But all reasons to move aside, we just really wanted this to be our door.

The new Cement Marketing offices are directly behind Space Junk Media at 232 N. Third Street. You can find us by entering on the main door on N. Third, or head down Hickory Street (where you’ll find the coolest door in Columbus).

Pictures of the inside coming soon and stay tuned for our open house party invite. Until then, please note our new contact information.

Here’s a clip from Part 1 of the series, The Social Side: Social Media for Small Businesses. Read the entire post here.

The Social Side: Social Media for Small Businesses, Part 1

“I want to do it, but I don’t get it.”

The above is the most common statement about social marketing I hear from my clients or potential clients. They have been persuaded through the mounting evidence and successful case studies that social marketing works, but entering the space is an entirely different challenge.

From my vantage point, as a professional digital strategist, their acceptance is a sign of huge progress. In fact, accepting social media and, more importantly, finding the patience to let its effect take hold is paramount to “getting it.” So, congratulations. You’ve made it this far.

Read the entire post here.

The truth is, there is no quick mix. Here’s a clip from a speech Alaina Sheer recently gave on the subject.

To hear Alaina again along with Cement Marketing SEO Director, Brad Spencer, snap up tickets to Finding Your Virtual Mix: A Sway Workshop Day Camp at Ohio University on September 30th. The $38.00 tickets include a full day of search engine marketing and social marketing basics.

The low ticket cost is thanks to our generous hosts for the event: Ohio University’s Innovation Center, Business Remixed and the Small Business Development Center.

[Special thanks to Ruth and Jan of Articulation, Inc. for the above speech - a result of their meticulous and inspiring speech coaching].

The most challenging element of taking on a social media campaign is wrapping our heads around everything that is going on out there. Twitter. Facebook. YouTube. All of these social mediums are the tools in our arsenal that we use to execute our social marketing message. But when we break it down and understand that the message is one constant that will never change, understand our tools and then move our campaign forward strategically we find clarity.

So where does social media optimization come in?

Social media optimization, by my definition, is the practice of maximizing your message. To effectively maximize a social media message a brand or organization must use their analytics while also factoring in the human barometer. Analytics available via Google, Facebook Insights, Hootsuite for Twitter and YouTube now afford us the ability to measure every social media action we take online during a social media campaign. So for example, if I post a tweet I can instantly measure the messages effectiveness by first tracking it in Hootsuite and then hopping over to Google Analytics to measure the true potency (time on site) of the visitors who clicked through.

But, for true social media optimization, we must also measure the human barometer – which I literally translate into our audience’s reaction. Are they into it or not? If the analytics tell us they’re not but feedback is limited from our audience than we, as a brand, must go out and actually ask our audience what we can do to improve our campaign. The possibilities here are endless as our audience can literally shape our message by making it their own in a matter of minutes. In reality, however, this is something that happens over months and months. Social media optimization ultimately requires our patience as we mold and shape our campaigns in real time.

The keys to executing a successful social media campaign: consistency, relevancy, and commitment.

More here and more on how to craft a social media message in a presentation I just delivered for the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Find out more at the Sway Social Media Workshop, coming up next week. Details here.

Follow Alaina on Twitter.

Cement Marketing is a full service Web Design, Social Media and Search Engine Optimization agency in Columbus, Ohio located at 2489 Summit St., Suite A, Columbus Ohio 43202.

Whether I am speaking one-on-one with a potential client, typically a marketing manager or business owner, or to a larger audience, typically a room filled with the latter, I use the experience to improve my translation skills. [Hint: kicking up your shoes and letting the sun shine in always make this process a less painful.]

Boots aside, making sense of all of this “search and social stuff” isn’t for the faint of heart.

But, invariably, after a little bit of on-the-spot investigation into keywords or competitor strategies, I figure it out. I have solved a riddle and found an avenue where social or search marketing could transform their bottom line.

When I relay the idea or my discovery their faces light up. There’s a visible click and it hits them; any remaining skepticism washing away. That’s the moment I love the most, the moment when the translation succeeds and my audience (small or large) begins to see things clearly.

But first, I have to convince them that this isn’t just a waste of time or space. Instead it’s the most effective, most powerful and most targeted form or marketing we have ever seen. That’s when I turn to talking about measurement. Showing them analytics reports, actual results for actual websites.

“Sometimes I feel like a social or search marketing detective,” I said to an audience of two during a meeting last week. Twenty minutes into our meeting, I had determined that they should be targeting an entirely different audience with their search marketing – an audience they hadn’t previously considered.

“You are!” they both chimed in, “This is incredible.”

If you want a one-on-one visit with your personal social and search marketing detective – give me a call at 614-754-8228 or e-mail cementmarketing@gmail.com. Better yet, come and find me at one of the following public speaking engagements coming up this Spring. (And yes, I’ll probably be wearing my cowboy boots).

Ohio Wesleyan Center Lecture

“We can measure that! The metrics behind social media strategy”
March 25, 2010 – 3:10 pm
Bayley Room
Beeghly Library, 43 Rowland Ave, Ohio Wesleyan University
Free and open to the public or LIVE Webcast

Association of Fundraising Professionals Monthly Luncheon

“Measuring social media.”
April 13, 2010, noon – 1:30 pm
Grange Insurance Audubon Center
$20 for members; $30 for guests

Sway Social Workshop

April 22 – 23, 2010 – 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Wild Goose Creative
See website for rates. Early bird expires March 12th and there are only a few seats left!

Unlike any other search or social marketing conference you’ve been to, Sway will teach you how to truly sway your audiences through a hands-on workshop with one-on-one instruction from Cement Marketing’s Bradley Spencer, Alaina Sheer and special guest instructors John Raymond and Leigh Householder. Seats will be limited to ensure that every attendee gets the most out of the Sway experience.

More details coming very soon. We’re putting the final touches on the Sway website as we speak, including these mug shots.

Bradley Spencer, Search Engine Optimization Wizard

Alaina Sheer, Social Marketing Maven and Web Strategist

John Raymond, Search Engine Optimization Consultant

Leigh Householder, or Advergirl, nationally renowned social marketing and digital strategist

We can’t wait to see you there. Stay tuned to the Cement Marketing blog and Twitter for the launch of the Sway Website and registration.

Fate? Destiny? Or just some really cool chartreuse and burryberry mustard chairs.

Either way, we’re beyond pleased with our new space.

And our first client. More on Lifeline of Ohio soon.

]]> http://cementmarketing.com/the-new-first-office/feed/ 0 http://cementmarketing.com/hello-world-2/ http://cementmarketing.com/hello-world-2/#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:38:49 +0000 Alaina http://www.carlscoupondiscounts.com/cementmarketing/?p=1 Every time we communicate with someone else or an audience online, wherever it may be – a blog, on e-mail, a social network, Twitter or even by leaving a product review – it is a social act. Social marketing is a brand’s attempt to enter this space without getting thrown out on their butts.

How do you do it? Take a look at this photo and find the answer.

These men are about to share their pints of beer served up in a carrier wrapped in a sponsor’s message. Without intruding, this brand is joining their conversation by offering the sports fans something they need and want, something that seamlessly fits into their environment and serves a very useful purpose.

This is exactly how brands should use social media to market their products or services. If you find a purpose in the space and offer something to your friends and fans you will succeed. If you’re just standing on a pulpit shouting a message you won’t go anywhere. The best way to understand social marketing and where your brand may fit inside of it is to just start using it.

Once the technology behind it all doesn’t seem as overwhelming you’ll be able to focus again on what really matters  – your message.

Some things never change.

The most common fears of social marketing are:

• What if the consumers say something bad about my brand? 
• Where do we start? 
• How will we find the time? 
• What will we say? 
• How will we measure the results? 

I will answer each of these fears in a series of blog posts to come.

But for now, I want to begin with this amazing presentation by David Griner of the Social Path.