If you thrive in an unstructured, entrepreneurial environment, want to build a high-performing team, and are energized by the prospect of being part of a winning, innovative marketing agency where you can truly make a difference, we want to meet you.

WorkSmart Integrated Marketing is looking for a talented individual who cannot only build websites and applications, but also create and direct a team of developers with varying skill levels. We look for individuals who can apply their knowledge and who keep up on industry trends and technology developments to continually provide top notch solutions for our clients. We look for enthusiastic and motivated people with a passion for innovation and creativity that have a combination of the following technical experience:

Job Details

• Conduct user analysis and design sessions to propose user interface solutions
• Create wireframe flows translating interface requirements into design models.
• Propose and help implement user interface standards and guidelines.
• Interact with business, systems, and project management to communicate ideas and proposals to gain acceptance, support and approval.
• Collaborate with web developers on development activities.
• Provide training to users on the use of the user interface and portal solutions.

Qualifications

• Solid experience coding with web development tools and architectures
• Ability to work with designers to design and implement scaleable templating approach for projects
• Experience in web applications development, and knowledge of software development standards and methodologies, especially rapid development and rapid prototyping
• Work independently with minimum supervision and be a valuable contributor in an interactive team environment
• Demonstrated knowledge of topics such as portal development techniques, web content management solutions, site structures, navigation schemes, Rich Internet Applications and Web 2.0.
• Project management experience

Contact Karen Soja at Karen@WorkSmartIM.com or by sending a resume.

If you thrive in an unstructured, entrepreneurial environment, want to build a high-performing team, and are energized by the prospect of being part of a winning, innovative company where you can truly make a difference, we want to meet you.

WorkSmart is looking for a unique individual that combines classic account/strategic planning, with digital media expertise who can leverage our tools, technology and customer insights to establish brand platforms that drive innovative solutions for our clients’ business challenges, across all media. This role will also be charged with molding and developing best practice solutions for the overall strategic planning process .

It is this individuals responsibility to understand and manage the client’s needs and expectations and to work with WorkSmart’s resources to ensure these needs are met in a timely manner. Communication is critical — you must be in constant contact with your clients as well as with members of the WorkSmart team to make sure everything is running in an efficient, productive, creative manner. This is a role for people who can manage ideas, expectations and resources.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of ad/marketing agency experience in account management/marketing that included the delivery of innovative online marketing/brand marketing/social marketing solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate creative and strategic planning into cohesive communications planning that builds brands, drives traffic, gets results, and has a “W-O-M” factor
• Excellent communication/presentation skills
• Ability to motivate internal teams around new ideas/solution.
• The ability to establish overarching brand platforms and inform communications messaging that resonates with consumers to solve critical business challenges for clients
• Dynamic, innovative marketer with strong analytical skills, business acumen and industry presence who has a passion for ideas and building business
• History of pitching and winning business from new and existing clients
• Ability to operationalize and stimulate innovation internally

Responsibilities

• Generating daily reports tracking the performance of campaigns and product launches
• Designing and conducting analysis, interpreting results and synthesizing recommendations
• Creating ad hoc reports measuring the performance of strategic initiatives
• Conducting primary and secondary research on best practices and market trends
• Achieving and maintaining fluency in relevant interactive technologies

Required Skills and Experience:

Contact Karen Soja at Karen@WorkSmartIM.com with your resume, or for more information.

Do people see social media as the approach of taking your off line social interactions and bringing them to the web?  How do your conversations, your networking, and your marketing in the real world reflect your presence online…  All important questions to ask and consider when running what will soon be a standard integrated campaign.  Check out the four part series from a local chamber presentation on integrating social media and online marketing into your overall marketing mix.

The Wall Street Journal published an article today entitled “Entrepreneurs Question Value of Social Media” looking at how some professionals have seen growth of their business up to 40% where others see it as a major bust and/or waste of time.

I wouldn’t say the hype has passed by any means – however the way businesses, corporations, entrepreneurs and other organizations are examining social media as a practical marketing medium (when I say practical, I mean result/ROI orientated) has started to shift.  2009 brought on a ton of opportunities to be risk takers and first to market with a social media strategy, but a lot has been learned, case studies have been published and failures have talked it up.

While everyone is looking at questions such as

• Do I have to be on social media platforms?
• How do I engage my business in social media?
• Where do I get started?
• How do I differentiate professional verse personal interactions?

The real questions should be – what reasons do I have NOT to engage in social media.  As an entrepreneur, it is just important, if not more, to look at the cons of the engagement and investment because before you can perfect or capitalize on the direction – you must overcome the obstacles and challenges first.

Marketing Sherpa published these survey results in early 2009 – that looked at the barriers to social media adoption.  The top being lack of knowledgeable staff and inability to measure ROI; while a distrant third is lack of budget funding.

To wrap back around to the question at hand – is there a trigger point on how to use social media as an entrepreneur?  Absolutely. Those that have been successful will share and enrich people around them – embrace that person and their experiences of triumph and failure.  Similar to your business – when your gut tells you to pursue this concept or conversation, don’t try to over complicate or examine the situation.  If you are dedicated, passionate and engaged – get involved.  If is is something you question every day – then step back and re-evaluate your approach to the situation.

While my perspective is unique, there is several entrepreneurs that have chosen to stay away or get involved with social media.  What do you see as the real “tipping point” for entrepreneurs to engage in a business sense with social media?

Article highlights:

• In 2009, social-media adoption by businesses with fewer than 100 employees doubled to 24%
• Of a group of 500 small businesses, 22% made a profit last year from promoting their firms on social media while 19% said they actually lost money
• John Fluevog Boots and Shows Ltd. saw a 40% increase in online sales through 2009, when it fully engaged in social media as a marketing platform – including Facebook and Twitter.

As of this week (March 15, 2010), Facebook has become the most visited website in one week in the United States.  ”Compared to one year ago in 2009, Facebook site visits were up 185% while visits to Google increased by 9%” stated best by Heather Doughtery at Hitwise.

In total Facebook and Google accounted for 14% of all web traffic in one week in the United States.

Does this scare you – that a social networking platform containing millions of pieces of personal information with user-created content and databases – is sliding past Google in visits?

Do you use Skype, Gchat, AOL or one of the other popular instant messaging tool?  How about with video?

With internet speeds increasing across the world and streaming video on the rise with sites like YouTube, web video is becoming an integral part not just to do business, but between friends and family around the world.

Ad Age recently published an article, “Video Chat Is Where It’s at — but How Do Brands Fit in?” in regards to how marketers need to start examining ways to utilize the platform as a marketing medium.  We are looking for some examples of practical use of streaming web video, please post some of your stories!

Some information about video

• A Cisco research report last summer estimated that although video calling and video instant messaging are still a “small fraction of the overall internet traffic,” video communications will increase tenfold from 2008-2013.
• Internet video viewership is huge and on the rise, but the audience dislikes intrusive advertising. A new eMarketer report addresses how marketers can reach them effectively.

• Young consumers tune in to web video “ComScore reports that the average consumer is watching just over 273 minutes of online video per month, an increase of about 70% year over year.”

At the beginning of each month, I put together a SmartStats report for our clients that details various online metrics from the previous month.  One tool I use to do this is Google Analytics.  Well this month, while putting together reports for February, I noticed cities appearing twice in the Map Overlay section:

Cities showing up twice in Google Analytics reports

When I change the dates to Jan 1-31, it’s fine.  So the problem must have creeped up in February.

When something goes wrong with Google, where do you search?  Google.  Doing a couple Google searches didn’t yield any answers, just more people complaining the geographical report is reporting the same city multiple times and duplicate cities appearing in map report.

It’s not the first time it’s happened.  Search Engine Roundtable reported the same problem of duplicate cities in Google Analytics back in August 2008.

Hope it’s fixed soon. Or else I’m switching to Woopra!

Ah, a new year.  A time to go out with the old and in with the new.  Many people use this time to get rid of junk that’s been sitting in the garage/attic/basement since before Netscape has its IPO.  (August 9, 1995)  But what about cleaning up the junk that’s sitting in your social media feeds?

Whether it’s blog feeds going into your favorite RSS reader (I’m a fan of Google Reader, myself), the number of friends you have on Facebook, the number of people you’re following on Twitter, or your connections on LinkedIn, you probably volunteered to receive a lot more crap in 2009.  Technology has made it so easy to say “Yes, please!” to so many different sources of information that the end result can be information overload.

Just imagine if you could sign up, freely, to have every single magazine still being published delivered to your home/office/loft/van down by the river…  How many would you actually end up reading?  And would you read less than you would if you only received what you were actually interested in?

If you are one of those people who are trying to follow every single person on Twitter, then this post probably isn’t for you.  Enjoy trying to read the entire Internet in 2010 and we’ll tell your friends and family that you love them.  But if you cringe every time you open your inbox or your Twitter feed is being updated quicker than you can read it, here are some tips to help you simply your social media lifestyle:

1. Unsubscribe from e-mail lists.  In the late 90s, clicking “Unsubscribe” from an e-mail was almost a certain way of ensuring you’d receive more spam.  ”Hey, there’s an actual human being at the other end of this e-mail address!  Send them more Viagra ads!”  But these days, unsubscribe often means just that.And I’m not talking about spam here — I’m talking about that blog that you thought was so interesting back in February that signing up for their e-mail newsletter just seemed like the right thing to do.  If you find yourself deleting e-mails from mailing lists you’re on before you even open the e-mail, you probably shouldn’t be subscribed to it. Take the time (yes, right now) to go through your inbox, find everything you’re not interested in, scroll down to the bottom of the e-mail and “Unsubscribe”.  Your future self will thank you.
2. You really don’t care what the 245,343 people you’re following are saying on Twitter. I know, you were just trying to be polite.  Someone started following you on Twitter and some lesson about manners that your mom taught you when you were six-years-old just made you automatically follow this person back.

   But now your Twitter feed is filled with people talking about Hannah Montana, hashtag topics you don’t even understand and more spam than a Monty Python song.  (yes, it’s okay to chuckle.  That was pretty witty of me…)It was surprisingly difficult for me to find tools to help clean out the list of people I follow on Twitter.  I found a lot that can automatically unfollow people that aren’t following you, but I don’t expect many of the people/news sources I follow to follow me back.TwitBlock is a great tool for looking at your followers, determining which ones are probably spammers or bots and blocking them, but I want a similar tool for people I follow, not my followers.  If anyone has any suggestions, please post a comment below.

3. Are you really friends with all those people on Facebook? It’s time to decide who your true friends are.  Log in to Facebook, under the “Friends” menu at the top, select “All Friends” and start x’ing people you don’t really care about.  They’re not going to be notified so you don’t even have to prepare an awkward “It’s not you, it’s me,” speech.  That is, until Facebook pops up your picture as a Suggested Friend and your ex-friend now has to say to himself, “Wait, we’re already friends….  oh.”
4. Do you trust all your connections on LinkedIn? The whole point of LinkedIn is sharing your business connections.  It’s very annoying when you think one of your connections knows someone at a company you’re trying to connect with, but when you ask your connection, he says, “Oh, I don’t really know Jim.  I just found his business card lying on the ground, ran home, and quickly added him to my network on LinkedIn.”If you wouldn’t recommend so-and-so to someone, you shouldn’t be connected to them.  It’s not a competition.  Connecting to anyone and everyone through LinkedIn defeats the purpose of the site.
   
5. Does it take you all day to go through your RSS feeds? If so, maybe you should get rid of some of them.  Now I know some of you are saying, “But, Jeremy, I don’t expect to read ALL of my RSS feeds.  I just want them there when I need them.”  Fine.  But are there any feeds you’re subscribed to that you NEVER read?
   
   Google Reader has a great feature called “Trends” that you can use to see what you’re reading and what you aren’t.  If you’ve been subscribed to a blog for six months that sends out one post a day and you haven’t read any of them, it’s time to cut the cord.

If you can get rid of some of the noise that’s so easy to find online, you’ll be able to do a better job of focusing on the things you really want to be focusing on and have a more enjoyable 2010.

Why do we focus on digital marketing? (with traditional thrown in for support, of course) Because of digital’s metrics and the ability to measure all campaigns.  Tie these into print ads, television, radio, mailers and now you have an integrated campaign.

But when it comes to social media measurement, you have to get your metrics in place!  What are your objectives and how does success look?  In larger organizations, there are going to be multiple levels of conversation and various levels within the organizational structure are going to measure the return on investment through different standards.  Here is a list of seven ways of measuring social media marketing.  Add more ideas to keep the list growing.  And don’t forget to check it twice!

1. URL shortener – Whether you are using a web app like Hootsuite that has tracking built-in for sites like Twitter, or something more generic that can be used on multiple platforms like bit.ly, these URL shorteners not only make your URL look pretty, they help you measure the amount of clicks and traffic your links generate.  Even Facebook and Google have their own URL shorteners (FB.me and Goo.gl, respectively)
2. Tweetreach – When you post a tweet, how deep and far does your message go?  How many retweets do you generate? Sites like Hootsuite and Tweetreach can help measure some of these metrics for you.
3. Number of comments and likes -When writing a blog, posting updates on a Facebook page or responding to YouTube videos, monitor visitors’ comments and reactions to what you post.  React and engage in a conversation with those individuals that have shown an interest in the message you are trying to drive.
4. Quality of posting – Facebook has insights for your Facebook page status and wall postings. It’s not always about frequency, but the quality of what you’re posting. Track your growth and post quality on a weekly basis to monitor growth.
5. Positive vs negative sentiment – So you’re tracking what people are saying about your company, product or brand on blogs, forums and Twitter, but are you tracking sentiment?  Are people saying good things or bad things about your brand? And how is that changing over time based on various marketing or PR campaigns you may have running? While measuring online sentiment is still pretty much a manual, human-driven job, companies like Radian6 have tools that can help you with the process.
6. Subscriptions – How many people are following your social presence? This includes RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook pages.  Monitor the growth as you push out various campaigns across all mediums.
7. Search results – Are any of your social sites creating traffic to your blog or website? Or is your Facebook page ranking for specific search terms on Google?  Looking at search traffic can help you know where to best invest more time or emphasis.

What other ways can you measure social media?