Jon Samsel

Brands are invisible if their products and services and not getting found online. In today’s competitive world, being heard is a marketing imperative. And brands who tell the best stories are often the winners because they connect on a visceral level with their customers.

In the this 26 page PPT deck, you will learn how to make your brand visible and remain relevant in the age of the weird, wild web.

THE BUSINESS OF WRITING SMARTER

1-Day or 2-Day Power Writing Seminar

Instructor: Jon Samsel

Who this course is intended for: Companies looking to train their marketing/communication staff on the importance of writing and the skills required to help a brand become successful online. Website writing best practices, search engine optimization (SEO), and storytelling are emphasized. Ideal for novice to intermediate level-staff looking to quickly boost their proficiency. No prior programming skills needed.

Inquiries: 310-402-2890 or email jsamsel@gmail.com

IMPORTANCE OF WRITING

Famed management consultant, Peter Drucker, said, “As soon as you take one step up the career ladder your effectiveness depends on your ability to communicate your thoughts in writing.” In other words, if you want to be noticed within or outside your organization, you have to be able to express yourself-clearly and concisely.

The same can be said when you are an employee representing a company online, whether that’s on a corporate website, press release, training module, marketing campaign, social media site or email. Your writing is a critical extension of your company’s brand — so it’s important that business leaders invest in assisting their employees become the best ambassadors of communication possible.

• Your writing creates an image
• Text is the universal language of the web
• Being readable and findable is critical
• Great writing attracts customers

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS COURSE

The purpose of the training course is to help you become a better web writer, whether you are writing for humans or for search engines. You will increase your knowledge of today’s effective writing techniques, better understand the emotional mechanics of storytelling, and learn how to apply winning search engine marketing best practices.

• How to make your website more relevant
• What must be done to get good search engine rankings
• Best ways to submit, subscribe & syndicate to be found
• Why stories matter and how best to exploit them
• Customers who interact are more likely to transact
• The difference between branding and direct response content
• How extending text & tags to multiple media to amplify your reach
• How usability testing can be used to validate your choices
• How to monitor and track your success over time

COURSE REVIEW

Web Writing

• Writing for humans
• Text elements of a high-impact website
• Designing content structure
• Tailoring your writing to different audiences and needs
• Editing & testing text for clarity, concision & response
• Writing to sell: persuasion & direct response
• Social media writing & representing the brand voice
• Syndication: The power of web distribution
• Measuring success with text tools

SEO

• Writing for engines & bots
• SEO basics
• Business planning & goal setting
• Keyword selection, relevancy, and density
• Competitive assessment
• Code: titles, meta tags, URLs & site maps
• Copy writing
• Offsite SEO & social search
• Measuring success with SEO tools

Storytelling

• Writing for emotional engagement
• Integrated marketing: The holy grail of marketers
• The new PR: Participation not propaganda
• Advertelling: Successful brands are about people
• Word of mouth matters when the experience is the brand
• Ratings, testimonials and user generated content
• Educational training, kiosks and demos
• Narrative stories & branded entertainment

FORMAT

One-day or tow-day tutorial encompassing lectures, live demos and exercises. Real-world examples are used to highlight points throughout the day. Copies of the presentation slides and exercises with be provided to all attendees.

INSTRUCTOR BIO

Jon Samsel is a published author, speaker, instructor, consultant and thought leader in the areas of branding, online marketing and writing. He has worked as an online marketing executive at Fortune 100 companies such as Bank of America, Ford and Countrywide where he was responsible for a broad range of marketing activities such as paid and organic search marketing, display advertising, DRTV, social media engagement, mobile marketing, and multivariate testing, including the task of coordinating teams of designers, programmers, copywriters and others involved.

His book, ‘Dead Ahead: The Web Dilemma and the New Rules of Business,’ co-authored with Laurie Windham and published back in 1999, predicted many of the changes the Internet has had on businesses and organizational processes. Jon’s book, ‘Writing for Interactive Media,’ first published in 1995, has been utilized as a textbook in over 40 colleges and universities throughout the US and Canada. He wrote and produced, ‘The Killer Content Workbook,’ for Apple, Inc., one of the first interactive PDF’s ever created to incorporate text, audio, video, embedded forms and interactive user response.

Jon is an adjunct writing instructor at UCLA and UC Irvine where he has taught courses in multimedia, fiction and non-fiction writing. Jon has co-authored four published books, edited 12 books/directories, and is a published poet and Hollywood screenwriter. Jon is an online marketing/writing consultant and a regular seminar speaker for Richmond Events.

COMPLIMENTARY VALUE ADDS

Free 1-Year Premium Subscription to Heardable.com

Heardable is the world’s first and only online brand optimization platform. All workshop attendees will receive a 1-year premium subscription to Heardable.com (a $2,999 value) redeemable via a special promotional code provided at the end of the class.

Free copy of writing for interactive media

All workshop attendees will receive a free copy of Jon Samsel and Darryl Wimberley’s book, ‘Writing for Interactive Media.’

PRICING

Custom class configurations and pricing available upon request.

TESTIMONIALS

‘Jon has an amazing understanding of consumer insights and behavior as they relate to online usability– skills that bring immediate value to strategic consulting projects. Understanding, and leveraging the technology through best practices and innovation are critical success factors, and Jon is clearly one of the best in his field. –Christophe Bertrand, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Hitachi Data Systems

‘Jon’s vision and in-depth knowledge of both the business and creative aspects of new media production is truly remarkable. This is a man truly “gets it” and empowers those around him to do their best work. Bottom line – Jon is a rare commodity, a visionary in the area of online direct response marketing and a creative powerhouse.’  –David Greene, Owner of Creative-Spark

JON SAMSEL
Digital Brand Strategist, Author & Web Consultant
310-402-2890
jsamsel@gmail.com
jon.samsel @ skype
jonsamsel.com - blog
linkedin.com/in/jonsamsel @ linkedIn
twitter.com/jonsamsel @ twitter

Jon Samsel had the good fortune of presenting to a group of esteemed marketing executives and creative agency representatives at the recent Marketing Forum 2010 which took place at the Doral Resort in Miami, Florida on April 25-27. The event was sponsored by Richmond Events and our presentation was entitled, “Brandformers: Integrated Brand Marketing Strategies Based on Consumer Engagement.”

Jon’s 29-page PowerPoint deck can be viewed below.

At the event, Jon shared the stage with several speaking luminaries, including:

Scott Bedbury of Brandstream, Inc., former worldwide advertising director for Nike and also the former CMO of Starbucks. Scott is the author of A New Brand World.

Jeffrey Hayzlett, the CMO of Eastman Kodak Company, and author of The Mirror Test.

It’s that time of year again when we American’s reflect on our past and make optimistic (if not unrealistic)  goals for our future. 2009 was full of new-found interests, change, as well as ups and downs. The frequency of my Twitter posts surpassed my blog posts. I used LinkedIn in bold new ways to enhance my professional network–which led to many unexpected and engaging experiences such as speaking engagements, reconnecting with many old friends, interesting business propositions, a Twitterview with a European blogger, inquiries from executive recruiters, participation with charity organizations, and connecting like-minded people together.

In reviewing my year-end Google Analytics reports for JonSamsel.com, I was surprised to see which of my blog posts rose to the top of my ‘page view top 10 list.’ I share with you my top ten posts for 2009 in order of popularity.

1. 5 Ways to Take Advantage of a LinkedIn BETA Tool: Company Profiles - I had no idea when I published this post that it would be my most popular post (by far) for 2009. I think it was simply the right post at the right time, helping people figure out how to use LinkedIn in a new way. Nearly everyone I know uses LinkedIn and I love the service. So I guess when you write about a subject you are passionate about, it comes out in the final piece and people pick up on that vibe.
2. 7 Ways to Leverage LinkedIn to Expand Your Social Network -Similar in scope and tone as my number one post for 2009, this post zeroed in on the social networking capabilities of LinkedIn.
3. The Best Social Media Monitoring Tools Used by Today’s Top Creative Agencies & Brands - I had fun writing this post because it was my chance to share some of the tool I use on a daily basis with all of my readers. They responded by reading this post in droves. The other aspect about this post that I love is how it profiles several new start-up firms. It’s always nice to be able to talk about small companies before they hit it big.
4. The Twitter Effect: How 140 Character Micro-Blogging Can BeneTweet Your Company - I write this post just as I was getting up to speed on how companies could benefit from using Twitter. Obviously, many of my readers found value in the the article as well. Note to readers: I have seen the word ‘BeneTweet’ used several times since my original post, a combination of the words Benefit and Tweet. Nice to know it’s still possible to coin a term now and then. Note to self: Not 100% sure I was the first person to use the term BeneTweet, but at the time, I did think I was being somewhat unique.
5. 15 Ways to Promote Your Book -When I first started my blog back in Oct 2008, I focused more on writing and design topics than I do today, since so much of my early career was spent working as a writer and editor. I am always happy when I can assist other writers publish and promote their work. This article was my way of providing some helpful utility to scribes everywhere.
6. Retweet: Harnessing the Word of Mouth Marketing Power of Twitter - Another post about a Twitter topic, when I was fast discovering the in’s and out’s of the platform. So much has changed since then — it feels like this article is very dated even though it’s only 10 month’s old!
7. 10 Step Process for Designing a Landing Page that Delivers Results - This is another post I enjoyed sharing with my readers. Landing page optimization is such a special skill set that very few marketers have mastered, yet it’s a critical component for any online marketing campaign looking to achieve ROI success.
8. Hope Springs Eternal: An Interview with Amy Neumann - In 2009 I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Neumann, a member of the Capital Campaign Committee for Hope Gardens, a charitable ministry of Union Rescue Mission. It was an uplifting piece, a bit out of the ordinary for my blog, but I was determined to help Union Rescue Mission in some way. I can recall telling Amy about the possible benefits of using Twitter — and recently I saw Amy had amassed a following of over 11,000! Go, Amy, go!
9. Social is the New Search - One of my favorite blog posts of 2009 made it into the illustrious top 10 list. I wrote the post after seeing first hand the impact that social media conversations were having on the SEO efforts of major brands. Unfortunately, most brands still don’t seem to have headed the message. But there is always 2010 for a time of awakening!
10. 30 Ad Agencies Ranked By Heardable Score - I really enjoyed creating this post as well. I had been turned on to a new start-up called Heardable a few weeks prior and I really wanted to put their brand scoring tool to the test. What amazed me was how poorly the top creative firms were doing in the area of online marketing. They were preaching to others but failed to practice what they advocated. The stats in the article were shocking — and I received several alarming emails from concerned agency staff who tried to refute the article. I stick by my every word.

I was recently invited to be part of a private beta for a new brand optimization/analytics platform called Heardable. The new service measures how well a brand is doing online, issuing a Heardable Score for every URL you scan into their tool. There is even a comparison scan tool that allows users to scan up to five domain names at once.

The platform examines over 40 unique on-site and off-site brand variables, including a website’s code, inbound links, usability, social brand presence, mobile readiness, and other unique characteristics. The highest possible Heardable Score that can be achieved is 1000. A score between 401-600 is average.

The tools on the site are very cool, with results displayed via an attractive AJAX interface that slides in and out to reveal more detailed information when prompted. My assessment after about one hour of use: Heardable is an extremely functional, insightful, and highly addictive platform that will surely appeal to online marketers. By addictive I refer to the fact that I couldn’t stop scanning URL’s that popped into my head. I wanted to see how each brand scored.

Perhaps the best part of Heardable is The Heardable 100, a ranked list of the top 100 Heardable Scores by brand. You may be surprised by which brand is currently ranked #1. (Hint: It’s a popular celebrity gossip site whose name is a play on socialite, Paris Hilton). According to the company founders, the Heardable platform will soon add hundreds of thousands of pre-ranked lists of brands, by category, which will be a very helpful (and time saving) research tool.

I think brand managers and C-level marketers are really going to like Heardable because it’s an easy way to measure how one brand is performing against a competitor, across multiple variables, plus providing drill-downs into exactly how and why one brand is doing better than the other. Kinda like opening the hood of your competitor’s brand and seeing their online strategy in action. Sweet!

So I decided to examine one category of brands that is near and near to my heart — advertising agencies. After, all, one might assume that the top creative minds in the land would have built websites that truly showcases their talents — both creatively and functionally. After all, they are pitching online marketing strategies and tactics every day to clients (and potential clients). Surely their own sites would have higher than average Heardable Scores, right?

Sadly, my scans revealed just the opposite. Instead of stellar scores, most creative agencies fell into the ‘poor’ or ‘below average’ range. Not what most of us would expect from today’s top-tier marketing agencies. Note to agencies: Don’t let your clients use this tool or you may be in trouble!

To put things into perspective, everyday brands scored better than expected — with higher Heardable Scores than most creative agencies I tested.

• Sears.com (573)
• Weightwatchers.com (531)
• Brides.com (442)
• Airtran.com (438)

Hat’s off to R/GA, an integrated, interactive agency that seems to practice what they preach with a Heardable Score of 537. R/GA had the best score of all agencies I scanned.

Here is a list of the advertising agencies that I scanned, rank ordered by Heardable Score. Any surprises? Be sure to Tweet about it.

Each morning I start my day reviewing the brands I monitor on a regular basis. I won’t tell you which brands I monitor but I will tell you that I use five tools to monitor them so that I can make the most of my day as a busy online marketer:

1. Google Reader
2. Social Mention Alerts / Google Alerts
3. Google News
4. Twitter
5. Heardable

Were you surprised that my list didn’t contain any of the popular social media monitoring tools such as Radian6, eCairn, Sysomos or Techrigy SM2? There is nothing wrong with utilizing any of these tools as long as you are willing to put the time and effort into learning how to use them. By doing so, you can probably automate 80% of your online brand research effort that is required when trying to monitor a brand.

Frankly, that’s what we have staff for — to be experts at utilizing these types of robust tools. But as a busy executive, I often don’t have the time not patience to learn yet another cool tool to help me do my job. Call me old school, by I am perfectly happy using a handful of simple, smart, user-friendly tools that give me the information that I need, when I need it (without much hassle). My five tools fit the bill quite nicely — and I marry my findings with those on my expert teams to compile a holistic view on brand performance.

Why do I monitor certain brands? It’s my job to measure, monitor and improve brand effectiveness because in the business world I live and breath in– winning is everything. Big companies don’t pay the money they do to come in second place. Management wants to achieve all of its goals. Employees want to advance their careers. Shareholders want to see a fair return on their investment.

Business is a full-contact sport. It’s about beating your competitors before they beat you.

When I am knee-deep in the data, what am I looking for? What jewels am I unearthing? What actionable takeaways to I gain from the work that I do? Glad you asked!

My Tools Help Me

• Understand what communities are buzzing about
• Identify key trends
• Perform competitive analysis
• Optimize brand performance
• Improve the customer experience
• Grow market share / Boost sales

Using The Tools In My E-Toolbox

Let me explain how I utilize each to start by day as a busy online marketer.

Google Reader:  This is what I use to aggregate all my RSS feeds into one comprehensive list that I can scan in less than a minute to see if there are any articles or blog posts from those I trust that I should be aware of. When I find something I want to read, I mark it so I can read the post later in the day over lunch.

By scanning the headlines I collect in Google Reader, I get a feel for what’s being discussed on a deeper level in the blogosphere, and provides the ‘expert’ POV on what communities are buzzing about.

Social Mention Alerts / Google Alerts:  I lump these two together because they essentially do the same thing, but I find neither one is strong enough on it’s own for me to forgo using the other. Basically, I use these tools to seek out and flag certain keywords on a daily basis and serve them up to me in a consolidated list I can quickly scan. Google is fairly comprehensive on its own, but I distrust using a single keyword monitoring service to sift through the entire deep web of data on a daily basis. I like SocialMention.com’s alerts because they tend to provide me with a wider variety of results.

To be honest, there is a lot of dreg one has to comb through to find the gold, but you would be surprised to learn that I find all kinds of quirky, useful and unexpected nuggets of data in these simple, automated data feeds. Set up your keywords one time, then check you email for daily results. Easy as pie.

Google News:  To me, Google News is the one and only daily news aggregator I need to tap into. Sure, I occasionally monitor PRWeb and BusinessWire, or go to Alltop or TMZ (for entertainment), but for news (eg: press releases and breaking stories) Google News has replaced my daily newspaper and my online portals.

I search for certain brand keywords and can sort through countless stories that inform me about strategy, website redesigns, staff changes, and the like.

Twitter:  For real-time breaking information, nothing beats Twitter. It really has become my social search engine of choice. Not because it functions so much as a search engine but as a pulse of what’s happening. I can easily see what’s trending hot right now and I can perform a little bit of competitive analysis by studying how savvy certain brands are by looking to see if they are on Twitter (many still are not, and when they are, you cannot find them because often times their brand name has been hyjacked by someone else). You can also watch how certain brands are participating on Twitter (so many pilot tests, so little authenticity — such as having one’s CEO actively tweeting).

Heardable:  I’ve been a fan of Heardable.com since I was first invited to test their beta site in late 2009. It is quite simply one of the most underrated digital marketing gems out there (although this will be changing fast as their first press release came out today).

So what is the Heardable platform and how do I use it?  Heardable allows anyone to type in a domain name and within seconds, get a comprehensive assessment of that brand’s online effectiveness in six critical areas. I have a free account with Heardable which allows me to scan multiple brands at the same time, store groups of scans that I may need to revisit daily, track how multiple brands perform against each other over time, and determine what specifically one brand is doing to score higher than another.

I love to ‘look under the hood’ at the top brands in the world that are profiled in The Heardable 100 list of companies. At a glance, you can see common threads of what leading brands are doing better than everyone else, such as:

• Who is optimizing their website for mobile browsers — and which browsers?
• What analytic tools are certain brands using?
• Which brands are excelling at SEO and which are not?
• Is brand x sociable and/or sharing data — living up to the spirit of the giving web, the foundation of which all of web 2.0 and now web 3.0 is based on?

Heardable is brilliant. And from what I hear from the company’s founders, their growth strategy is very exciting. Keep an eye on Heardable.

In summary, I perform my daily ritual not because I yearn to to better than I did the day before. It’s my job to help brands win by increasing sales and growing market share. This can only be done of you know what’s happening in your market, you’re being the best steward of your brand as possible, you’re learning though trial and error and testing, you’re listening to crowds and trying your best to please, and you are optimizing everything you do as often as possible — from landing pages to the language you use to talk about your brand to the way you engage your constituents.

Online brand optimization ain’t easy. But with the right (free) tools and a little hard work come great rewards.

Recently, I wrote a blog post titled, “Which SEO Agencies Practice What They Preach?” The article generated a lot of comments from professionals within the creative agency world–most of them lukewarm. Respondents fell into two camps: 1) Those who disagreed with the methodology of utilizing a free site grading service to evaluate and compare SEO companies, 2) Those who were embarrassed by the results. After rereading my post, I not only stand by my words, but I have decided to expand the concept of comparing leading class companies by WebsiteGrader Score into a regular feature on my blog.

Why compare firms by WebsiteGrader Score? Because looking under the hood can tell you a lot about what companies are doing to promote their brands–both on site and off site.

So which category would I zero in on next? Well, it didn’t take me long to decide. I stumbled across an interesting article by Linda Tischler published on FastCompany.com on Feb 11, 2009 titled, “The Fast Company 50: The Most Innovative Companies in Design” that purported to profile extraordinary design enterprises across the nation, part of a larger article looking at firms across various industries.

Prepping the List to Grade

I had only heard of two of the design companies profiled by Fast Company, so I looked up each company on Google and verified the corporate URL for each firm. Then went to Websitegrader.com and evaluated each site.

Here are the top 10 design firms ranked by Fast Company along with their WSG score:

1. Ideo 98.3
2. Marcel Wanders Studio 71.0
3. Rockwell Group 77.0
4. Pentagram 97.3
   
5. Whipsaw 53.0
   
6. Ammunition 71.0
7. Frog design 95.0
8. Fuseproject 88.0
9. Smart Design 93.0
10. NewDealDesign 59.0

Big Ah-Ha’s

Ideo had the highest WebsiteGrader score and they were also ranked #1 design firm by Fast Company. That’s a fairly compelling confirmation that this firm is as good as they appear to be. Pentagram, Frog Design and Smart Design each scored above 90%, so my takeaway is that they each made a respectable showing and deserve some props.

Most of the other firms on the list scored lower than I would have expected. These are not big dumb brands…these are cutting-edge design companies. It just doesn’t seem acceptable that any of the firms on this list score below ninety percent, yet 6 out of 10 did!

The two design firms that scored that lowest were Whipsaw and NewDealDesign. Yes, it’s true both sites were built using Flash. But in 2009, there are plenty of ways to optimize a Flash website in a way that makes them accessible to humans, search engines, and social media sites. These two firms, for whatever reason, chose not to put the extra effort in to make their online content and code up to par. Tsk, tsk.

Digging under the hood at NewDealDesign.com, you will see that basic SEO best practices were not performed at all. According to WebsiteGrader, meta descriptions and keywords were missing from the NewDealDesign website. Images on the site were missing ALT text. There were a surprisingly low number of pages indexed by Yahoo: 26. One of the most important measures for a website is how many other sites link to it. The more links the better. NewDealDesign had only 577 inbound links, and the domain is 9 years and 9 months old. One would surmise that a leading design firm would have many, many more inbound links. No blog, no RSS feeds and no contact forms were detected on the site either.

In Conclusion: There May Be A ‘Return On Awesomeness’ After All

To be fair, NewDealDesign appears to be an offline design firm (packaged goods, industrial design, etc.) and doesn’t appear to offer web strategy & design services. Their client list is impressive: Puma, Samsung, Microsoft, Epson, Dell, HP, Kensington, Nokia, Logitech, SAP, Sun, Toshiba, Verison, and more.

But some of other design firms included on The Fast Company Most Innovative Companies list appear to do a fair amount of web strategy & design work. It seems fair to expect a design company’s website and online brand strategy to be deployed professionally and thoroughly. It surprises me when this is not the case–and the Fast Company list of innovative design firms did not disappoint.

So while many of the design firms profiled in this post failed the ‘practice what you preach’ smell test, they appear to be lauded by the press for their exceptional creative abilities nonetheless.  And the fact that they are being hired by the world’s top brands to transform the ordinary into extrordinary–through design–may be proof positive that generating a ‘return on awesomeness’ is possible after all.

1. Apple’s design process revealed!
2. Hilarious video about ‘Death By Committee’ group decision making processes. Love the logo designs!
3. Naming tools to help get your creative juices flowing.
4. The Components of a Writing Business Plan.
5. Website up-time tool.
6. What every web designer needs: A handy Lorem Ipsum generator!
7. An online font tester!
8. 100 things on the Internet that might be of interest to you.
9. Type in a word to find rhymes, synonyms, definitions, and more.
10. Life of Pi - Interactive promo. The mood that this creates is almost like a movie. Awesome.
11. The website is down: Sales guy vs. web dude. Funny!
12. ZeFrank’s song about social networking
13. Good site for hiring freelancers to work on social media gigs or web dev projects.
14. Quantcast - Free, competitive website analytics.
15. See every mouse movement and every click on your website. Record & more.
16. Fun brain teasers and exercises.
17. Need to quickly translate text into another foreign language?
18. Nice gift idea - give a personalized book to your child or relative.
19. SEO tool. How many desired .edu or .gov links does your site have?
20. Over 1,500 stories about coffee’s impact on real lives. Very cleaver marketing.
21. Social search engine. Pretty cool.
22. Where’s WaldObama? 1,474 mega-pixel picture of the Inauguration. Wow.
23. Mint or Rudder - which is best online tool to manage your money?
24. Runners. Track your distance, pace, progress & calories with this cool NIKE tool.
25. Looking for the perfect Web 2.0 domain name? Try Dot-o-mator.
26. Download free Web 2.0 logo designs!
27. UGC traffic to triple by 2012, according to Cisco.
28. UGC / user reviews are critical. See latest Nielsen findings.
29. “The Crying Game” of viral marketing. So well done. Click till you see the surprise ending!
30. U.S. real estate prices from 1980-present plotted to a roller coaster ride!
31. I just love Howcast - learn about almost anything!
32. Creepy girl. Watch as her eyes follow your cursor.
33. Amazing interactive simulation by Motorola.
34. Heatmap simulation for any image you upload. Sweet.
35. Design for Emotion and Flow.
36. Website User Journeys, Needs, and Trust: A Volkswagen Case Study.
37. Very helpful usability blog site by Craig Tomlin.
38. Net Promoter Score: Pro’s? Con’s? Full of bologna?
39. Get Elastic’s landing page optimization webinar recap.
40. Consumer purchase preferences by zip code.
41. Free version of the Word of Mouth Manual Volume II.
42. Social media marketing case study: Will It Blend.
43. Free 34 page ebook - The New Rules of Viral Marketing.
44. Social Web Analytics eBook 2008.
45. Introduction to Good Usability - Free PDF Ebook.
46. How to think virally w/ Jeff Benjamin, the creator of  Subservient Chicken.
47. Customer Feedback Usability Insights.
48. 5 new skills for the future of marketing.
49. Bring Holistic Awareness to Your Design.
50. Long live the Cluetrain Manifesto! 95 theses ahead of their time.

Source: http://twitter.com/jonsamsel

As I have stated in previous posts, for a company to be successful online and to grow its brand in a calculated and constructive way, executives and marketing managers must develop a proactive strategy that directly influences and impacts who, what, where and why branded content results are FOUND–whenever, wherever, and however social publishing is performed.

Yeah, that’s a mouthful!

Successful online branding, especially via social networks, may require a company to consider a range of possible tactical approaches, including:

• Social media publishing, syndication, outreach, monitoring, and measurement activities
• Embracing a multichannel marketing approach that includes both paid marketing (search, display, email, mobile, etc) and well as emerging marketing activities (social-search, SEO, blogging, etc)
• Partnering and experimenting with pilot programs in a way that frees up proprietary content & data, empowers employees & customers, plus supports open networking & really simple integration

Even if you actively participate in all of the above activities, you still need to be part of the social conversation. And the rub is–many of these online communities don’t want you there. That is, unless you have something of value to offer–and you can do this is an honest, straightforward, and transparent way.

If I were a brand manager ‘worried’ about social markets diluting my brand, I would hunker down in my boardroom with some of the best and brightest staff (along with an many agencies & consultant that I could muster together in a room) and figure out the best way to leverage this ‘loss of control’ and morph it into an opportunity to ‘influence & expand’ my brand reach. The way I look at it, if your product or service is solid and your efforts to become part of the community are sincere and of value to others, I can’t see why the social web wouldn’t benefit your customers, your staff, your investors, and your company.

Your brand is a living, breathing example of your value proposition in action. Your challenge is to determine how best to humanize your brand and become accepted as a trusted community partner–while encouraging the masses (your customers & your constituents) to be constructive advocates for the brands they are passionate about.

Most companies I know use a handful of different tools (free and paid) to measure, monitor, and influence their social media efforts. The reason being:

1. Companies looking to monitor the social web each have their own unique budgetary constraints
2. Most firms have varying levels of internal staff skill sets
3. No one social monitoring tool does it all

When I think of social monitoring and analysis tools, here is my wish list of top 7 features:

1. Analysis of the external social web + unique website characteristics
2. Multiple, real-time query & filtering abilities
3. Site, sentiment, and SEO analysis
4. Trending, charts/graphs, save & export functionality
5. Theming, grouping, or targeting around a topic/category
6. Competitive & influencer analysis
7. Ability to share, mix, or compare with external data feeds

That said, here is a short list of social tool providers:

http://www.converseon.com
http://www.ecairn.com
http://www.scoutlabs.com
http://www.radian6.com
http://www.techrigy.com
http://www.nielsen.com
http://www.trendrr.com
http://www.overtone.com
http://www.cymfony.com
http://www.heardable.com

I also recommend these tools that monitor site traffic, demographics, and SEO best practices:

http://www.websitegrader.com
http://www.compete.com
http://www.quantcast.com
http://www.conductor.com

Note: According to social media pro, Gunther Sonnenfeld, Ecairn was recently was recently rated by several top creative marketing agencies to be the most detailed and comprehensive social platform on the market.

“Ecairn’s phrase mining capabilities are superior and they have the best ‘market searching’ tools,” claims Gunther. “The simplest way to explain this is that platforms like Radian6 and Scout can keep track of brands, but they cannot easily deep mine conversations that may or may not be endemic to those brands. Ecairn’s engine thinks categorically, not just topically or according to brand sentiment.”

Do you know about a quality social web monitoring tool or service that I didn’t mention above? Drop me a line and let me know about them and I will add them to my list! Or, if you represent one of the companies above, pitch the benefits of your platform by responding to my post. I really would like everyone to have a chance to make their voice be heard.