In true social/internet networking fashion, I found a site called SuzySaid.  It is all the rage in Fairfield.  Why?  Because they report on everything that is local and the content is top notch.  I liked them so much I signed up for their email blasts.  I began to trust their content and well Suzy whoever she is (I have heard that it is a bunch of very talented women behind the homepage :)).  Because I trust Suzy, I pushed a client their way to advertise (I don’t like advertising and rarely suggest this road but again, I trust and value SuzySaid).  They handled my client so well that I thought all advertisers on the website must be top notch.  Because of all of these experiences, I began to trust everyone and anyone associated with SuzySaid (did I tell you about the 2 amazing restaurants I went to because of SuzySaid restaurant reviews?).  Having said all of this, I saw regular advertisements for a photographer.  The combination of her great photos, she was a regular on SuzySaid, and she had a blog that was updated regularly made me hire her immediately via email, no quesitons asked.

Guess what?  I wasn’t wrong about her, Char from Wink Photography was professional and amazing at caputuring the essence of my family.  Guess what?  SuzySaid has done it again!

Ahhhh, the power of the internet!

For some great pictures of the family, go here.

Read more from the Trafcomm News blog by Donna Papacosta here.

They were excited to get going, they had already worked with an agency that said they could build up MySpace, Facebook and a blog but couldn’t and they seemed pretty savy about social media and their need to use these tools to help broaden their reach.

We got into the meeting, presented all that we could do and the value that social media brings to any company and suddenly and without warning the conversation turned to ROI.  Now I love ROI and believe in trying to track ROI and I appreciate the conversation.  We have amazing reports that we have built that can show the story of these online channels so the client can understand what is working and what isn’t.  Couple our reports with their website and sales stats and you have the whole picture. 

Somehow, the message was lost, though, and the fear set in that these efforts won’t help their bottom line numbers.  I hope and believe that despite their fears, they will take a chance and jump in (or fear more in the not so distant future that they will be left behind)! 

Social media is an amazing tool that every company can and should utilize.  Not every moment may be linked to a sale but the last phone call with your client where you asked them about their family may not be tracked either but it has great value! 

Mashable also talks about the ROI of social media for business here.

We at Creative Concepts have also worked hard to define what we do and explain it to the client so they understand the difference between an ad campaign and what we do when we enter the social networks, produce a video or build a blog.  If I get a client old enough to remember the days of TQM (Total Quality Management) then I am good to go (my father was a big TQM guy pushing it out to any company who was interested on behalf of Corning Inc….he was also a Baldridge judge so I know this stuff like the back of my hand!) but if we have someone who is hearing about social media and wants to know more, we have to define it in a way that makes sense today.

I work at this messaging every day for Creative Concepts because I firmly believe that social media is important to the future of every company.  To find a tool that helps you define your business and helps to explain what you do in your own words, to share with all who are interested the goings on of how you do business which allows greater trust from your customer, to hear direclty and immediately from the customer, to respond to that customer immediately and to get help from the customer when it comes to developing new products and more is way beyond marketing.  It is doing business smartly and the ROI is customers that last a lifetime!

And a note from Christopher Penn, one of the organizers, about the goals for Podcamp Boston:  With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!  See more here…I agree that community is the foundation of great power.

One of my clients, my contact from Pitney Bowes, came back and was exhilerated by the passion of the speakers and attendees.  Social media does this. 

A few points to consider:  Greg’s panels says you have to give up some control with social media to be effective, but as I say to many present and potential clients, you actually control more by putting out your message in a clear and consise way on a platform where all people can reference forever what you have said (blog, video….).  Each client controls more through social media than they ever would through a press release where a few media types take what you have said and put their own spin on it!!  Social media also allows you to hear from clients immediately which allows you to repsond publicly which shows your consumer base that you care and can react quickly!

I also fully believe that by building community you are building up a foundation for your company which could last for generations.  Bigelow Tea is doing this with their blog, their myspace page, their facebook page and with all of their videos!  My team is about to head into a presentation with a potential client who understands that community is needed, they just don’t know how to make it happen and so we hopefully will have the chance to build something substantial for them.

This is what Creative Concepts does…we quite simply build communities for our clients.  We don’t do viral one time campaigns (because we don’t believe one time efforts will have a profound long standing effect) and we don’t create banner ads and throw them across millions of websites that have nothing to do with the client (banner ads must have very targeted placement to work at all!).  We enter the communities and we listen and share information.  We build online channels where the customer can get top notch expert content in addition to being entertained and we help the client address each comment no matter what the tone or subject matter….this is what social media is about for the corporate sector and for eveyone really, listening, responding, and contributing!

We believe in this ourselves…we have Bigelow Tea to prove it and some new clients and their newly shot videos to show you soon!

See more of the article here.

I suppose we could say the same about reporters but I wouldn’t go there because to make a generalization is a sibling to lying and not telling the whole story based on facts.

I don’t believe this anyway.  Social media (blogs, videos, social networks, twitter….) has transformed how we do business and keeps most of the untruths hidden for only a short time.  The consumer now has access to facts and history like never before and with our global community available as fact checkers, “liars” have a short life.

Just for the record, Creative Concepts is far from unemployed.  Ethical behavior, as mentioned in our mission statement, is our first value and our clients love it!