J-P De Clerck  is Managing partner at Conversionation Consulting, a cross-channel interactive marketing consultancy without geographical borders. J-P is basically everywhere interactive media is discussed and you can find his posts and thoughts on over a dozen of blogs, online and offline media and publications about interactive marketing, mainly in Europe and the US. The list is really too long to publish. He is also a founder of Social Marketing Forum and Social Email Marketing blog. You can follow J-P on Twitter or Facebook. Read the full story

I’m happy to share some great news for Social Media Citizens readers. We are teaming up with Social Marketing Forum and Social Email Marketing blog in order to bring more value for our communities. As a result, I am very happy to announce  that we going to have the guest bloggers from  Social Email Marketing and Social Marketing Forum – one of the fastest growing social media community in Europe. I definitely recommend to join it and I hope you will enjoy some fresh content on our beloved blog!

I’ve just read this brilliant quite personal story by Peter Bregman on Harvard Business Review “Why Friends Matter at Work and in Life“ . The author analyzes a few interesting researches how friendships affect your business and everyday life. I love the authors points taken out of the research:

• If you’re looking for a job you’d better have friends. The number-one way people find new jobs is referrals by friends.
• Once you’re on the job, having a best friend at work is a strong predictor of success.
• Friendships in high school were a strong predictor of increased wages in adulthood — to the tune of 2% per person who considered you a close friend.
• Want to stay in that job you have? Then you’d better have friends.

In my opinion the real friendships are of vital importance factor in Social Media and community building. I know that this topic of friendship has been discussed over and over again but there is a big difference in having “fans” and having at least a few very good “friends” in the community you are building, mainly because of there reasons indentified by Peter :

• Friends can refer your business to their friends
• Friends can  stand up for your business and brand values and send the right message to their friends
• Friends can help to grow your business by heavily engaging in your social media activities (commenting, sharing and etc.)

So are you here to make friends?

Gemma Went is the Director of Red Cube Marketing, a communications agency integrating Marketing, PR and Social Media. With 10 years experience in Marketing and PR, Gemma is working collaboratively with businesses, large and small, to ensure their communications activities help them to achieve their business objectives, engage with their communities and build brand awareness. You can follow Gemma on Twitter or Linkedin.

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

G: I’ve been in the comms game for over 10 years. I started my career in-house, heading up the Marketing and PR at a number of businesses within the creative sector (an industry I simply love) and later as a consultant. My grand plans to set up Red Cube started in the summer of 2008, originally as traditional comms agency. That plan soon changed as I became immersed in social media. By the time I launched in January 2009, I had started to integrate social media into my offering. Being a bit of a social animal at heart, it seemed a natural extension to me, plus the opportunities it offered my clients excited me, particularly SME’s who get the chance to level the playing field. The transparency and ‘realness’ of social media appealed to me greatly, it works perfectly with my own values and Red Cube’s ‘no fluff, no jargon, just common sense’ focus

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

G: Well, being social is as easy as being ‘me’. However keeping up with social media as part of a daily routine can be tricky to manoeuvre when client work takes over. I start the day by browsing Google Reader, digesting posts that keep me abreast of news and developments. When I find great content, I schedule it to be published on Twitter throughout the day through Hootsuite. My primary goal for social media is to help people, so this content tends to be around Brand, Marketing, PR and of course, Social Media.

I tend to check in on Twitter throughout the day, responding to people, answering questions and retweeting anything I find interesting. I also pop in to LinkedIn and Facebook once or twice a day and engage there. As I run a blog, The Cube, I regularly work on my editorial calendar (which usually runs two months in advance) and know what posts I’ll be writing and publishing that week. I tend to publish 2 per week and book in 3 to 4 hours once a week to write and edit those and any other guest blogs I may be doing. Doing it this way is the only way to keep me consistent (otherwise I’ll just forget).

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