Welcome to my new series of posts “Social Media Strategies” where I will try to clear up some taboos about social media strategies, tools and other buzz words of our social life which sometimes unnecessary confuse us in this industry. Today I will discuss the content strategy and the changing role of content strategist.

Content Strategy

I think it is always a good idea to look from the consumer’s perspective and answer the questions which drive the strategy. I’ve been browsing through my daily reads and thinking why I am reading the posts I am reading and I came up with a very simple answer: I am reading it because:

• The content adds knowledge (adds value) or entertains me;
• The content is supplied by trusted source;
• The content is accessible to me.

Adding value and the art of Curating

In order to add value the content strategist has to think like a scientist:

• Has to recognise the problem why he/she is doing the project and foresee the possible outcomes in order to monitor them. The content strategist has to understand the target audience and analyse what are the main objectives of the brand (provide knowledge or entertainment) and how does the company want to affect this target audience (stimulate action or spread brand awareness).
• Has to do the research and find a gap in the market. It is one of the most challenging tasks today – finding something new, interesting and engaging to write about and that is a problem that the most bloggers face at some point if they haven’t got a clear content strategy, but that’s Read the full story

I’ve been browsing through the lists of top social media case studies and I thought I am going to share  some of the top sites with you:

Casestudiesonline.com by Tod Maffin

A List of Social Media Marketing Examples by (http://www.beingpeterkim.com)

Social media case studies by  (http://theparallaxview.com/)

Social Brand Index by (http://www.socialbrandindex.com)

WOMMA’s Case Study Library by (http://www.womma.org/)

The Association Social Media Wiki’s List by (http://www.associationsocialmedia.com/)

Blog Well Case Studies by (http://gaspedal.com/)

Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki by (John Cass)

300+ Cases & Examples of Social Media Marketing by (http://blog.monty.de/)

30 SEO, Social Media & Marketing Case Studies that Prove the ROI of it All by (http://www.seoptimise.com/)

110 Ways Retailers are Using Social Media Marketing by (http://www.getelastic.com)

A Collection of 50+ Enterprise 2.0 Case Studies and Examples by (http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/)

Case Study Crunch by Red Cube Marketing by (http://redcubemarketing-blog.com)

26 Social Media Marketing Examples by (http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com)

35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action by (http://mashable.com)

The Big Money Facebook 50 by  (http://www.thebigmoney.com)

5 fantastic digital branding campaigns from 2009 by (http://www.imediaconnection.com)

India Social – Case Studies by  (http://www.indiasocial.in)

I will update this post from time to time so if you have any other relevant links to add to this list, just post them as a comment. Thanks!

Social media is maturing. As many companies have successfully integrated social media in their communication/business strategies and as many more are planning to do so in very near future, it is no longer perceived as the risky investment but more as a necessity in order to keep a competitive edge in the market and maintain the dialogue with consumers. It actually seems that social media adoption is becoming a quality standard of a transparent, customer centric and accessible company. Actually, just like adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies has been representing very similar values for over 30 years now. It is quite interesting to compare these two trends and possibly build on the existing knowledge of CSR management when planning social media strategies as they ultimately both are driven by very similar ideas of building competitive advantage through transparency, advocacy, stakeholder’s engagement, adding value to the communities and the empowerment of communities.

A lot of large corporations have been enjoying the benefits of CSR strategy, but that’s the problem of CSR as it is often perceived as concept suitable only for larger organizations, because of the extra costs attached to these activities. Social media is changing this situation. It has reduced the cost of communication and provided an opportunity to every company to manage/address its stakeholders more efficiently. Read the full story

The world of social media is maturing. People have adopted the new means of communication, companies are experimenting with the new business tools, but how the heart of the media industry is adopting to a new social landscape? Well it is quite strange, but not so well. I will try briefly to overview what I found in my research analysing social media adoption in 10 Top Media Agencies and some of the best practises.

Full document on Scribd

Sources: Campaign “Top 50 Media agencies” + Netprospex “Top 50 Brands in Social Media”

The key points from research: Read the full story

Social media and social applications maybe didn’t change our lives, but they definitely altered our behaviour and perception towards quite a few things. I just wanted to share this funny video story made by Maxime Luère, where he brilliantly captures the silliness, but also the reality of our digitized life.

I’m pleased to announce that from now on you can find Social Media Citizens on Social Media Informer website. It is a brilliant new site gathering news from the top social media blogs. I am a keen new user of the site as I love highly categorized social media content. Another major benefit of the site is that it is really fast and you don’t have to wait for a few minutes to find what you are looking for (what often happen on the WP blogs). Well try it yourself and let me know what you think:)

I had a great honour to participate in Fusion Marketing Experience event organized by our friends at Social Marketing Forum. It was a great experience and probably one of the best social media events that I’ve attended recently and not only because of the impressive list of the speakers (Olivier Blanchard, Dave Chaffey, Trey Pennington and etc.) but also because of the quality of the content and experience shared during the event. Therefore, I just wanted to share the best presentations here with you. Make sure you follow @Fusionmex on Twitter and Fusion Marketing Experience on Facebook in order not to miss their next event or their new quarterly magazine about digital marketing. Here you can find the full list of presentations from Fusion Marketing Experience event.

I just wanted to make a quick announcement. As you probably noticed there is a new logo on site "Supported by Nearby Digital" well the reason is that I (Giedrius Ivanauskas) joined forces with my dear friend Thomas Kulbokas founder of Nearby Digital. We are going to work as partners and will offer some  new, interesting and innovative solutions for businesses in social commerce, location based and social media marketing fields.

It’s not really going to effect the content of this blog as we will keep the focus on PEOPLE in social media and will try to analyse the behaviour of top minds in social media industry. Although you might notice a greater concentration on topics related to social media application in location based services and social commerce as we believe that these innovations combined with development of mobile technologies will present most interesting opportunities for the businesses in the future. Therefore, stay tuned as there are quite a few interesting interviews coming up with some of the top social media people in the industry.

Thank you very much for reading and supporting us. Wish us luck!:)

I am very excited to announce that we at Nearby Digital are starting a new project for local businesses called  ‘the most Like’d business in Shoreditch’. As a location focused social media marketing agency we felt that we want to get to know local businesses better and we want to do that not through the monitors of our PCs:) Therefore we came up with the idea of photo album of local businesses in Shoreditch (London). We think it is going to be a great opportunity for people working in this area to get to know each other and have a bit of fun as we also doing a competition of most Like’d business picture on our Facebook page.  How is it going to work? Well here is a short description what we have in mind:

– We take a fun picture of you and your business team.
– We upload it to ‘ the most Like’d businesses in Shoreditch’ album
– You tag yourselves in a picture and ask your friends to ‘Like’ it.
– The photo that has the most ‘Likes’ will win and at the end of each month we will announce – the most Like’d business in Shoreditch.

So get ready as we will be knocking on your door soon!

For more information contact us: like@nearbydigital.com or just post your question on the wall!

Just found this great video by WeExplainVideos called Facebook Commerce Explained – a simple review of the new trend that is changing business for good. It is a simplistic review, but that is what industry really needs at the moment as there are so many CEO who can’t still get it that Facebook can influence and will influence their sales. So enjoy the video and let me know how your organization is benefiting from social commerce?