactics ar Read More »

As we advance from the Information Age into the Creative Age, writes Nil Sismanyazici-Navaie, VP/Account Services, Equals Three Communications, Inc., the definition of a marketer and an artist becomes more interconnected and complex.

Some of you may already be familiar with R2i’s SMASH technology. For those who aren’t, SMASH (social mash-up) is a platform that allows you to create a single multimedia showcase that incorporates live feeds from multiple channels, including Twitter, Flickr, text messaging, mobile video, Ustream, webcasting and multimedia. The result is

When was the last time you did something different, writes Ernie Mosteller of Brunner Digital.  Never-mind the time you wore the tutu in Central Park -- I'm talking to advertising people, here, and I'm just asking, "Done anything different lately?"

The following case study, writes Chris Huebner, Mac Mannes Inc, increased referrals and customer response.  It focuses on the effective uses of promotional products even in a down economy.  Craig Strent, vice president of Bethesda-based Apex Home Loans

By Paul Duning, Capitol Communicator

Evan and Gregg Spiridellis have come a long way since their first viral video hit in February 2000 of the Founding Fathers rapping about the Declaration of Independence. Their latest, “He’s Barack Obama He’s Come to Save the Day” is a great example that their obsession of creating great work is alive and well. After years and years of living on the edge of bankruptcy, today Jib Jab, with a staff of 35, now has a very strong international brand and successful busines ... Read More »

Author: Matt Goddard, R2integrated

There are many aspects of social marketing, social media, social tools, social EVERYTHING that we have been working hard to, shall I say, crystallize. After much time and diligence, we finally have something that we are calling our social marketing framework (for lack of a more creative name at this time).

Whether you’re a long-time staffer or young professional, there’s never been a better time to have a candid talk with yourself. The current economic decline presents an opportunity - or perhaps necessity - to reassess your professional situation, talents, passion and align them with where you, your profession and the market are going.

You can’t write a social media story right now unless it’s heavily Twitterized,  wrote Ernie Mosteller of Brunner Digital in ADOTAS.

While in search of a silver lining to an otherwise bleak economic outlook, it occurred to Cary Hatch, president and CEO of MDB Communications, that never in her decades of navigating the peaks and valleys of commerce has she ever seen more brilliant people out of work. Her observations follow:

The past three downturns were often HR opportunities to “trim the Read More »

Author: Lindsey Hill, R2integrated

Sort of like a middle school dance, girls on one side of the room, boys on the other…marketing and technology teams often find themselves in similar situations. Yes, marketing and IT professionals do come from different worlds, but I would argue that they intersect more often than not and that both parties should really embrace that.

Chris Huebner from Mac Mannes, Inc. provided us with the following item, which focuses on how new conservations laws will affect the mobile advertising market.

$295 bi-ll-io-n. This is not the revenue of a corporate conglomerate but rather, it is the amount given by Americans to charitable organizations in 2006, according to a Giving USA Foundation report. To put this in perspective: This is the same amount invested by the world during the course of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  It is fitting to say, now more than ever, there is an importance of being earnest.  Lauren Marr of Equals Three Communications Read More »

I’ve seen a lot of tweets lately, writes Shaun Quigley, Interactive Practice Director of Brunner Digial, from marketing director clients past and present—all chirping about how they are coaching, educating and spoon-feeding (force-feeding?) their management teams about the world of social media. Shaun's seven things your management team should know about the social web follow:

The obituaries for print magazines seem to be everywhere. Fueled by the shift to electronic media and the decline of advertising revenues, it seems that not a day goes by without hearing about the shuttering of a print media product. But, as the saying goes, don’t believe everything you read. Print is not dead,  we hear from Robert Silverstein, principal of Advertising Sales Experts, Inc.