Maggie Fox is the Founder and CEO of Social Media Group, one of the largest independent social media agencies in the world. While working at SMG, Maggie has helped to create and execute social media strategies for the  likes of Ford Motors, SAP, Thomson Reuters, 3M and CNN. Maggie is a regular  speaker at the top social media events and has been interviewed by The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, CBC Radio and CTV News. She was named one of the Top 100 Marketers in the 100th anniversary edition of Marketing Magazine. Maggie also sits on the Advisory Board for Social Media Today and My Venture Pad sites.You can follow Maggie on Twitter , Facebook or LinkedIn.

G: How and why did you get into social media?

M: I’ve worked in the web business for over a decade, but started blogging personally in 2004. It was a great outlet and I really enjoyed the closeness of that community in the early days – I still remember meeting my very first Internet friend!

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

M: I tend and feed my network, which largely centres around Twitter these days, several times a day. On busy days, not as often. That means sharing what I’m doing, reading, and thinking, as well as connecting with people I know and find really interesting. I also often upload pictures to both Twitter and Facebook. I also make an effort to comment on posts that link to us and connect with people who find our work interesting.

G: What are your favourite social media hang out sites?

M: Generally Facebook and Twitter, but I am also finding Tumblr very interesting and also make an effort to check out new and emerging platforms as I can. Internally, we use Yammer, which is also great for sharing content and connecting with the folks I work with.

G: How are you keeping up-to-date with social media environment ?

M: Ugh. I never seem to be able to read as much as I should, and I get inputs in two ways – “human RSS” via Twitter (links people share) and actually via email, of all things – I really need to rely on other people to curate content for me since my time is so limited!

G: How would you define a  Social Media Citizen?

M: Someone who connects and engages on social platform – a member of our social community!

G: What are your favourite Social Media Citizens?

M: My favourites are:

• Mathew Ingram,
• Jeremiah Owyang,
• Aaron Strout,
• Sarah Prevette.

G: What are your Top 3 secrets of social media marketing?

M: My Top 3:

• Be yourself
• Deliver value
• Think differently

G: What do you see in the future for the social media?

M: Everything is social.

G: What don’t you like about social media?

M: It can be a time suck – it’s true!

G: What is the funniest/most unexpected thing that happened due to social media?

M: Being able to start a business and do ground breaking work year after year; it’s been amazing.

G: How did social media change your life?

M: I have never met so many new people, or had such a diverse group of friends. Social has changed my life by allowing me to.

***

A big Thank You to Maggie for her great insights!! You can find the rest of the interviews with the Social Media Citizens at SMC List or Social Media interviews category.

Tom H. C. Anderson is the founder and managing partner of Anderson Analytics, a full-service market research consultancy that takes a “next generation” approach to research by fusing advanced analytics and traditional methodologies with leading edge technologies. Named the “Uncrowned Father of Web 3.0 Market Research” (Research Business Report, 2009), Tom is also a prominent blogger, recognized authority on social media, and the founder of Next Gen Market Research (NGMR), one of the most active networking groups for market researchers on the Web. Tom served as the elected U.S. representative to ESOMAR in 2010, an international professional association for market researchers and is chairman of the Foundation for Transparency in Offshoring (FTO). You can follow Tom on Twitter , Linkedin or Facebook. 

G: How would you define a social media “influencer”?

T: Anyone who is active on a social media channel of any sort is an influencer. Conversely, they can also be influenced to some degree. Obviously some have a much wider reach and are also more well respected (likely to be listened to). Bloggers have the added importance of having whatever they say be ‘evergreen’, well perhaps not always pertinent, but whatever they’ve said can come up in a search engine result anytime. So to me, and more and more savvy marketers, influence is defined on a sliding scale. This is what services like Klout.com are attempting to measure in a somewhat simplistic way.

G: How do you measure the influence?

T: Depends on the specific media source of course. If it’s a blog, actual traffic as measured on sites like compete.com, Alexa.com (neither usually too accurate) etc. are good. What you have to keep in mind when you look at a site like Compete.com though is that depending on the provider and host of the blog it may not be giving you just the statistics for actual readers of just that single blog, but the stats for everything on that specific domain. I’ve seen some of the blogs in my industry get an unfair boost because of this. If the blog is hosted as part of the same domain as the rest of the information and service offering of a large company, trade directory etc. then often this other traffic not pertaining to the blogs popularity can get counted. Sometimes even their survey traffic benefits their traffic and SEO (relevant for issue for me as I’m in the market research industry).  My blog is totally separate, for better or worse, so I don’t benefit for these errors in measurements. Though I sometimes wonder if I should have run my blog off of www.andersonanalytics.com domain rather than www.tomhcanderson.com to take advantage of some of these scale benefits. However I realized that having them separate allowed me a lot more freedom in terms of content etc. As for Twitter, well clearly Followers are a pretty good indicator of influence. Arguably, even better than followers on twitter is # of times listed. A combination of these two metrics is better of course. After that, re-tweets etc. However, I find that these secondary level metrics such as “re-tweets” contains a lot of errors. Some of the accounts with the most followers, such as my account on Twitter is often not captured in the public timeline. This can happen for various reasons. Suffice it to say, that the most influential on Twitter are sometimes even more influential than you think, because a lot of the ‘re-tweets’ etc. do not appear in the public timeline and Twitter search tools and therefore is not counted for these most influential users by services like Klout. Engagement, is certainly important. PostRank is trying to measure this across a few channels. They and many other services connect to several social networks including Twitter, Facebook and even blogs. I know they are working on adding LinkedIn currently. The most influential of us though a are clearly not active only on a single network, but across multiple networks. Just like a luxury product goes well with another luxury product, so do different social media channels This way they take advantage of both Reach AND Frequency.

G: Who/What is influencing you on Social Media Properties?

T: It’s not really so much who as what. I’m influenced by what I find interesting. Wired and Mashable are certainly interesting sources for information. When I first got into social media, specifically when I was trying to understand Twitter, Guy Kawasaki was an inspiration to me as well. He gave a lot of helpful tips on his blog. However, as with all of us, we share certain tips and keep others secret

G: What are the key mistakes when targeting influencers and how to avoid them?

T: Depends on what you’re targeting them with. But generally I would say you need to appeal to them. If you want them to do something, you need to give them an idea of what’s in it for them, without being offensively obvious about it. The fact is that you need their help more than they need yours, so you have to be political about it. Secondly, a canned message rarely works. If you truly want to get them on your side, you better let them know that you actually are a fan and know what they are about.

G: Do you think targeting influencers is overrated or is it an important part of Social Media Strategy?

T: Of course it’s important and it will become even more important as social networks continue to connect us all. Putting aside the super influencers for a minute, we also need a strategy for everyone else. The Long tail of influencers if you will. We’re not quite there yet, but I think in the same way that it makes sense to target super influencers with information that lets them know you are a fan or similar to them, text mining and data mining will allow us to customize this type of messaging for masses in the future with less time invested. Not exactly sure what it will look like. It may be a new version of Phishing and Spamming or “Spear Phishing” as Jeff Jonas, Chief Scientist at IBM calls it. He views this as something that will first be used by criminals, but I’m guessing marketers will be there just as fast

G: What are the trends that you are following at the moment and feel most passionate about?

T: I follow Text Analytics and Data Mining in general, also in terms of social network analysis Link Analysis, CRM Analysis are also of great interest. Web tracking is another area. Finally, widgets and other applications have yet to be truly leveraged in my industry.

G: How the growth of social commerce will affect marketers? Why is it important?

T: We’ve always been interested in WOM. Now we can actually see it in real-time!

G: How the growth of new media platforms (mobile, tablets) will affect marketers?

T: Same way, but in real-time everywhere, globally!

G: Is social media integration becoming a quality standard of successful company?

T: Certainly, there is a way to leverage social media and social networks specifically no matter what industry you are in and no matter whether you are on B2B side or B2C side of business. Additionally, in an area that is as dynamic and fast paced there are tremendous first mover advantages.

G: How and why did you get into social media?

T: Time is money, so there definitely is a huge cost to doing social media marketing right. That said, when you really think about it, there is no better marketing ROI out there if you are doing it right. Also it’s easier to measure success than with other marketing methods.

G: What are your favourite social media hang-out sites? (Other than FB, Twitter and LinkedIn)

T: I’ll check out new sites from time to time. Was just checking out a site called Plurk.com yesterday. We do a lot of research among youth, specifically college students, and we always ask what sites are their current favorites. This research along with reading Wired etc. helps me keep on top of things. Also, when you have as many connections as I do, you get fed a lot of relevant and interesting information through these connections. I just have to be careful in balancing time allotted to this part of the business.

G: Is sharing becoming a form of showing gratitude to your peers rather a relevant metric?

T: I suppose that enters into it a little, but probably less so for me. I figure you are building a brand. I feel as part of that you have an obligation not to retweet something you don’t feel is of interest to you. So yes, I read, or at least scan everything I tweet. If I tweet something or post something its usually because it’s of interest to me. I think my followers know that, so why would I break that trust. Then it just becomes aggregation spamming, there’s so much of that already, and what’s the fun in that?

G: What are your favourite social media campaigns?

T: I liked Crispin Porters ‘Facebook Unfollow’ campaign for Burger King a few years ago. I think any company that does something interesting, takes a risk, is doing it right. Those who worry too much, or start into a long apology if just a few verbose ‘influencers’ are offended (Absolut and Chrysler are examples of this), don’t get social media. You have an obligation to understand which of your customers are on a certain social media channel, listen to them and give them what they want. What you say on that channel can be different from what is said on other channels. It’s called Segmentation for goodness sake!

Brian is the co-founder and product lead of Flip.to. He’s been breathing life into web products for over 10 years as a hybrid developer/designer. As a Brooklyn-born, engineer by schooling, world traveler by preference, visionary by self-proclamation, Brian is a proponent of social media, travel and new technology bridging the two. You can follow Brian on Twitter and Linkedin.

G: Tell us a little about your start-up?

B: Flip.to is a platform that helps hotels & restaurants earn new guests by turning their current guests into a huge team of trusted advocates.

Here’s an example of how it works for hotels. After a guest books a room, Flip.to incentivizes them to spread the word about their upcoming trip and where they’ll be staying. So if you’ve just booked a room at The James Chicago, you’ll earn a complimentary room upgrade certificate in all of two clicks. And the hotel just reached all of your friends, family & followers in a really natural way- boosting brand awareness and deepening their pool of potential future guests.

Just as Flip.to engages hotel guests at convenient touch points (like at time of booking, suggestions when they arrive, a quick review after their stay), Flip.to engages restaurant guests right from their table on their own mobile device. Restaurants learn who their guests are, incentivize happy ones to spread the word, make a personalized connection with their friends and get negative reviews turned into real-time alerts for staff- all in a few swipes and taps.

G: What were the biggest obstacles launching the start-up and how did you overcome them?

B: Like most start-ups, our biggest challenge was getting past that initial inertia when you’re sitting there with only a glimmer of a product and zero customers. Because once the ball is rolling (when you have customers), it becomes easier to build on that traction- both in terms of landing new customers and figuring out what the product should grow up to be.

We started talking to folks in the hospitality industry really early on in the product development process to get their take on what we were doing. It helped validate the direction Flip.to was headed, build some excitement and it’s how we landed one of our very first proponents, who is now heading up our business development. Even before Flip.to was ready to go live, we had signed our first (paying!) beta client.

G: Where should social media be integrated by start-ups? (marketing, customer service and etc)? What are the best ways to do that?

B: Every company needs to take a good look at what their goals are and then match those up to how social media can help- there’s no one-fit solution. For start-ups, doing that is especially important because resources are scarce.

For consumer-oriented start-ups, social media makes sense for customer service provided you can be responsive. But if you’re going to make public the good and the bad about what your customers are saying, you better be on top of it. People don’t expect perfection, things happen, but you can lose credibility if it looks like you’re being unresponsive to issues. For B2B, you should respond directly and give your beta clients direct access to the team.

Using social media for marketing makes lots of sense. Only in the past few years, has it been amazingly easy to reach a large number of people. And social media becomes particularly potent, when folks are pushing out messages about your product or service on their own existing social networks. Flip.to is all about this- the hotels and restaurants using it can reach far beyond their own network by tapping into their guests’ networks, which collectively becomes massively bigger. And hearing something from a friend is always going to be more trusted than from a PR or marketing person.

G: Which social media sites do bring the most value to your start-up?

B: At Flip.to, we’ve found that Facebook has been the most popular place for our hotel’s guests to post about their upcoming trip. It has also generated the most traffic back to the hotel’s site, in terms of visitors and real action. Twitter isn’t far behind, followed by LinkedIn.

G: What are your favourite social media campaigns created by start-ups?

B: You’ll always get my attention if you can make me laugh out loud. Betabrand is a young online clothing company that is proving hilarious, well-written copy is sometimes all you need to get people buzzing. Their “privates” underwear that “promises to block TSA employees from seeing your scanned junk” is a good example of that.

The best social media campaigns feel authentic and for me personally, a little wit goes a long way.

G: What is the funniest/most unexpected thing that happened while developing your startup?

B: The very first incarnation of Flip.to (pre-beta) was to help companies spread the word about new products or services with the help of their employees and customers. We got lots of interesting feedback but as we were kicking ideas around, it felt far more natural for folks to talk about their travel experiences. Plus the marketing budgets for boutique hotels and destination restaurants were hurting after the downturn- helping them turn their guests into advocates just made sense.

A big Thank You to Brian for his great insights!! You can find the rest of the CEO Today interviews  at Social Media interviews category.

Rebecca Lieb is a Vice President at Econsultancy, one of the most famous and biggest communities in the world for digital marketing and ecommerce professionals. Previously, Rebecca was a VP & Editor-in-Chief at The ClickZ Network and was running the redoubtable at SearchEngineWatch.com too. She is also an author of the book -“The Truth About Search Engine Optimization”. You can follow  Rebecca on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or good old Google.

G: How and why did you get into social media?

R: It was inevitable. Both my personal and professional lives are inextricably meshed into the Web. I spend nearly all my working hours online (I know, I know!). So as soon as various forms of social media began to bubble up around the edges of the Internet, I was on board; participating, experimenting, watching, observing and listening.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

R: The consistent part, really, is that it’s not terribly consistent. Rather like real life, you can spend a day, or two, or three, in intense dialogue or collaboration with a person or project, then have to move on to other things. Which is not, of course, saying you won’t return to Person A or Conversation B. I don’t really plan activities. Rather, I talk when I have something to say, and react when someone says something interesting, or poses a question I can respond to, or there’s a conversation I’m interested in participating in or feel I have something to contribute to. Really, it’s like being social in the real world. You’d rarely plan in advance what you were going to say at a dinner party, right? Some days are, of course, more social than others. You can be out there posting up a storm one day, and the next be so subsumed in another project you can’t find the time to tweet even once. Both are perfectly OK.

G: What are your favourite social media hang out sites?

R: I’m using Facebook a lot more than I was in the past for both business and personal reasons. Since I work for a UK based company, LinkedIn is more important for keeping up with business contacts outside the US – there still seems to be that business/personal separation over there that Facebook has largely managed to erode here. Twitter? Of course, but I almost never visit the actual site. That said, Tweetdeck is usually open on my laptop.

G: How are you keeping up-to-date with social media environment ?

R:  We take social media very seriously at Econsultancy. We have a social media marketing manager, we can put a dollar value on a traffic referral from Twitter, we publish research on the social media topic and blog about it regularly. We train marketers in social media on a global basis. In a very real sense, you could say keeping up with social media is what I do for a living.

G: How would you define a  Social Media Citizen?

R: Someone who participates in social media, most likely on a regular-ish basis. Given Facebook’s membership stats, this encompasses a huge slice of the global population.

G: What are your favourite Social Media Citizens?

R: Wow – this is setting me up big time for multiple sins of omission, but off the top of my head, here goes – all people I know and have worked with personally, by the way:

• Pete Blackshaw,
• Ian Schaffer,
• Dave Evans,
• Li Evans,
• Pauline Ores,
• Lee Odden,
• Danny Sullivan,
• Sally Falkow,
• Kristina Halvorson.

I’m going to stop now, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot of other people shouldn’t be on this list.

G: What are your favourite Marketing/PR tools on social media?

R: Changes all the time. And to be honest, we’re not there yet – particularly in the measurement department.

G: What are your Top 3 secrets of social media marketing?

R: There are no secrets in social media marketing, really. It’s probably one of the most un-mysterious forms of marketing there is. As with many digital channels there are firm foundations in real-life marketing: word-of-mouth, customer service, product development, sentiment analysis, etc. etc. It’s keeping up with all the new channels and possibilities that’s complex. But are there actual secrets? Nope. There is, however, one big social media myth (which is, of course, different than a secret). It’s this idea, which is thankfully beginning to dissipate, that social media is “free.” Just because lots of the tools are free doesn’t mean the channels don’t come at a substantial cost: planning, strategy, staff, and other resources are definitively not “free.”

G: What do you see in the future for the social media?

R: Honestly, I’m not married to the term one way or another. But will digital media continue to become more social and interactive? Absolutely. The exciting part is it’s certain to do so in ways we haven’t fathomed yet. That’s the really exciting part!

G: Describe yourself in five tags?

R: Busy, passionate, geeky, multifaceted, redhead.

G: What don’t you like about social media?

R: All of us have numerous personas. You’re one person at work, another to friends and family, and still another as, say, a member of a sport team, or a volunteer group, or someone who owns or uses a specific product. My growing frustration with social media is the inability to manage or to separate all the selves who want to be out there participating in multiple conversations with all various tribes they’re part of, perhaps even in languages other than English. It’s just to hard to do that. I mean, how many Facebook or Twitter profiles does anyone want to have – or to manage? On the other hand, how do you not bore your friends when you’re posting something professional, or seem unprofessional if you’re chatting with intimate friends? Our identities are going online very quickly – but we all have multiple personalities. Social media is not yet well adapted to handle them.

(G: I find this subject very interesting, if you are interested in my opinion on this topic you can find it here.)

G: What is the funniest/most unexpected thing that happened due to social media?

R: Just to prove that social media isn’t as new as you might think, the most unexpected thing online happened to me the very first time I went online with the old Mosaic browser. There weren’t a lot of places to visit, so I went to a store specializing in Macs. In the chat room there was one other person – a college classmate I had lost touch with. Primitive – but certainly an eye-opening form of social media!

***

A big Thank You to Rebecca for her great insights!! You can find the rest of the interviews with the Social Media Citizens at Social Media interviews category

Joe Pulizzi is the Founder of Z Squared Media, a content marketing firm specializing in best practices, strategy, and execution planning. Joe’s blog, the Junta42 blog: Content Marketing Revolution, is recognized as one of the leading blogs on business content creation, marketing and distribution. Joe currently serves as a board member of the Custom Publishing Council and was voted as the “Custom Media Innovator of the Year” by American Business Media. Joe is also co-author of the book “Get Content. Get Customers”. You can follow Joe on Twitter or Linkedin.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

J: As I launched a series of businesses, it was clear that leveraging social media was going to be one of the keys to growing our brands without the availability of a large budget. Social media evens the playing field.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

J: For me, it just is. It’s a part of my day and week:

• I blog at least twice a week and have for almost four years.
• I share interesting stories on Twitter.
• I connect with friends and colleagues on Facebook.
• I answer questions on relevant groups in Linkedin.

Consistency is important. For business, I need to be talking up or sharing something related to my field (content marketing) at all times. I want my friends/fans/followers to always feel they can trust me sending them the best, most relevant and compelling content about the industry.

G: How are you keeping up-to-date with social media environment ?

J: We keep a Top 42 list of content marketing blogs and regularly follow them. These are, in our research, the best of the best…so we learn a lot from them to keep up with the industry. I also set up search criteria in Twitter so that any related tweets pop up first in Tweetdeck so I can check them out.

G: How would you define a  Social Media Citizen?

J: Honestly, I’ve never really considered the term before.  I guess I would define it as this – a Social Media Citizen is someone who adds relevant, compelling information to a conversation, and genuinely helps and affects others in a positive way.

G: What are your favourite Social Media Citizens?

J: My favourites are:

• Lee Odden
• Mack Collier
• Lisa Petrilli
• Pam Kozelka

G: What are your favourite Marketing/PR tools on social media?

J: My favourites are:

• Tweetdeck
• Delicious
• Slideshare

G: What are your favourite social media campaigns?

J: My favourites are:

• Blendtec’s: Will it Blend?
• Avaya: selling a $250k phone system through Twitter
• Old Spice

G: What are your Top 3 secrets of social media marketing?

J: There is only one in my opinion…it’s that the key to social media success is having a consistent, relevant and valuable message to a targeted group of people.  Without having a story to share, why would anyone want to connect with you.  First, focus on who you are targeting and what their pain points are.  Then deliver valuable information to them on a daily basis.  It works.

G: What do you see in the future for the social media?

J: In the future, social media will be called simply marketing. It is a part of how we connect with customers. More tools will be developed that enable us to have more conversation with customers.

G: Describe yourself in five tags?

J: Content Marketing Evangelist.

G: What’s your favourite hobby?

J: Spending time with my wife and two boys.

G: What don’t you like about social media?

J: You can’t turn it off.

G: What is the funniest/most unexpected thing that happened due to social media?

J: My first international speaking engagement came from a direct message on Twitter.  Who knew?

G: How did social media change your life?

J: Social media integration has been a key to the success of our business.  I’m not sure how we’d be where we are without it. It’s also enabled me, personally, to connect with people that I never would have had the opportunity to connect with. 

***

A big Thank You to Joe for his great insights!! You can find the rest of the interviews with the Social Media Citizens at Social Media interviews category

Richard Sedley is the Director of Customer Engagement unit at cScape, an experienced digital agency that delivers highly successful solutions for the clients like Microsoft, Sony, Barclays and Peugeot. Richard is also the Course Director for Social Media at the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He is the co-author of “Winners and Losers in a troubled economy” and blogs at Loopstatic.You can follow Richard on Twitter or Linkedin.

G: How and why did you get into social media?

R: Back at the turn of the century I worked with a number of clients developing online customer communities. My focus was on adoption and the psychology of customer-to-customer, and customer-to-brand interactions. It was really from there that we developed our approach to engagement. If you’re interested in communities I still think that Design for Community by Derek Powazek is one of the best books published.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

R: Mmm. Interesting question. I used to think about social media a lot, now I don’t. I guess it’s just integrated into the fabric of everyday life. I check Twitter before I do my email, I manage my public profile online like I think about what I’m going to wear in the morning and everything I discuss with clients starts from a Social Media perspective. Customer centricity for my clients means ‘digital by default’. (Not everything ends up centred on Social Media but it certainly starts there with research etc.)

G: What are your favourite social media hang out sites?

R: I love Twitter and could spend hours just hanging out reading and conversing but I’ve started to be more disciplined over the last year. I try to use Pomorodo Cycles to maintain productivity at work. Twitter has changed the sentiment of the web for me. It’s made it a much nicer place to hang out. Twitter is my coffee bar where I can meet, greet, exchange and over-hear.

The site that has delivered me the most value over the longest period of time has to be Delicious. I use it to fill the gaps in my memory, as a search engine, as a collaboration tool, to create bespoke RSS feeds, to find potential clients and in loads of other ways as well. You’re welcome to follow the links I save at Delicious

G: How are you keeping up-to-date with social media environment ?

R:  Twitter is my primary source of useful content but I have recently revived my use of RSS readers. (I had stopped using them a few years back preferring to rely on the serendipity of Twitter). Instapaper is a must have to allow me to read later what might distract me at the time.

My favourite RSS readers are:

• Mac: NetNewsWire
• PC: FeedDemon
• iPad: Reeder
• All synced with Google Reader.
• iPhone: Instapaper (G: My favourite iPhone app!)

G: How would you define a  Social Media Citizen?

R: ‘Someone who contributes to the value of the Social Media space.’ This is really more to do with the nature of the social objects they share in the space rather than the connections they have.

G: What are your favourite Social Media Citizens?

R: I generally only follow people I get value from so you can find them here:

http://twitter.com/#!/richardsedley/following

These are four of my friends in the social space who I recommend:

• Digital Marketing: Dr Dave Chaffey
• Finance sector: Ron Shevlin
• Customer service: Guy Stephens
• Third sector: Steve Bridger

G: What are your favourite Marketing/PR tools on social media?

R: I really like Facebook’s ad platform. The targeting capacity and insights you can gain make it one of the most power tools we have. Let me give you an example:

I worked with Diabetes UK and they were creating ads to A/B test copy and value propositions that would be used offline. For a couple of hundred pounds they were able to show ideas to thousands upon thousands of their target audience and work out how to optimise some expensive print material – brilliant.

G: What are your favourite social media campaigns?

R: No question the best is still Greenpeace’s Green My Apple campaign. It used the social space almost perfectly. Greenpeace wanted to put pressure on Apple Computers to improve their environmental credentials. But having a pop at Apple can be difficult because there are so many Apple evangelists ready to stand up and pop back. So instead Greenpeace said they really loved Apple computers but that they’d love them even more if their computers were greener – turning evangelism into an amplifier for the campaign. They called on all Apple fans to share a video, photo or audio clip that echoed this Greenpeace ‘call-to-action’ and to upload it to any social media with the tag #greenmyapple. Content with this tag was then pulled into the site. This has become a technique we see used a lot now by various campaigns, but rarely with as much humour, sophistication and commitment as in the Green My Apple campaign.

G: What are your Top 3 secrets of social media marketing?

R: I don’t really think there is a secret to social media marketing – just hard work, attention to details and delivering value. If I were to share an insight into networking it would have to be you need to like people. People trust people that like them because they feel safe. Many just start from a default position of mistrust and these individuals will always struggle in the social space.

G: What do you see in the future for the social media?

R: The future of social media really rests inside the enterprise. If it is to profoundly change the way we do business the tools and associated behaviours need to impact how we manage people, innovate and organise – not just market and communicate.

G: Describe yourself in five tags?

R: Bald, Enthusiastic, Friendly, Persuasive, Political

G: What don’t you like about social media?

R: I think I sometimes feel a need to perform in order to maintain a consistent persona and as I mentioned before it can be distracting.

G: What is the funniest/most unexpected thing that happened due to social media?

R: I genuinely thought I had an online storker. My role as Course Director for Social Media at the Chartered Institute of Marketing means that I try to join and try out as many different networks and tools as possible. For about six months someone was ‘friending’ me everywhere. Then out of the blue I received an invite to present at an event in Barcelona. He was just checking me out as part of an event he was programming. We are now real friends and he has given me speaking gigs all over the Europe.

G: How did social media change your life?

R: I think it just touches everything I do to a greater or lesser extent. My appreciation of my football team is increased through conversations I have online, my friends and family get to experience my kids, even my Saturday nights are bearable as I tune into Twitter to laugh at the Xfactor contestants.

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A big Thank You to Richard for his great insights!! You can find the rest of the interviews with the Social Media Citizens at Social Media interviews category

David Siteman Garland is the Founder of The Rise To The Top, the web show for entrepreneurs, forward-thinkers, business owners and marketers, as well as The Rise To The Top TV show on ABC. David contributes as a writer and business/entrepreneurial commentator to CNN, CBS Bnet, Small Biz Trends and Personal Branding Blog.  David is also the author of upcoming book – Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business. You can follow David on Twitter or Facebook.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

D: Funny thing is I really didn’t get into social media, social media got into me. I’ve always been a social person and continually crave connection both online and offline. Social media was just a natural extension of hanging out with likeminded people.  When I was an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis in late 2004, Facebook launched. Luckily, Washington University was one of the first 20 schools added so I was one of the first 10,000 users on Facebook (not exactly verified but close). Immediately, I loved it. When I was far younger, I was hanging out in chat rooms and forums (early social media) but there was something much more personal and interesting about how it evolved. Fast forward to now and social media is really how I’ve built The Rise To The Top brand. Because of the ability to connect and engage with likeminded people on social media I was able to take RISE from obscurity in 2008 to a growing 100,000+ following in 2010 and nearly 200 interviews with some of the most unique entrepreneurs in the world.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

D: I love it because I’m a people person and a content creator with my show and upcoming book. I love spending a big part of my day connecting with people. It is just who I am. I don’t really have a typical day, but being a content creator and creating something at least five days a week (videos and interviews) ensures that I’m really active. I make sure every day to respond to @ replies on Twitter, share my interviews and articles, share content from others (super important), offer random insights and also hunt for interesting people to follow and connect with. On Facebook, it is similar. I put a lot of effort in to really get to know people and not just view it as a place to share links. Social media is an incredible relationship building tool if you allow it and that is huge for any hustling entrepreneur. Caring is severely underrated.

G: What are your favourite social media hang out sites?

D: My two favourites are Facebook and Twitter. A disclaimer: I believe you can have lots of success on ANY social media site big or small if you are willing to put in the time and effort as well as understand that those that succeed in social media do so because they passionately give as opposed to just take. Anyway, off the soapbox. Facebook is something I find really personal and interesting. You can really get to know someone on there because personal is often mixed with business. We all do business with people we know, like and trust and hey if I’ve seen the photos of your baby…there is something to be said about that. Twitter is my favourite place online to meet new people and keep up with many relationships at once. It is like a ridiculously large sea of interesting people on there. There are always cool new folks emerging and old, indispensable favourites as well.

G: How are you keeping up-to-date with social media environment ?

D: I keep an eye on a few of the big sites and more personal ones when it comes to social media. Some of my favourites include:

• Brian Solis
• Chris Brogan
• Jay Baer (Convince and Convert)
• Amber Naslund
• Social Media Examiner
• Mashable

G: How would you define a  Social Media Citizen?

D: A social media citizen is someone that goes beyond just understanding the technology and benefits. A social media citizen is someone that really understands how to give value to others and small talk as well as “getting” that social media is not a one night stand but a long term relationship.

G: What are your favourite Social Media Citizens?

D: That is like choosing between children for me as I’ve interviewed literally hundreds of them on my show. Some of my favourites besides the ones listed above include:

• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Sarah Evans
• Dan Schawbel
• Chris Guillebeau and the list goes on.

G: What are your favourite Marketing/PR tools on social media?

D: I only use a couple of tools. My favourite one is Hootsuite. Not only is run by great people, but is a useful tool for managing all of your sites, shortening links and mastering the technology even if you aren’t a techie (which I’m not…I’m more of a person who loves using functional tech).

G: What are your favourite social media campaigns?

D: Interesting question. I’m a big fan of not using the word campaign. Because campaign to me screams impersonal big brand and ewwwwwww. I think a better way is to look at success. Who has had success building a brand using the tools? I think one of the best examples is Gary Vaynerchuk. Why? Even though he did have success before social media existing (running a traditional retail wine company with his Dad) he really became a sensation because of social media and his ability to create (Wine Library TV), connect (with wine lovers initially and later on business lovers…that sounds awkward you know what I mean), and small talk (connect one-on-one with people). He really did things smarter, faster, cheaper and now is known around the world as a trusted resource when it comes to wine, building a brand on social media, business and more. And that is really cool.

G: What are your Top 3 secrets of social media marketing?

D: My Top 3 is:

• Give (valuable links to content…yours and others, information, inspiration)
• Connect (don’t be afraid to reach out and form more relationships)
• Small Talk (being a human defeats being a logo every time)

G: What do you see in the future for the social media?

D: Great question and sometimes it is hard to look into the crystal ball. The language and tools might change, but the ability to connect one-on-one with people online isn’t going anywhere which is awesome. The funny thing is this. I feel like we are going to either see major fragmentation (more niche sites popping up) or one site domination. Time will tell. I will go out on a limb though for better or worse and predict that the term will still be around in five years.

G: What’s your favourite hobby?

D: Hard to say just one. Life along with conversations, hanging out with the three F’s – family, friends, fiancée. Sports, writing, interviewing - I would do what I do now even if I didn’t get paid for it.

G: How did social media change your life?

D: Social media has been something amazing to meet literally thousands of people I might not have ever connected with otherwise. Plus, it has given hustling entrepreneurs (like me) an amazing tool to build a community. The RISE community has gone from 0 to over 100,000 big thinkers in less than two years because of the ability to connect on social media all of the cost of time and effort as opposed to a big budget. And this led to a major book deal with Wiley Publishing of Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business . I think that is pretty nuts (in a good way) because social media allows you to put yourself on the map as opposed to waiting to be discovered.

G: What don’t you like about social media?

D: Very little. If I had to pick one thing it would be the real time illusion. Meaning, there is sort of this illusion that you have be present on there 24/7 or you will lose any effort you have put into it. Yes, it takes time and effort to see results, but it can’t take over your life. Don’t let it. Also, the obsession of ROI especially with bigger brands. While they are trying to figure out the ROI of spending time on there, hustling entrepreneurs like us are using that time to build our brands. Joke is on them, haha.

G: What is the funniest/most unexpected thing that happened due to social media?

D: All kinds of funny stuff has happened. But, anytime I meet someone in real life where we were connected on social media beforehand, it is always awesome. For example, I was with my fiancée on a trip to San Francisco this past year and went to the Cardinals-Giants baseball game. I tweeted that I was there and one of my followers said she was there too. She came over and said hi to both of us. Amazing when connections from the virtual world end up in the real world. Mind-boggling cool when you really think about it. And this isn’t an isolated incident. I get to meet fans of RISE all over the world. I was in Chicago sitting at a pool and three guys were talking business near me. I asked them if they were entrepreneurs and they said yes. After asking about their company, they asked about what I do and I told them. And then one guy said, “Wait a minute! I follow you on Twitter. I’m a fan of the show.” That was a crazy feeling. I mean crazy.

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A big Thank You to David for his great insights!! You can find the rest of the interviews with the Social Media Citizens at Social Media interviews category

Paul Dunay is Global Managing Director of Services and Social Marketing for Avaya, a global leader in enterprise communications, and author of 3 Dummies books: Facebook Marketing for Dummies, Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies and Facebook Advertising for Dummies. Paul’s blog Buzz Marketing for Technology  has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008, a Top Blog to Watch for 2009 and 2008, and an Advertising Age Power 150 blog in the “Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs”. You can follow Paul on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin.

G: Describe yourself in five tags?

P: Passionate, Innovative, B2B, Technology, Marketer

G: What’s your favourite hobby?

P: Boating in all forms. I love being on the water whether it is in a motorboat, racing a sailboat to Bermuda or racing a small one man boat like a Laser or Dyer against other racing enthusiasts. So far I raced over 1000 nautical miles this year. Now my whole family is into sailing and racing so its hard to keep up with us.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

P: I was an early adopter of podcasting back in 2005. I had worked in a speech technology firm back in 2003 creating MP3 files of our applications – which were really just me and a tech guy recording our voice and mimicking what our speech application would say. So when I read in June 2005 that Apple was accepting MP3 files (or podcasts as they became named) I remember telling my wife I was going to be the first guy to get something up there in my field. And in fact I was, by August 2005 I had my first podcast series up and running ahead of anyone in my firm or any of our competitors. So early that many in my firm called me the podcast kid (which I frankly didn’t like). And this was mainly to promote my firms services and solutions. I then decided to start sharing this knowledge in the form of a blog which I started in Feb 2006 called Buzz Marketing for Technology and this blog is still with my today – over 400 blog posts and about 100 podcasts (on the blog) later I am still growing and sharing every idea I can come up with on how to use technology to create buzz for your company.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

P: Well thanks for calling me that – it beats the podcast kid moniker! (G: ) My day starts early at 5:30 am (sleeping is over rated) where I clean out my inbox from the night before (yes I am a “go to zero” inbox guy) then I start cruising my Google reader where I have organized my 300 plus blogs that I follow – reading learning and tweeting out what I find. I consider myself a “bird dog” since I read so much that if you follow me you get a pretty clean stream of good material I found useful. Then I hit Facebook and start interacting with my pages, and my profile as well as I always recognize my followers on their birthdays (just a pet thing that I believe in). Then I usually workout and get to work. I am social support for Avaya so I monitor the term Avaya for people who sound like they need help and respond as quickly as I can to get them up and running again. When I get home I spend time with the family then clean out my inbox, check my reader and respond to comments before going to bed and the whole thing starts over again the next day. Weekends are for blogging and writing books. I don’t do my podcast series any more so this allows me more time to do what I think is higher value social activity like the blog or a new book.

G: What are your favourite Marketing/PR tools on social media?

P: I always feel like I use to many tools but my love of technology gets in my way sometimes and I over extend myself trying new tools and then pairing that back

• Tweetdeck – is my first line of defence – it’s my dashboard for all Twitter accounts and topics – as well as competitive terms and scheduling tweets. (I am considering a move to HootSuite now that a recent update from Tweetdeck messed up my iphone app and my desktop – which I managed to wrestle back into order)
• Radian6 – is my safety net since it catches any mention of our company in blogs, microblogs, social networks and forums and creates a stream of social data about your company
• Sysomos – is my new tool that I like for insights into social data with a linkage to news (from Marketwire) – I am playing with this one and really liking the interface and the functionality
• Networked Insights – is my favourite tool for social insights like sentiment, share of voice etc – this can be by company name, product name or even conversation – pretty cool
• Google Reader for any other forms of media
• Facebook for all the pages we update and groups that we keep up. I like SocialRSS for automatically feeding certain pages with RSS feeds (like Shared items on Google Reader) – its very helpful if you want to curate content on your page as you build you fan base.
• YouTube of course for our own branded channel of videos that you can pipe into any page as well as other “enabling” technologies like SlideShare and Flickr.

And we are experimenting with web.Alive for virtual meetings in a collaboration space – this is worth checking out if you haven’t seen it.

G: What are your Top 3 secrets of social media marketing?

P: The secret to social media marketing is just 3 words – Social Customer Support. This is the single best place to get an ROI from social media. Trust me – I have tried them all. Delighting your existing customers is ALWAYS a good strategy. And delighted customers tend to do 4 good things:

• they buy more (on average 10% more!);
• they give good word of mouth (isn’t that why you use social media in the first place!);
• they tend to stick with your company longer meaning;
• they are more profitable long term.

That’s 4 very good things in my opinion. We need more social media gurus to focus on this. Right now when I hear “we cant measure social medias impact on our company” from people it tells me they have the wrong approach – move to social customer support and I guarantee you get results. To get started with it – just do a search on – search.twitter.com for your company name and look for someone who needs help. Then print that out and walk it into the head of your customer support department and ask who is supporting this customer. Be careful about this strategy – because you may end up like me – becoming the person who supports your customers socially – but then again that wouldn’t be a bad thing!

G: What is the funniest/most unexpected thing that happened due to social media?

P: I reconnected with an old college buddy of mine Rich Krueger on Facebook one day and he sent me a note saying “hey I am in New York working in Interactive Marketing – what are you up to?” so I wrote him back saying “hey I am in New York working in an Interactive Marketing role – lets talk!”. We got back together after years of not having seen each other and found out we were doing very similar work – he was doing more B2C interactive marketing on the agency side and I was doing more B2B interactive marketing on the client side. We thought somehow we would collaborate someday as many people often say but rarely do. Within a month or 2 I got an email from someone right off my blog looking for me to write a book and I decided to do that with Rich and 3 years later we have written 2 books – Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley 2009) and Facebook Advertising for Dummies (Wiley 2010) !

G: What do you see in the future for the social media?

P: First off social media is not a trend – I get upset at people who think this whole thing is going to just blow over and if they stick their head in the sand long enough it will disappear. Fact is social media has transformed the way firms are operating and this is only the beginning. Companies act more transparent and open in their communications and are being social with their customers – do they think we are just going to stop this behaviour and just revert back to being anti social?? Social media has the power to transform the entire organization and help it get cantered around the customer – I liken it to Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) it has that type of power. I see it taking a tour of my firm already in places like IT, Corporate Communications, Interactive. But also now Customer Support, HR, Recruiting, Product Development, R&D and even Finance and Billing (yes I have gotten finance and billing tweets!) So what’s left after that? Not much if you add the CEO’s blog right. So I think we will be talking about Social for a long time to come. Marketers have a great gift in their hands but it’s up to them to use it!

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A big Thank You to Paul for his great insights!! You can find the rest of the interviews with the Social Media Citizens at Social Media interviews category.

As more and more businesses are jumping on the social media bandwagon, it’s only natural that many non-profit organisations regard it as an essential tool in their fundraising arsenal. However, while social media on the whole does confer myriad advantages on charities, what non-profits should understand and be aware of from the outset is that its use does not directly translate into increased funds and donations; rather social media is far more effective in raising awareness of causes on a much larger scale, and establishing relationships with donors (existing and potential) which can later be leveraged to solicit funds, implying more of an indirect link to fundraising efficacy.

For one, most of the success stories we hear about non-profits using social media to raise funds tend to revolve around large, highly-recognizable entities which most often have their brand equity to thank rather than the ingenuity of their social media campaigns. As well, where smaller organisations are concerned, they tend to raise significant amounts of funds usually during major one-time events, such as the recent disasters in Japan and Haiti, as opposed to on a continuous basis.

To complicate things further, in order for any social media initiative or campaign to be successful, significant investments in time and staff are necessary. While this might not prove difficult for larger organisations, many smaller ones, especially non-profits with tight marketing budgets simply do not have the means of making such investments. Without devoting the necessary time, money, and staff into devising and executing an actionable social media strategy, any efforts on the part of organisations are destined for failure.

In addition, it has been well-recorded that many of the most popular social networking sites such as Facebook, and the platforms they have engineered to facilitate online donations (e.g. Facebook’s Causes) have, generally speaking, not produced significant financial results to date. As well, the overall lack of performance indicators on these sites makes it increasingly difficult for non-profits to measure the success (if any) of their fundraising initiatives, leaving many charities ‘lost in the dark’ as to what to do with respect to their social media strategies.

These points aside, on a recent trip to Toronto I visited the founders of many small charities, and not only did I witness an overwhelming rate of failure where social media fundraising was concerned, but also the unanimous belief in the ineffectiveness of social media as a fundraising tool. Almost all the charities I visited believed that social media was more effective in raising awareness of their causes and connecting with potential donors than in directly raising money online, and that traditional, offline channels would continue to generate the bulk of their revenues.

Thus, it may be wise for non-profits to reconsider exactly why they want to use social media and develop a clear strategy for doing so rather than blindly assuming it to be essential. If fast and hard cash is what your non-profit is after, stick with the tried and trusted methods and channels that charities have been using successfully for years. However, if you’re looking to significantly raise the awareness of your charity and cause on a scale otherwise unattainable (given the same set of constraints) and wish to create and maintain meaningful relationships with donors, both existing and potential, it may be time to hang on to your hats and jump on the bandwagon after all.

Joobin Bekhrad

Mary McKnight is the Consumer Marketing Director at Where.com, one of the leading location based applications which helps three million users to discover the world around them. She is also an editor of Sacrilicious Marketing, the blog which has a bit different approach to social media. You can follow Mary on Twiter or  Facebook Fan Page.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

M: I don’t really consider myself “in the social media” business. I’ve worked as a marketer since the mid nineties and regard social media as a new tool to add to my marketing bag of tricks. Social media and social commerce are most interesting when they can be leveraged to reach and engage an audience more personally in a brand or product. Those are the primary reasons I use social media in my marketing campaigns.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

M: Consistency is key! But being consistent on social media is often at odds with being productive in my life and job. I don’t plan my life around Twitter or Facebook or Foursquare or any other social networks… I use smart technologies like Ping.fm and Friendfeed that take the information they aggregate from my entire social lifestream of Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, blogs, Foursquare, Last.fm etc and push it to my other social profiles so I can easily and automatically share what I am doing or find interesting at that specific moment. That helps me be consistent on each network while being efficient and effective at sharing. I would never plan my life around social media – social media just becomes a part of what I am doing at the moment and the technologies I use simply assist in sharing those moments.

G: What are your favourite social media hang out sites?

M: I definitely consider Twitter a media source now and often hear news there first. I use it mostly as a discovery tool and have probably added 15-20 new blogs or sites to my Google Reader just from mentions on Twitter. It is also a great place to network up on and begin the process of forging new relationships. Conversely, Facebook, to me, is how I connect personally with my friends and professional peers. Because Facebook is built on the Small World Theory, I have found that strategically practicing the law of scarcity there is very useful in building a large but engaged network. I never over share there – I only post things that I truly find interesting or funny and I only comment on friends updates when I have something to say on the matter. I never want to be that creepy chic that comments on every update in her stream all day long. That behaviour is not how you build or maintain influence.

G: How are you keeping up-to-date with social media environment ?

M: I am really focused on mobile location, social gaming and social shopping right now because those are the elements of the discipline that result in the most provable ROI for brands. The growth elements of social gaming theory as it relates to what Foursquare, Gowalla and Zynga have done fascinate me! The whole idea of integrating brands into a set completion algorithm to reward consumers for completing specific tasks related to those brands is brilliant and I consume everything on the topic! I also LOVE reading what big brands are doing in the space and how they are leveraging social.

What I’m Reading Now:

• Allfacebook
• Business Insider
• Mashable
• Ad Freak
• Billboard.biz

G: What are your favourite Social Media Citizens?

M: Let’s face it, without Ashton Kutcher, Twitter would still be a tool of the IT Crowd. And that is the reason some of my favourite follows in the social space are actually celebrities. I think there is a lot that we can learn from celebrities and how they use social media to engage, grow and even alienate or enrage a fan base. Consider how Facebook made Betty White hot again or Twitter chronicled the downward spirals of Lindsay Lohan, Courtney Love and Kanye West. I always recommend that anyone new to Twitter follow celebrities so they can see what works and what doesn’t on social from a personal and brand perspective.

So, here are my favourite 5:

Scott Monty - @ScottMonty

Ashton Kutcher – @aplusk

Lady GaGa - @ladygaga

Chris Brogan - @chrisbrogan

Alyssa Milano – @alyssa_milano

G: What are your favourite Marketing/PR tools on social media?

M: My favourites are:

• Radian6 – Measurement is critical to prove ROI and YES, ROI can be proved in social media campaigns! Radian 6 allows you not only to manage workflow in social media across your team but also measure the sentiment, reputation and overall mentions of your brand across the net. It gives you enough insight into your brand to help you make better decisions on what your market is interested in and how they should be managed and addressed.
• WildFire Apps – While specific to Facebook, the WildFire Apps are extremely effective at managing, publishing and promoting contests, promotions, polls and coupons. Coupled with some strategic ad buys Facebook promotions run through the WildFire Apps are not only an excellent way to spark commerce and customer/prospect acquisition through social media but also a great tool for measuring results on promotional campaigns on Facebook.
• Social Buying Sites – social buying is hot right now! Plugging small and local businesses into the location plus group buying phenomenon is a great way to spark immediate sales and engage new customers. Social buying sites like Groupon, Buy With Me and LivingSocial are ideal tools to use when proving the value of social to small, local consumer businesses like restaurants and shops. They allow you to immediately show sales and customer acquisition through social tools.

G: What are your favourite social media campaigns?

M:The 2 campaigns I have found most interesting in social media have been:

1. OLD SPICE: This was just a brilliant, well thought out campaign. They capitalized on a series of really funny yet not over produced television spots with another more personalized series of Youtube spots that targeted celebrity influencers like Alyssa Milano and Perez Hilton while also engaging with non-celebrity followers. They basically made television ads conversational on both a  group and personal level.

By targeting high level influencers in the celebrity world like Demi Moore they got re tweets from people with extensive spheres of influence on Twitter. Those high level influencer re tweets ensured their campaign would go viral. Then, by interacting with general fans – they were able to make very personal connections and show that they were a brand of the people that wanted to engage. The smartest thing they did was to treat the whole thing as a parody. Because we understood that the campaign was a parody, we never feel mislead by any inauthentic engagement. Overall, it was a very smart campaign which resulted in huge sales increases for the brand. A real marriage of basic sociological theory, marketing and advertising that combined traditional media with social media into an explosive and successful campaign.

2. GAP BLACK MAGIC EVENT: Location based marketing is so hot right now. What Gap did by offering a 25% discount to people who check in with Foursquare, Tweet or use the Facebook Coupon for their one day event was brilliant! While most people focus on the Foursquare numbers, recognize that Gap leveraged multiple social platforms in this one day campaign. Unlike some of their competitors who have only offered the deepest of discounts to Mayors, Gap offered the discount across the board to any shopper. The campaign was designed to boost in-store traffic (create an incentive to visit and buy on a specific day) and engage users with their social profiles so they can message them in the future with other incentives! The strategy was just as much about sales as it was about acquiring a means to communicate with their customers on digital platforms. Consider that Gap was able to silo their brand fans (those that did buy and those that did not buy) into their social profiles on Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter so they can offer similar incentives in the future. Just an overall smart campaign with provable ROI.

G: What are your Top 3 secrets of social media marketing?

M: I wish there were a secret but to be honest, the only secret to marketing is being able to prove ROI! As long as you design campaigns that focused on a specific goal and result, you can measure your actual results against that goal to prove ROI. Generally I want to measure against sales or prospect acquisition/registration, but occasionally, you can set reputation management goals like increasing positive mentions of the brand across the net or sparking greater engagement with customers to improve customer satisfaction.

I guess my secrets would be:

• Set a goal for a campaign.
• Measure the results of a campaign with a quality tool like Radian6.
• Quantify results of the campaign against the intended goal.

G: How did social media change your life?

M: Social media has helped to connect me with more of my professional peers around the world, create serendipitous meetings with local peers and establish new relationships both personally and professionally. Social Media is a lens through which I can get a more holistic insight into my friends, my professional peers, extended family and even the markets I target for brands I work with. I cannot tell you how many times I found connections with people I may have only superficially known or would never have known without this lens. These new found connections have lead to everything from business deals to new or deeper friendships.

If you consider that one of the first things you learn in sociology is that “people like people who are like them” meaning people with common experiences and interests gravitate towards one another, you can see how social media works to connect more people in new ways through common interests. With this lens into your family, peer or friends lives you learn more about their personal tastes and experiences than you could in common social interactions and because of that you can more fully connect with people both within your immediate social sphere and those on the perimeter to form deeper connections. For example, if I had not checked in at North Station on Foursquare, I would not have known that an editor for Cosmo Magazine was also there at the same time and I would have missed that chance meeting that has lead to new business connection.

G: What don’t you like about social media?

M: While I use many check-in services, they do worry me. Because I work with a number of celebrities and I am a woman who works in a city, I guess the check in phenomenon has certain safety concerns and use case limitations. Check-in is showing great promise for advertisers but it creates security issues for consumers. For example, consider the much hyped, Please Rob Me site published people’s check-ins in real time to show when users homes were vacant. In the case of a celebrity, a check-in could cause a dangerous mob or paparazzi situation and for the average woman alone in a city, it could easily open her up to violence. So, for those reasons, I wrestle with the whole idea of check-in as a public stream of data.

G: What is the funniest/most unexpected thing that happened due to social media?

M: When I was looking for a new job in Boston, I interviewed at Where.com and immediately loved it. So, I took to Twitter and asked everyone I knew to tweet @where with reasons to hire me. The result was the @where stream was filled with funny, poignant and outrageous tweets that made my now boss, Dan Gilmartin, call me in for a second interview. I’ve been working as the Director of Consumer Marketing for one of the largest mobile location advertising networks ever since!

G: What do you see in the future for the social media?

M: Research shows that on the web, a user takes 7 days to make a purchase. Conversely, a mobile user takes only 1 hour to go from discovery to purchase! The combination of social and mobile could be the key to “accelerating intent to purchase”.

The combination of social, mobile, location, recommendation and advertising is where everything is headed. When you consider that Google and Facebook have both made very public statements about their commitment to social and mobile, it’s easy to extrapolate the continued merging paths of these technologies with their already successful ad networks. I feel really lucky to be working in this space here at WHERE and witnessing the changes where purely mobile and purely social companies are beginning to step into each other’s businesses. Monetizing the social/mobile combination is going to be really interesting for both consumers and local businesses. In short order, a mom and pop pizza place or shoes store will be able to instantly know who is outside their door at that very moment and message them with a coupon right to their phone to drive immediate foot traffic and sales. This goes way beyond the idea of mobile search and discovery being the trigger to coupons and incentives. By combining what we know form the social graph about your personal tastes, marries it to where you are and what your doing right now through your checkins and mobile location and what retailers are near you that match your interests, we can deliver an immediate message that will incent you to act. I, personally, can’t wait for the day when I am walking down Newbury St and my phone messages me about a 25% discount at Marc Jacobs just as I walk past!

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Big thanks to Mary for her great insights!! You can find the rest of the interviews with the Social Media Citizens at Social Media interviews category.