Our digital learning seminars are designed to answer questions on popular online and digital topics. These gatherings are limited to eight people per session, and you needn’t be a client to attend. Attendance is free for current clients and private presentations are also available. A full list of topics is available on our website at bbased.com.

Topics and dates for April include:

Social Media Immersion – Learn the basics of message planning and interaction for social media, measuring response and impact, as well as how social media impacts search.

• Date: Friday, April 8
• Time: 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
• Fee: $50 with lunch provided

App Development – Learn if your company or organization would benefit from a custom-branded smart phone app, and the associated expenses.

• Date: Wednesday, April 20
• Time: 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
• Fee: $30 with lunch provided

Please email Tonisha@bbased.com with any questions and to make a reservation.

Posted in Social Media Planning, Web/Interactive Development

Members of the BroadBased team are honored to once again take part in the Flagler College Communication Week, scheduled for the second week of March. Sponsored and hosted by Flagler College’s Communication Department and the campus PRSSA chapter, this student-led and planned event brings together students and industry experts for an analysis of, and education about, issues facing our professions.

BroadBased CEO Jan Korb and Digital Media Strategist Tonisha Landry-Gaines will team up for a guest lecture to the public relations and social media class. This class is relatively new to the curriculum and is focused solely on the study of social media. PR Director Maria Coppola, APR, will be guest lecturer for a public relations writing class and will also participate in a panel of journalists and editors for a discussion on media rhetoric, which will be focused on anonymous online news comments.

The Flagler College Communication Week event to be held March 7 – 10 is in its sixth year. For more information, please contact Professor Rosemary Tutt, APR, Assistant Professor of Communication and Faculty Coordinator for Communication Week.

Posted in BroadBased, Public/Media Relations, Social Media Planning

In 2010, BroadBased hosted a series of well-attended learning seminars designed to answer questions on popular online and digital topics. As technology evolves, so will our seminar topics. These gatherings are limited to eight people per session, and you don’t need to be a current client to attend. Additional dates will be added upon demand. Topics and dates for March include:

Social Search – Learn how social media can impact search results to your website, and ways to organically increase your rankings in this 1.5-hour morning session. $30 with continental breakfast provided. Wednesday, March 9, from 9-10:30 am.

App Development – Learn if your company or organization would benefit from a custom-branded smart phone app and the associated expenses in this two-hour lunch & learn. $50 with lunch provided. Wednesday, March 30, from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm.

Social Media Immersion Experience – Learn the basics of message planning and interaction for two popular social media sites, as well as how to measure response to see the impact on your business in this 1.5-hour morning session. $30 with continental breakfast provided. Wednesday, March 23, from 9-10:30 am.

Please email Tonisha@bbased.com with any questions or to make a reservation. All presentations are made at the BroadBased office, and seating is limited to eight attendees per session.

Posted in BroadBased, Social Media Planning, Web/Interactive Development

Who manages your day-to-day social media communications and marketing? The answer is important, because tasks assigned to non-exempt employees could result in overtime pay liability. To avoid that possibility, employers need to develop and enforce specific guidelines for when this work is supposed to be performed, says Marc Mayo, a Shareholder with the Rogers Towers law firm in Jacksonville and a member of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group.

“The hours that non-exempt employees spend performing social media functions in the evening ’after work’ are still compensable hours worked under the federal wage-hour law and can result in unexpected overtime liability,” said Mayo. “They may begin monitoring or responding to social media after dinner by thinking they are doing this on their own time to catch up on their work, but when it starts taking up more of their time or they are terminated, they may take a different view and contact the Wage-Hour Division or a lawyer to collect unpaid overtime pay for hours worked ‘off the clock,’” Mayo explains.

Of course, an obvious way to avoid the issue altogether is to outsource certain implementation and monitoring tasks.

Another aspect of social media to consider is your employees’ personal use of them during work. It’s important for your company handbook to include a social media policy that clearly states what employees can and cannot do at work with media such as Facebook and Twitter. An Inc.com article advises that including a statement in your handbook to raise awareness among employees that their confidentiality agreement also covers social media interaction may suffice, but advises having a separate policy to be sure you’re covered. Read the entire article here.

Posted in Social Media Planning

Moving closer to an official pricing resource

Given the hundreds of blog and newsletter posts that cross our desk each week, yet another “How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog” article isn’t exactly a cause for excitement. But a recent article by blogger Mack Collier really caught our eye as fresh and useful content. Collier surveyed colleagues to come up with a much-needed guide of the sort we hadn’t encountered. We would love to see his article entitled How much does Social Media cost companies in 2011? expanded by an industry association into something similar to the Graphic Artist Guild’s Pricing and Ethical Guidelines handbook.

But for now, here’s a sampling of Collier’s findings:

Looking to launch a blog from the ground-up, outsourcing all content development? You can expect to pay $1,000 to $12,000 a month, with most firms charging in the $3,000 to $5,000 range. That narrower range sounds right to us, depending on scope of work, of course, since social media marketing isn’t a turnkey product with turnkey pricing.

How much does it cost to launch a new presence on Twitter, complete with ongoing training and consulting? Collier’s answer: $1,000 to $6,000 a month, with most firms charging in the $1,000 to $3,000 range.

How about launching a Facebook Page from the ground-up, outsourcing all content creation and customer interaction? Expect to budget $2,000 to $9,000 a month, with most firms charging between $2,500 and $5,000.

While Collier’s article is by no means scientific or comprehensive, we are happy to see the concept of a pricing guideline being explored. And, of course, these prices include the assistance of an experienced social media partner. If you choose to navigate the complicated waters of social media on your own, we recommend you read this nuanced article by Danny Brown: Why Your Social Media Strategy Sucks.

Posted in Social Media Planning

Social networks can boost your site’s search engine ranking

It’s official. Leading search engines Google and Bing have confirmed that they do take social media references into account when they’re generating search results. For you, that means social media can be even more important to your marketing strategy than you might have thought.

We’ve been excited for quite a while about the effectiveness of Twitter and Facebook and other social media as multidimensional methods of marketing communication. They have evolved from a way to connect with friends to a means for businesses to pursue leads, promote products and serve customers.

Still, one key business use has been largely overlooked – social media for search engine optimization (SEO). But not any more. Following the revelation by Google and Bing, a contributor on The Daily SEO Blog decided to see just how much a social network strategy for promoting a website could improve its SEO. He found that within a very short time the use of social networks substantially enhanced the site’s search rankings.

“We didn’t need to read an article about this experiment to know that promoting links within social networks can gain traction in the short term,” said Tonisha Landry-Gaines, BroadBased’s digital marketing strategist, “but it was nice to see it confirmed.” At BroadBased, we believe that coupling a short-term “tweet” campaign with a longer-term link-building strategy is the key to enhancing your business’s online presence.

Still on the fence about social media? Give us a call for more facts about why your 2011 sales and marketing strategy should include online components of social media and search engine optimization. We’ll help you create the right mix.

Posted in Social Media Planning

2010 was the year that many businesses ditched the training wheels and dove into social media. From what we witnessed, the impact and results of social media efforts directly correlated with the time invested in pre-planning initiatives. Clients who experience the most success with social media campaigns were those who planned in advance, obtained buy-in from C-suite members, set clear expectations, and monitored results.

Those who experimented with social media in 2010 without a clear plan will find it hard to achieve success in 2011 without a review of expectations and a firm understanding of how to accomplish goals. Although it has only been 12 months since we launched our social media planning guide (it seems like a lifetime ago!) the nine stages we recommend have produced satisfying results for clients of all social media experience levels. Review the steps for social media success in our guide:

• Evaluation: What social media channels are right for YOU
• Implementation: Setting up accounts and monitoring tactics
• Content Development: Create a strategy aligned with corporate messaging and marketing goals
• Customer Acquisition: Seek out appropriate individuals to invite as fans or followers
• Monitoring, Metrics and Tracking: Identify the appropriate tools for internal or external monitoring

Promotion and reputation management strategies, combined with training and reporting processes round out the nine steps.

Posted in Social Media Planning

Digital Media Strategist Tonisha Landry-Gaines leads Social Media Immersion Experience workshops on location at BroadBased. Photo by Jeffrey Harrington.

Did you know that the average age of people using social websites is 37? This group is most probably within the age range of your OWN target audience in one form or another. These are the people making purchasing decisions that impact your business every day, and are engaged in social media at record levels. Informed businesses understand this trend and are extremely busy determining the best way to become a part of the conversation.

In September, BroadBased hosted two workshops that focused on social media. Our “Social Media Immersion Experience” is a roundtable workshop designed to engage topical discussions on the typical application of social media in business. This two-hour workshop, presented by BroadBased’s Digital Media Strategist Tonisha Landry-Gaines, presents best practices, case studies, and brief demos on social media solutions that produce measurable results for business.

“I thought it was very helpful in understanding how social media works in business,” said Hamilton Traylor, attorney with Fisher, Tousey, Leas & Ball, P.A. “And the intimate setting was conducive to exploring social media with parties who were focused on real world usefulness.”

Marci Larson, public affairs manager for the North Florida Transportation Planning Organization said, “The workshop included a cross section of attendees ­­– both in age and social media needs and understanding. The presentation was supposed to be two hours but it went an additional hour because everyone was so engaged. The training really gave me an additional boost in the ‘how to’ of social media.”

While there is no cookie cutter approach to social media, BroadBased believes that setting measurable goals and recording accomplishments (each of which vary from business to business) will help you achieve social media success.

For information about October workshops, or to host a workshop at your own business location, please call Tonisha at 398.7279 ext. 14. You can also learn more about BroadBased’s social media services on the Social Media Planning page of our website.

Posted in Social Media Planning

Tonisha Landry-Gaines, digital media strategist

You’ve heard how valuable social media can be in building rapport, generating new business and creating brand awareness.  Are you ready to learn how put social networking to work for your company?  If so, we invite you to the ‘Social Media Immersion Experience,’ a practical workshop for the business professional, presented by Tonisha Landry-Gaines, BroadBased’s Digital Media Strategist.

In this session, you will learn messaging and interaction basics for two popular social media sites, as well as how to measure response and impact on your business.

Join us Friday September 17, 2010 at BroadBased Communications – 1301 Riverplace Boulevard, Suite 1830. This two-hour event begins at 8:30 am, and is designed to help you maximize social networking for your business. Seating is limited to the first 12 registrants and includes a continental breakfast. To reserve your seat or to find out more information, dial Tonisha at 398.7279 ext. 14.

Posted in Social Media Planning

Jamie Trayner
Director of Marketing and Communications
The LBA Group
Jacksonville, Florida

How did you decide that now is the right time for your firm to step into social media?

We had been sitting back and watching to be sure it wasn’t just a passing fad. As it became more and more obvious that it is not going away, we made the decision to embrace it and figure out how best to use it for our firm. I also just attended the Annual Summit of the Association for Accounting Marketing and came back with a lot of intelligence as to how social media can best be utilized by an accounting firm.

In what business goals do you see social media assisting you?

In a variety of ways. It is our hope that it will elevate our firm’s brand recognition as the “go to” firm for up-to-the-minute information that is directly relevant to our clients and prospective clients, position us as a resource to our referral sources and promote our culture to current and future employees. We also want to bring attention to the many not-for-profit organizations we support as a firm and through our employees’ volunteer efforts.

How will you measure your success?

In addition to the measurement tools built into the sites themselves, we will also measure based on the number of followers we have and how many new contacts we make through our social media sites.

Are you considering additional forays into social media?

We now have a firm LinkedIn page and a firm Facebook page. Twitter is next. So stay tuned!

Posted in Social Media Planning