It seems as though every kind of organization from multinational to small business to nonprofit are beginning to believe that social media should be an important component of their marketing programs. In our own Southwest Florida community, this is clear from the organic growth of the social media coffee sessions organized by a savvy local marketer, Cyndee Woolley. The perceived importance of social media marketing has grown with astonishing speed even compared to the relatively rapid growth of the business Web. Click here to see more articles on social media. MORE >>

There continues to be a lot of chatter on the social media front about Google Wave , which was opened up to a meager 100,000 thousand users last week via private invitations. and social media technologies. It blends elements of email, wikis, instant messaging and social networking to try to make it easier for people to plan everything from a dinner to a presentation, in real time. But the verdict is still out. It begs to question if Google has developed a collaboration tool that society still needs to grow into. But these conversations aren’t just messages. MORE >>

As a marketing professional, I have often come across clients, who think Social Media is nothing but a passing fad. They refuse to see the value social media can add to their marketing programs and are obviously missing out on the benefits of one of most the defining trends of our times. Social media marketing is a term that describes use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Social media marketing has three important aspects. MORE >>

skip to main | skip to sidebar Strategic Guy Timely views and best practices in the world of technology public relations Sunday, April 12, 2009 Three Phases of Social Media Maturation At Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) weve been through the cycle. From start-up to execution and now ROI evaluation, we have lived the maturation of social media and digital public relations programs. It was during one of these discussions at a Starbucks tucked in a corner of a shopping mall in Washington, DC that a client helped define the three phases of a social media initiative. MORE >>

As many of the attendees are Human Resources executives, naturally the conversation of this session “Online Social Networking for the Professional” focused on both growing and managing the impact of social media upon and within the enterprise from the HR and Legal perspective. We often work with companies to create enterprise-level social media integration plans and conduct best practice training. See my earlier blog post that details leading blog and social media policies). Socializing the reporting as a positive act may be necessary to get the ball rolling. MORE >>