Social Media Strategy Case Studies Unfold Live for Forzani Group and Reed's Natural Soda in Four-Part Webinar Series
First Session in Step-by-Step Workshop Hosted by Marketwire and Expansion Plus Focuses on Goal-Setting and Benchmarking
LOS ANGELES, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 03/24/2009 -- Marketwire and Expansion Plus kicked off "Your Social Media Roadmap" webinar series on March 19, 2009 with the first session of the series: "Setting Your Baseline and Determining Goals." Guest expert John Blossom, author of "Content Nation," joined Sally Falkow, the series host, to show case-study participants Forzani Group Ltd., Canada's largest sporting goods retailer, and Reed's, Inc., a US-based top-selling natural soda manufacturer, how to benchmark and set goals for their organizations. As the series progresses, the strategies of these two companies will unfold for the entire audience, underscoring the step-by-step series that walks attendees through every stage of social media marketing and strategic development from goal-setting and researching, to choosing tactics and measuring ROI. Each webinar features a different guest expert and includes a companion whitepaper.
WEBINAR HIGHLIGHTS: Setting Your Baseline and Determining Goals
- Social networking is not a fad and social media is not something that affects only the PR and marketing departments; it impacts every aspect of the organization. Because it is a business strategy -- not just a marketing strategy -- it is essential that your organization's executives understand what it is, what it does and why it's so important for the business to embrace it.
- With traditional media in decline, PR practitioners are suddenly saying, "I need to be involved in social media and digital PR." If you've relied on traditional means of spreading your message and building relationships with influencers, and they go away, what do you do? You need to change with the media landscape.
- The process of setting up a social media strategy needs to be well-thought out. No journey can be successful without knowing where you are now, setting a goal to reach a destination and having a roadmap to get there. Social media engagement is no different. Your first two steps are setting specific, concrete and measurable goals and benchmarks. In order to be able to measure the progress of your activities in social media, you need to have a starting point.
- Social media adoption by organizations is not just external facing (company blogs, Facebook pages, etc.) but is internal as well. Forrester Research estimates that "behind the firewall" social networks (internal company networks or intranets) will be at least a $4.6B market in four years, and a recent study by Awareness found that while 6% of organizations already have deployed internal-facing communities, 33% say they plan to deploy them.
- Identifying goals in social media engagement can mean different things to different companies -- increasing brand awareness, reputation management, customer retention, increasing employee loyalty, lead generation and many more. Reed's, Inc. has outward-facing goals such as raising awareness of its Natural Soda within the mainstream market and increasing positive online conversation, while Forzani Group wants to improve its internal communication by building a community for its 11,000 employees spread across Canada.
QUOTES
Sally Falkow, Social Media Strategist and President, Expansion Plus
- "For 100 years, as marketers and PR people we have been looking at who is our target audience, what do we want to say to them, where are they, and we craft a message and we send it out -- this has all been on a one-way push of messages and communication. The internet has completely changed that [flow], so that people are talking to one another. The market has become a conversation."
- "Word of 'mouse' is growing. More than 25 million US adults regularly share advice on products or services online. Instead of the message going [only] from you to your audience, it's going from you to the audience, and then to each other... to each other... to each other. The idea that you've lost control of the message... I don't know that you ever had it. But you can participate in these conversations. If you stand outside the conversation, then you have no hope of having any influence over what's being said. If you genuinely become part of that conversation, that's how you can participate and engage."
- "What do we want to do with a social media campaign? The whole idea is that you can establish and sustain conversations online that are shaping the perceptions about your products and services and everything that you do within your company."
John Blossom, Author, Content Nation, and President, Shore Communications Inc.
- "It's a myth that social media is the Wild West and that it's not a safe place to be. The truth of the matter is that most social media sites and communities have a strong sense of community values that govern what type of content gets published and what type of behavior is acceptable."
- "Social media enables individuals to create content in contexts that put them in direct contact with other people who value their insights -- and doing so gives them many options as to how to translate that value into ways to survive and thrive. The influence that we have in social media is personal; it's person-to-person in a highly scaleable fashion. It's like having millions of copies of Tiger Woods around the world ready to endorse your product or help people out with their expertise. Our ability to influence other people -- to offer very personal solutions to their very personal problems -- allows marketers to be able to understand people on a one-to-one basis."
- "People benefit who know how to have and listen to social media conversations. It's not just marketers, but politicians, product support departments at major corporations, etc. Remember though, that you need to be ready to have these conversations where and when 'they' want to have them."
KEY FACTS
"Your Social Media Roadmap" consists of four 90-minute webinars that build upon each other to give attendees a complete, actionable social media strategy. Each webinar includes a comprehensive whitepaper. Following the series, a CD will be offered and made available to the public for sale.
Session 1: Setting Your Baseline and Determining Goals
- Guest Expert: John Blossom, author of "Content Nation"; president, Shore Communications
- Thursday, March 19, 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT
- Attendees learn to:
- Benchmark their company
- Educate the C-suite
- Gauge their social media ranking
- Set realistic, measurable goals
Session 2: Researching and Planning
- Guest Expert: Paul Gillin, social media strategist; author of "The New Influencers"
- Thursday, April 16, 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT
- Attendees learn to:
- Identify important influencers, including evangelists and detractors
- Pinpoint relevant communities
- Know what people are saying, what they want to know and what organizations should do
- Create a strong online reputation
Session 3: Choosing Your Tactics
- Guest Expert: Rebecca Lieb, editor and consultant; vice president, eConsultancy
- Thursday, May 21, 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT
- Attendees learn to:
- Develop their content strategy
- Take advantage of universal search
- Choose the best tools for them: blogger relations, microblogging (Twitter), podcasts, video, RSS feeds, social news sites and more
Session 4: Measuring ROI
- Guest Expert: Katie Delahaye Paine, publisher, The Measurement Standard; CEO, KDPaine & Partners
- Thursday, June 25, 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT
- Attendees learn to:
- Redefine the "R" in social media ROI
- Measure the tone of blog posts, video views, search results and comments
- Analyze the impact of your efforts
- Translate social media conversations to sales
REGISTRATION INFORMATION:
While social media webinars and seminars typically cost anywhere from $200 each to even thousands of dollars, during these tough economic times Marketwire is subsidizing the cost of its webinar series, and is able to offer the four intensive 90-minute sessions featuring five recognized social media experts, four comprehensive whitepapers, live case studies discussed and tracked throughout, and the downloadable archive of all at $425 USD (single sessions available for $125 USD each). Special non-profit discounts are available.
To learn more and to register: www.marketwire.com/SMStrategy
RESOURCES
- Participate in Sally Falkow's Proactive blog
- Participate in John Blossom's Content Nation blog
- Join Marketwire's Social Media Corner on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
- Access Marketwire's PR 2.0 resource center
- Take a "test drive" of a social media press release
- Download Marketwire's whitepaper: Top 10 Strategies for Boosting ROI Despite Shrinking Budgets and Dwindling Resources
About Marketwire
The only fully integrated North America-based global newswire, Marketwire, Inc. is a full-service partner to IR, PR and MarCom professionals seeking top-tier press release distribution, media management, multimedia and monitoring solutions. Marketwire's customer-centric corporate philosophy focuses on being the best by infusing every aspect of its business with the following core attributes: precision, adaptability, innovation and simplicity.
Marketwire delivers its clients' news to the world's media and financial communities, fulfilling disclosure requirements in North America in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), and serving as Primary Information Provider (PIP) with the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA). With a reputation for technology leadership, Marketwire offers innovative products and services -- including Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, Dashboard Mobile Financial, News Dashboard coverage reports, exclusive access to networks such as the Canadian Press Wire Network, Easy IR and Easy PR workflow solutions, and more -- that help communication professionals maximize their effectiveness while ensuring accuracy and best practices. Having merged companies (Market Wire and CCNMatthews) in April 2006, and enjoying a combined history of 25 years of service, Marketwire is now majority-owned by OMERS Capital Partners, the private equity arm of one of Canada's largest pension funds.
Marketwire distributes the majority of press releases issued by publicly
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through 20 offices on four continents. For more information, visit us at
http://www.marketwire.com/.
Contact Information: For additional information: Dagmar King Marketwire (310) 765-3255 dking@marketwire.com
