All posts in “Patrick Gladney”

February Speaking Engagements

SMG speakers will be coming to a city near you! Throughout the month of February, three members of the SMG team will be speaking at events across North America, check out if they will be coming to you:

Google+ PR Summit

February 14, 2012, Las Vegas, NV
Tactics and strategies for engaging customers, clients and the public on the newest social network.
Speaker: Maggie Fox, register online here

SAP Global Marketing Social Media Week Event

February 15, 2012, Palo Alto, California
Discussing The Great Content Disruption: How Content Marketing is Changing Everything
Speaker: Maggie Fox, register online here

The Changing Face of Research and Implications for Marketers: You’re not in an interview anymore, Dorothy.

February 16, 2012, Toronto
Discussing advances in our understanding of behaviour and decision making, how insights are collected in a fully digitized world and new tools and opportunities. A must for those looking to understand narratology, gamification and how to leverage online advocacy!
Speaker: Patrick Gladney, register online here

5th Annual Social Media Marketing (Open Dialogue)

February 22-23, 2012, Toronto
Discussing Social Marketing to Business vs. Consumer Audiences: What’s the Difference?
Speaker: Ruth Bastedo, register online here

Is Twitter the New Help Line? Improving Customer Service with Social Media (Webinar)

Join Maggie Fox next Tuesday February 14th at 12pm EST / 9am PST, as she hosts an exclusive, live webinar from Social Media Today on Is Twitter the New Help Line? Improving Customer Service with Social Media.

More companies now are monitoring Twitter and other online social channels and responding in real-time – often within hours or even minutes. They know the power of social media and the capability of bad news to spread like wildfire. They also recognize the opportunity to influence the message by jumping into a conversation sooner rather than later.

Join this panel to examine:

  • Why social media and customer service are made for one another
  • How your company can jump into social monitoring
  • Notable corporate social media gaffes and what was learned from them
  • Best practices for companies actively engaging customers online
  • The cost-effectiveness of social media monitoring and immediate response as customer service tools

Register online, here

 

 

 

Why I Joined SMG

As the old saying goes, a rolling stone gathers no moss.   As a proud, newly minted member of Social Media Group, I am confident that there’ll be no lichens sprouting on my sides any time soon, because this company is on the move.

Why Social Media Group?  There are many reasons, but my primary motivator was the fact that SMG was clearly interested in engaging clients at a much deeper, strategic level than most of the firms I spoke with as part of my search.  SMG’s consultative approach to helping global organizations align themselves to meet the challenges and opportunities afforded by social technologies was an irresistible opportunity because it means helping clients with business issues that extend beyond communications.

SMG also offered me the potential to build upon the invaluable experience I gained establishing Social Currency™ at Northstar Research Partners.  I originally joined Northstar because, in my view, the manner in which social media “listening” was being conducted lacked true rigor and heft.  Too often, anecdotes were being passed off as insights and I thought that partnering with an organization that specialized in consumer research made for a valuable and compelling value proposition.  In the end I believe I was right as the listening market has now split between social media monitoring and research.

Looking beyond Northstar, what I really wanted to do was pair my solid research foundation to develop innovative, smart, and compelling social strategies and campaigns for top tier clients.  And after working here for just three days, I can already see the potential.  In a pitch meeting on my very first day the prospective client asked:  “So are you guys an agency or a consulting firm?”  Maggie’s answer : “We’ll resist being put into a box because we offer the best of both worlds –  the research based practice of business consulting with applied, market tested social media campaign experience.”

My heart swelled, and I knew I’d made the right decision.


Cross posted from PatrickGladney.com