Ignite Social Media Feed

Gian Fulgoni Discusses Trends in Social Media

Christian Sullivan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:33:00 GMT

I'm here at Internet Summit 09......Ok, so maybe I was there in November but let's pretend for a moment we're there now. I attended a panel session that spotlighted Gian Fulgoni, comScore co-founder, where he discussed the "State of the Internet: Key Trends in the Digital World." During this session, he highlighted the top online consumer trends from 2009.

Afterwards, I pulled Gian aside and asked him to discuss some of the social media trends he spoke of during his session so that those of you that were unable to attend can still reep the benefits. One question I asked Gian is what he thought was the biggest trend in social media from 2009. He replied with, "the growth of social networks and the emergence of Facebook as the dominant social site." Fun Fact: Facebook reported 400 Million unique monthly visitors in 2009. Meaning, from a Global scale, if Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world after India and China.

Check out my interview with Gian to learn more:

Crate & Barrel Ultimate Wedding Contest – How it Could Be Better

Jeremy Griffin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:08:00 GMT

A friend of mine asked me to Tweet about a contest his coworker had entered. The guy and his fiancée are vying for the “Ultimate Wedding” from Crate & Barrel. I was happy to vote, which I did, but during the process, I noticed a few things that C&B could do in order to make this contest a little more effective and "engaging." (pun intended)

Voting

Personally, I am all in favor of contests that depend on user votes to determine a winner. It seems fairer, and it relies on entrants to utilize their own social networks to draw people to their entries. But here’s the thing that Crate & Barrel flubbed up: voting is a multistep process. In order to cast my vote, I not only had to enter my email address, but also create and verify a password, as well as click on a link in a confirmation email just to vote. As for the voting itself, there's a big fat (& pink) "Vote for this Entry" button in the middle of the page, but the actual number of votes is not very prevalent for some reason.

The votes will only get you so far, as the top 50 vote earners will be advance to the final round, which is then judged, presumably by Crate & Barrel's PR team. Voting will still weigh in, though, as the top 10 vote earners will receive some points, which count 20% toward the final score. (I think C&B left a digit out of their T's&C's, BTW: Entry’s Ranking in public voting (20%) as follows: 1st–10th place in public voting will receive points; 10th–20th place will receive 6 points; 20th–30th place will receive 4 points; and the remaining 20 Finalists will receive 0 points.)

Entries

So there are a few things that could use improvement here. First, the entries themselves are a single shot of each couple along with 3 big blocks of information. These are "Our Love Story" "Three important details about our Ultimate Wedding." and "Our everyday dream day." I'm not sure what that last one means, exactly, but I imagine something more akin to "Our Perfect Day" might be a better way to phrase that question in order for these couples to express themselves. Maybe that is just the copywriter in me being picky, but it just sounds awkward. Also, in order to enter, you have to be registered at Crate & Barrel and have at least 50 items totalling $2000 or more.

Also, if you wanted to go on the site and search for a friend, you'd be SOL because you can only sort the entries by "Random" "Recent" "Top Votes" or "Hot Right Now" (whatever that means). Another interesting aspect of the profile is that directly above the number of votes for each couple is the number of visitors each has had. Not surprisingly, the ratio of visits to votes is about 10:1. My theory is that if the voting process didn't require a sign up, there would be a lot more votes. Just saying. I'd love to tell you how many entries you'd be up against, but the only way to figure that out is by counting manually, and I can't count past 100. We'll just say there are over 100.

The Prize

Following the trend of ambiguity, the grand prize here is a $100,000 Dream Wedding, with a full wedding consultation from Jo Gartin. Sounds pretty great, right? Well, I hope you're prepared to have the wedding at a time that works best for Crate & Barrel. You might get $100K towards a dream wedding, but something tells me it will be more of Crate & Barrel's dream than yours.

"The date of the wedding is conditioned on the Wedding Coordinator’s availability and the Sponsor’s promotional calendar, and the Wedding Coordinator will decide upon numerous elements of the wedding without input from the Grand Prize Winner."

The good thing is that there are some pretty awesome prizes for the runners up. The top 18 entrants all receive prizes, including $7500, $2000, and $1000 Crate & Barrel gift cards. Not bad, really.

What Could Be Better

Here's a run down of the things I would change if I was running this contest:

Make voting easier - one click, one vote. Also, do away with the view count. No one needs to know that.
Create a searchable index for the entrants.
Give the winner more control over their own wedding.
Let entrants have a little more control over the information on their profile.
Make the path to entry easier. (i.e., no $2000.00 / 50 line item registry needed)

There are a few other things, but I'm not going to be too nit-picky. I like seeing companies do contests like this, but I just hope they remember that they should be used as a way to help engage their target market and not exploit them. There is still time to enter this contest, so if you and your fiancee are feeling up to the challenge, now's a good time to enter. Otherwise, feel free to cast your vote for your favorite candidate. I suggest Rob and Kristen.

Zappos : Social Media Marketing Example #26

Brian Chappell — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:47:00 GMT

Zappos is one of those companies that gets thrown around whenever social media case studies come up. If you have followed the industry over the last 2 years you have undoubtedly seen them come up in PowerPoint presentations and various speeches on the topic of ‘who's doing it right’ in social media. And, for good reason. Zappos has really embraced social internally, and it shows.

Let's take a look at what Zappos has done over the past couple years in our last social media example, number 26.

Zappos Twitter Presence

Zappos was one of the first companies to embrace a Twitter aggregation page: http://twitter.zappos.com/. Essentially they created a page on their site that pulls in all the mentions of the company. This is a great way to show the authority of a brand. If there are lots of people discussing your brand then that tends to convey a strong level of legitimacy.

This is also a great way to cross promote the various Twitter accounts the company has, such as the Zappos CEO account which has well over 1 million followers.

Zappos as a company is an early adopter of technologies. It is one of the first companies to embrace Twitter like this and create an aggregation page that has garnered over 1,000 different mentions/links on various industry sites and blogs when looking directly at the link count for the twitter.zappos.com sub domain. This was a very smart move on their part and has paid dividends with an increase in links.

Link Acquisition

More often than not when companies discuss social media, SEO is not top of mind. But, this isn’t always the case as some agencies and consultants in the industry understand the power and importance of holistic social efforts, and Zappos is a perfect example of a company that thinks holistically.

Zappos.com’s link graph is a perfect example conveying the power of a true social mentality. Since June 2007, when Zappos joined Twitter, they have pushed their employees to embrace new media technologies and become active on those platforms. It is not a coincidence that Zappos has turned its link acquisition into overdrive since doing so. See the chart below which was pulled from MajesticSEO:

This sort of link worth will help their bottom line substantially. I am sure Zappos already ranked pretty well in the search engines, but this sort of link development can only help the entire site garner more search traffic and subsequent sales.

Zappos Facebook

If you peruse over to the Zappos Facebook account you will see once again, a company who understands social. Engagement of their followers is very high, with daily status updates on the page with either questions or sharing of internal Zappos activities. Talk about a great way to make a company seem human, eh?

Their Facebook Fan Page has acquired roughly 28,000 fans to date. This may be fewer than expected for a company that has over a million followers on Twitter; however, I would argue that these fans are very engaged as evidenced by the 63 comments incurred on the Jan 7 status update.

For the most part Zappos is doing a good job of engaging its users via their Facebook account. However, there is still room to grow with their account - something just seems missing from it overall. One area I feel could use more work is growing readership and subscribers via contests. I noticed a few contests they ran that were shared in status updates, but in large part they felt devoid of any social mechanism that would really cause them to be successful.

Zappos YouTube

As you can see above there is a lot of activity on the YouTube channel page for Zappos. This is in large part due to the sheer amount of upload activity going on. Since Zappos encourages their employees to be social, there is never a shortage of content. Although it might seem that Zappos is doing a good job on YouTube, I feel like there is some room for improvement.

Perhaps running more targeted campaigns and looking into channel sponsorships could help. At Ignite, we've found that YouTube can create great ROI, it’s just a matter of finding the right hook and empowering your customers to get creative.

On Site Page Sharing

Frequently a user will find something online that they want as a gift. However, they forget to tell their significant other that they want the item. If you use Amazon you can simply save the item to your wish list, or in this case, you can share the page with a friend using Zappos' share feature integrated on every page.

Zappos has implemented this pretty well throughout their site. If you click on the ‘add from address book’ above you can pull in contacts from various services such as your Google, Yahoo or MSN account, which makes it easy to find the person you are interested in sharing the page with.

Register on Zappos Contest – Free Schwag

The above example shows how Zappos is using a contest to increase email and user signups with the site. I pulled this in as an example to show how they could beef it up to make it more social. I understand that there are probably more benefits and greater value to have one more registered site user than a Facebook fan for example, but I still feel there are ways they could make this contest more social.

It would be interesting if they added another section of this form that allowed users to share the form with other users in exchange for additional chances of winning the prize (e.g., each email they send increases their odds by 1).

We have done this in the past for some of our clients at Ignite, and it has proven to be an effective way to get more subscribers, fans etc. Think of it partly as selling your friends for more chances to win. You would be surprised the effect this can have at spreading contest such as this.

Blog About This Item

Ecommerce sites that have the scale and traffic levels of a Zappos.com can really benefit from loading grabable widgets on product pages such as the example above. In this example the user can grab a badge saying they like the product http://www.zappos.com/5th-avenue-lx-champion-grey-suede , and place it on their site. This sort of sharing/fanning integration isn’t going to produce a ton of interest, but when you are working on the scale that Zappos is, this can prove to be a very viable way to build links and brand awareness.

I have a feeling you will see more e-commerce shops like Zappos in the future arming their customers with badges to show their appreciation.

Summary

One of the major problems you typically hear about companies like Zappos and what they are doing, is that it doesn't relate to you as a company. It is easy to see the amount of work and effort it takes to pull off the social efforts that they have employed. The key to really pulling this off, and what Zappos has done such a good job of, is training social tactics at the employee level like their Twitter aggregation page and their employee Facebook activity and YouTube uploads. Don't simply rely on your marketing team to pull this off, you need to integrate it into a corporate level strategy.

Twitpic is Unique: Founder Noah Everett Explains Why

Christian Sullivan — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:18:00 GMT

Noah Everett stopped by the office so I pulled him aside to get a bit of information on what sets Twitpic apart. Did you know the Hudson Plane Crash broke on Twitpic? Noah also gave us a little insight into just how much Twitpic has grown in the last year. Enjoy!

Social Media Example # 25: Yoplait

Christian Sullivan — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:50:00 GMT

I was pretty excited to research Yoplait because I'm a big fan of the brand and its delicious flavors; just thinking about Yoplait Delights has me salivating. Num Num. Additionally, Yoplait is a major advocate for Breast Cancer Awareness which is a cause that is very important to me and many of my friends and family. So without further ado, let's dig in (pun intended)!

Yoplait.com

Yoplait's main website is informative, I'll give them that and is also very aesthetically pleasing. It provides fun recipes, information on how yogurt helps your digestive tract (did you know yogurt can help with lactose intolerance?) and provides information on the cause it supports, Breast Cancer Awareness.

Unfortunately, there is nothing social. Though a couple of its individual brands are on Facebook, Yoplait doesn't bother to link to these pages. And with all of this great information, where is the health and wellness blog I'd expect them to have? What a way to truly reach their audience, right? But no, sadly they are neglecting what feels like a great opportunity for this brand.

Yoplait on Facebook

The one thing that bothers me most is that Yoplait does not link to any of its brands' Facebook pages from its home page (it makes sense to me that it would). Because of this I must sift through every Yoplait profile that has been created to identify the "real" Yoplait profile(s). Through this research, I discovered that there isn't an official facebook fan page (not that I could find anyway) dedicated to the Yoplait brand. However, I did find two of the brands have fan pages that appear successful.

One of those brands is Yoplait Delights which has managed to generate well over 24,697 fans since the page was founded in September 2009. Yep, in just four months and it appears they have done this with very little interaction. Don't get me wrong, there was that honeymoon phase (September and October) where they posted multiple times a week. But now a lot more nothingness (is that a word? Well, it is now). One post in November, one in December, one in January and ZERO response to fans and their comments. Yet, when they do post, they receive at least 50 comments and 30 likes, which means they know how to engage their audience, they just may not know how to be engaging- make sense? Because this treat is seemingly so popular, it makes me wonder what would happen if they spent a little more time interacting- how many fans would they have then? How often would they comment?

Yoplait on Twitter

I guess I should say Yoplait NOT on Twitter. I searched and searched for Yoplait's official Twitter account but came up empty handed. I feel this is yet another missed opportunity. I keep saying "missed oppportuinty" because rarely do organizations have the priviledge of haivng so many natural fans, consumers that simply LOVE this brand, its products and love talking about it. With such a fan base, Yoplait could boost sales by simply offering coupons via its Twitter account as well as perhaps bits of informaiton and health facts found on their main page. How about building better Breast Cancer advocates as that is the cause supported by Yoplait? The education they could provide through some of these public outlets is endless. As you can see below, Yoplait's fans are on Twitter and they're talking, so why not join the conversation?

Additinionally, being on Twitter will drive more buzz, create more conversation which in-turn can build more brand awareness. Every time I see someone tweet about Yoplait, the word "delicious" typcially closely follows. How much more buzz could Yoplait cause if they were actually on Twitter? But wait, maybe, just maybe they are working on it. Someone has snagged the twitter.com/Yoplait URL but haven't yet done anything with it. Yoplait, are you getting ready to join the fun? Please?

YouTube

Yoplait enthusiasts are everywhere, including YouTube. Yoplait commercials have been posted all over YouTube to fan's channels, but there is no official Yoplait channel. However, the commercials are all posted on Yoplait.com and it does offer the ability to embed the video on your site and to share, which is a step, but no offcial YouTube channel (sigh).

Final Thoughts

When I took on #25 on our list, compiled from Peter Kim's 2008 post "A List of Social Media Marketing Examples," I was excited. I just knew Yoplait had to be doing some cool stuff. What I didn't know was they were only on his list for their French blog, Bravo la petite fleur! , and what I'd find them doing in the US would be a big whopping bowl of nothing, nodda, zip, zilch...you get the point. If only I could get my hands on the brand to help get them started. I would have a blast.

Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean they won't get there. It appears they've taken a few baby steps, or at least some of the individual divisions, like Yoplait Delights, will surely begin to pave the way for the remaining divisions and overall brand to become more socially active. With all that said, I have to say what bothers me most about Yoplait brand being inactive within the social sphere while some of its divisions are, is that segmenting product lines makes it impossible for consumers to find new products. Everything should be done through Yoplait brand channels and networks and then broken off from there (if at all). By segmenting product lines, you make it nearly impossible for consumers to discover information outside of that specific product's information.

But for now, all this talk about Yoplait has brought on a craving for a Rasberry Chocolate Yoplait Delight so while I head to the grocery store, let me know what you think so I can read your thoughts while enjoying my tasty treat.

Web Trends Talks Social Media Marketing with Jim Tobin

Jeremy Griffin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:42:00 GMT

Brandon Prebynski recently sat down with our very own Jim Tobin to chat about Social Media Marketing on his show Web Trends. Jim and Brandon discuss Ignite Social Media's conception, the creation of Social Media is a Cocktail Party, measuring ROI, convincing clients of social media marketing and more. The show is a great opportunity to get a little insight into the way our company operates and thinks, so if you're one of the millions of people applying for a job here, it might give you a crash course in what we do.

If you take away anything from this interview, I personally hope it will be that you or your brand will do what it needs to do in the social space in order to "add value to the community and be interesting."

Social Media Example #24: Xerox Corporation

Megan Hannay — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:21:00 GMT

One might imagine that a company such as Xerox Corp would be resentful toward the internet. I mean, before the world wide web, printing technology had been the "big cahoona" (the "Grand Poobah," if you will) in the world of document sharing since 1436.

But instead of playing the jealous big brother, Xerox has not only embraced internet technology into its product lines, but this fortune 500 corporation has plunged headstrong into the world of social media. From its slew of blogs to its active Twitter page, through the YouTube [channel] and back again, Xerox seriously impressed me with its outreach. I got the sense that social media was really a team effort on the part of Xerox and its employees.

Xerox Blog (s)

Xerox has fourteen blogs. Fourteen. Yeah, In a time when so many other corporations are struggling to create even a single blog with a personal feel and frequent posts, this company has fourteen of its employees writing about their Xerox niche on a regular basis.

Take Scott Titus's "Ideas, Ideas, Ideas" blog. Scott has been blogging since July, 2007, about marketing in the print world. This post made me smile; his earnest devotion to Xerox is pretty obvious, but doesn't seem fake.

In addition, you can learn about "The Future of Documents" on Francois Ragnet's blog and "Information Sanity" with Mike Moeller. "But Wait, There's More!" That's another blog from Digital Production Specialist Roland Denzel. He promotes the primer he printed about Xerox and MS Word and webinar series he attends. There's even a blog in Portugeuse, "Novidades Xerox."

So some of these blogs have yet to amass a large following, and perhaps posts on webinars aren't the most engaging pieces of content, but with over a dozen RSS feeds out there, you can't claim that Xerox uses social media like a high-gloss finish. Xerox blogs demonstrate such intimate knowledge of their industry, not to mention a certain pride and excitement about their careers. Encouraging leaders in your company to write about what they already do best is such a great way to show off your talent and prove to readers that your employees really do know their stuff.

Xerox on Twitter

@XeroxCorp has been tweeting two to three times every weekday since September 26, 2008. And about four out of every five posts is a re-tweet or @reply. Though this Twitter stream does emphasize Xerox's products and campaigns in many posts, they don't forget to interact with their following, which is what makes @XeroxCorp stand out among corporate Twitter accounts. From professional articles to product mentions to "@Biztranz We like that video a lot too!" whoever's sitting behind Xerox's Twitter stream knows what he or she is doing.

It seems that Xerox Corp knew long before Xerox 1:1 lab that personable interaction is the best way to go with social media marketing.

Xerox on Facebook

Xerox's Facebook page is entitled "So, what DOES Xerox do?" This corporation is self-aware. That's cute.

Let's see... multiple posts each week, often with many "likes" and comments from their 3900 fans - their Facebook insights must look sweet. However, Xerox does seem to be receiving its fair share of criticism.

Ouch. The thing is, from a social media standpoint, Xerox appears to be doing Facebook right. They don't delete comments that speak poorly of the company, they respond to questions, and they continue to post. And the post on their corporation's donation to Haiti did receive 51 "likes." Now if only corporate would provide them with more happy news to post about.

Xerox on YouTube

With almost 100 uploads and 23,000 pageviews, it's clear that Xerox didn't take YouTube lightly either. Currently, the main video is from Xerox's vice president, Gina Testa. She explains some of the exciting things Xerox has coming up in 2010, including upcoming industry conferences and emphasizes Xerox's involvement with these events. I'm not quite sure what most laymen would do at a Xerox conference, so this message seems more directed toward printing professionals.

But then there's the hilarous "Information Overload Syndrome" ad. Seriously, I recommend checking out this video for a few workday laughs (and a pretty decent Robert Stack impersonation).

Actually, this blog post is becoming "information overload."

In Conclusion...

Xerox has a lot of social media content out there. But I'd have to say that the overwhelming quality and quantity of their blogs take the cake.

One Xerox blogger, Cheryl (last name not provided), began her blog, "At Your Service," on January 7 of this year. While her first post begins with the definition of "weblog," by the third, she has moved to admiring the wonderful varities of flash drives.

"So I have been with Xerox for 24 years now," she writes in one post, "and I have seen a lot of technology come and go. When I started we did not have PCs, we had typewriters, and only black and white printers and copiers..."

Cheryl has had to keep on top of new technologies longer than I've been alive. And Xerox has been on it for four times longer than that. This company and its employees are great examples of the fact that you don't have to be "young and hip" to be in tune with your customers via social media.

When corporation interaction goes from an extra to an expectation, Xerox, it seems, will be ready.

Social Media Example #23: Whirlpool Corporation

Wade Burrell — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:04:00 GMT

Number 23 on our list of 26 Social Media Marketing Examples is Whirlpool Corporation.

Whirlpool is a Fortune 500 company and the global manufacturer and marketer of numerous major home appliances. Although Whirlpool acts as an umbrella brand to many other name brands, in this post I will cover how Whirlpool markets itself in the social media space.

Whirlpoolcorp.com

When I first looked at Whirlpool’s website, I was pleasantly surprised at its set-up. I’ll admit I was expecting a landing page that had links to countless other pages from which you could purchase every kind of appliance available. This, however, is not the case. Whirlpoolcorp.com is a hub for finding any and all information you could need regarding Whirlpool and its brands. That being said, the actual website isn’t very social media friendly.

The site had quality information like energy saving tips, money saving deals, philanthropic information on Whirlpool’s involvement with Habitat for Humanity, and even helpful buying guides for major appliances, but all of this content was not engineered with social sharing in mind.

In fact the only area of the site available to follow is through an RSS feed are press releases (and who really wants to keep track of those!) In my opinion, in order to optimize the other valuable content found on the site, Whirlpool should consider showcasing a blog that will provide this content in an engaging way.

Whirlpool Facebook Page

Whirlpool does have a Facebook Fan Page, which was fairly well put together— it allows viewers to create discussions about their experiences with Whirlpool products and view videos and photos of Whirlpool commercials from Youtube. However, it seems as though the brand has invested very little, if anything, in design or strategy. The page has few followers for such a recognizable brand and there have been only 3 posts from Whirlpool to-date. This is a missed opportunity to provide helpful content to the fans, to respond to negative feedback and to create real conversation with both brand evangelists and prospects.

While it appears that Whirlpool has at least tried by building the page and adding content, there is one main component missing from their Facebook account, and that is relatable content in the form of continuous upkeep. This can include status updates from the company or links to Whirlpool blog posts (which, would first require Whirlpool to build a blog). It’s a mistake for any brand to simply create a page and then leave it. It can quickly become an anti-brand page.

And, considering that many of their Facebook interactions consist of reported problems, maybe a few responses or links to helpful articles would add to the page’s credibility too. These types of content will attract fans and create interaction between the company and faithful customers.

This is a single example of the types of posts people write on the Whirlpool Facebook Fan Page. In this example, a customer has a legitimate problem. This would be the perfect opportunity for Whirlpool to start a conversation and offer helpful information to this consumer that may resolve their current issue.

Whirlpool Twitter Page

Whirlpool Corporation’s Twitter page, in my opinion, isn’t being used to its full potential either. They have a very simple background that looks as though it was thrown together at the last minute. Twitter is the perfect place to interact with customers/fans by providing them with the latest news, product releases, special offers, customer service and content around the sustainability efforts of the corporation.

Unfortunately, the page itself is only updated a few times every couple months, which is causing Whirlpool to lose some of the most beneficial aspects of a Twitter page. Whirlpool should post engaging material that will increase the interaction between them and their customers. From looking at their Twitter page, Whirlpool rarely responds to those who “@” message them. They seem to do a good job of following those who are interested in their products and those who are following their page, but they have a very low following, as compared to other brands.

In order to truly take advantage of Twitter, Whirlpool should make a stronger effort to develop and present buyer-captivating material that will draw in more consumers. This can be easily accomplished by increasing their output while engaging their followers on a more constant basis.

For example, the image above displays a few tweets from the Whirlpool Twitter page. Whirlpool attempts to provide some customer service to those in need, but it seems that they have let the page fall by the wayside due to lack of content and responsiveness.

Final Thoughts on Whirlpool Social Media

Overall, Whirlpool has taken its first steps in social media by setting up their Facebook and Twitter page, but it appears both are lacking the strategy and direction required to make them successful and the resources and content needed to make them beneficial to their potential consumers.

Again, content is still king in the space of social media. For Whirlpool to get visibility and to establish itself and its products as a thought-leader, it must begin to generate and promote valuable, engaging content on a regular basis. Do you agree?

How Digg dealt with Facebook, according to Digg

Jim Tobin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:32:00 GMT

I'm finally getting a chance to post some of these videos from Internet Summit, starting with yesterday's video of my chat with Google's Rick Klau.

Today I'm sharing a video of a talk I had with Digg's Matt Van Horn. In it, we chatted about how Digg took the "threat" of Facebook and made it an opportunity, which I found interesting. Similary, when Twitter turned the world's attention to real-time information sharing, Digg reacted with Digg Trends and even used Twitter to promote it with its own Twitter account. Take a look at how Matt describes it:

It's relatively easy to get a hot tool (emphasis on relatively), but it's amazingly difficult to keep it going for years, as Digg has done in part by making smart changes like these. What do you think? Do you still use Digg like you used to?

Kevin Briody joins Ignite Social Media

Jim Tobin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:31:00 GMT

Just a short post to announce our new director of strategic partnerships, Kevin Briody. Kevin is new to Ignite as of today and new to North Carolina as of this month, as we poached him away from Seattle.

Kevin's been in social media marketing since before it was called that, building community and evangelism programs for Microsoft's developer market as early as 2002. Kevin played various roles at Microsoft over roughly 7 years there, working in influencer engagement, college student programs, Windows Server marketing and more.

Kevin was also the director of marketing and partner development for WebJunction/OCLC, a Gates Foundation funded e-learning and online community for the library profession. He's also the principal of Social Mallard, LLC, where he worked with clients on social media marketing, online community analysis and blog development and optimization. On a personal level, Kevin dotes on his wife and three daughters and maintains a deep loyalty to his beloved Oregon Ducks.

At Ignite Social Media, Kevin will work on our partnerships with key accounts, as well as our partnerships with third-party firms to evaluate the best platforms and services for our clients and the best way to implement those solutions.

We're excited to have Kevin join the team. You'll start seeing him on this blog shortly and you can follow him on Twitter now.