Sarah Hofstetter

In a study published on Monday, Forrester noted that location-based social platforms are currently too small for major marketers to concern themselves with. The reasoning Forrester gives is that location-based start-ups are still too small for major marketers to take great advantage of.

I weighed in on the four reasons to consider Foursquare in your marketing plan in a post on Ad Age today. Regardless of its current scale, we’re including Foursquare and other location-based social networks in our client thinking today. There are a number of reasons for this, including the influencer potential of reaching early adopters. In addition, brands who approach new platforms and experiment early on will be ahead of the game when and if these platforms take off. The sooner you get involved, the faster your influential fan network can go to work on your behalf and the more you can ultimately reap from these bleeding-edge platforms.

For more on why we consider Foursquare a ripe opportunity for many brands, you can read the full article over on Advertising Age.

Today in iMedia Connection we run down several tips and tricks we employ here at 360i to ensure our corporate blog functions as a living, breathing reflection of what we’re all about. Below are our first five tips — and you can read the full article for 20 more best practices when it comes to article writing, editorial & technical management and promotion.

1. Choose the right topics. Sometimes pinpointing a topic can be more challenging than actually writing about it. We peruse dozens of other blogs each day — as well as trade pubs and other outlets — to find headlines most relevant to our business and our clients.

2. Create an editorial calendar. Coverage can be added on the fly, but it’s always helpful to have a rough outline of planned assignments so you can maintain a regular cadence when it comes to the frequency of your posts. On our blog, recurring features like news roundups, interviews, and POVs ensure that our readers are getting continued value — no matter what’s going on in our industry’s headlines.

3. Provide value. Corporate blogs shouldn’t just be about company announcements; in fact, these types of posts form a very small percentage of our content. Our goal has always been to provide value through thought leadership — inspiring conversations instead of creating monologues around company news.

4. Pool your resources. Our agency is comprised of hundreds of individuals that span several practice groups and areas of expertise — social marketing, creative, media, search, and more. Tap into the power of your company’s collective intellect by opening up your roster of contributors to include employees of diverse backgrounds and skill sets.

5. Have a brand voice. We maintain a consistent style and voice throughout all our posts. This helps ensure a cohesive experience — no matter which topic we are covering, or who is writing about it.

»Read our next 20 tips over at iMedia Connection

Which best practices do you think are most important? Would you add any to our list? Let us know in the comments below.

360i Social Marketing Playbook

Click here to download the Social Marketing Playbook»

Marketing used to be different – a lot different. Today, brands are faced with a myriad of opportunities for reaching customers online; and, while the social landscape can be daunting, it holds a world of opportunities for connecting with consumers in deeper and more meaningful ways.

To help guide marketers during this exciting time of transition, we’ve published the Social Marketing Playbook. Our comprehensive strategic report aims to help marketers evaluate the opportunities available, determine which ones are best for their brands and develop a strategy following best practices for achieving success in social media.

The goals of the Playbook are to:

• Provide a framework for establishing a set of clear objectives and strategy when approaching social marketing
• Move beyond the checklist approach and offer a filter for evaluating the myriad opportunities and platforms
• Encourage thinking of social marketing as an opportunity to have a continuous, valuable exchange with customers
• Advance discussions on amplifying marketing results through the integration of social marketing and offline campaigns

In addition to leveraging the insights from contributors to this blog such as David Berkowitz, Sienna Farris, Shankar Gupta, Lara Hejtmanek, Katie Perry and Orli Sharaby, the Playbook also includes guest commentary by industry luminaries Randall Rothenberg (CEO of the IAB), Pete Cashmore (CEO of Mashable.com), Jeremiah Owyang (Blogger at Web-Strategist.com), Jeff Pulver, (Founder of Pulver.com and Producer of The 140 Character Conference) and Greg Galant (CEO of Sawhorse Media and Creator of the Shorty Awards).

In vein with the interactive nature of social marketing, we invite you to leave questions, comments and other feedback right here on our blog, or leave us a note @360i or on Facebook.

Tropicana: Old and New by jlai321 via Flickr

Tropicana’s recent decision to revert to their classic packaging of 24 years was made after an uproar from consumers – largely in social media – against the new look. Granted, not everyone likes change, and with every change will come some negative feedback. But Tropicana realized something in retrospect: Each consumer’s opinion does not have equal weight. Despite all of their research – and I’m sure Arnell and the team at Tropicana did plenty of it – it’s hard to detect the few negative votes in a focus group who could be those who start an anti-Tropicana Facebook group, blog about their opinions, tweet to their thousands of followers, etc. Read the full article

While you can’t predict virality, you can set certain marketing principles in place to increase your odds. BL Ochman just published a fantastic story in BusinessWeek online debunking six social media myths. If you’re looking to explain how social media works to your boss or your colleagues, this is a fantastic starting point.

Social media marketing isn’t like traditional media planning. It’s not a “buy” – it’s an experience and a two-way conversation. BL does an excellent job explaining that, which can lead marketers to realize that this needs serious attention and should be planned holistically across media, creative, PR, through the lens of understanding the way consumers engage in social media today.

Read the full article