The biggest portion of our donated time and resources go to The Moyer Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization founded by MLB all-star pitcher Jamie Moyer and his wife, Karen. The Foundation’s mission is to provide comfort and support to children enduring a time of profound physical, emotional or financial distress. Megan Montplaisir, Nology Media’s Director of Social Media, estimates our contribution at approximately $66,000 for 2011, including daily social media management, event support, and reporting. We are extremely proud of our partnership with the Moyer Foundation and the impact social media has had on their awareness and fundraising efforts.

Other organizations that recieved services and/or donations from Nology Media over the course of 2011 include:

• American Heart Association
• United Way Day of Caring
• Move It Online
• Rainmakers
• The Arthritis Foundation
• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
• Seattle Children’s Hospital
• Special Olympics Washington
• Women’s Funding Alliance
• Healthy Child Healthy World
• King County Sexual Assault Resource Center

We also supported the following events through attendance or in-kind sponsorship:

• Seattle Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis
• The Moyer Foundation’s Annual Giving Luncheon
• Brotherton Cadillac’s Celebrity Steakout
• The Northwest Center Luncheon
• National Wear Red Day Tweetup
• Brotherton Cadillac’s Race for a Ride

“From Nology Media’s first month of operation, we felt it was important to establish the mission for Nology Gives, and we’ve had the unique opportunity to give both our social media expertise and time to help out good causes,” said Megan Montplaisir, Nology Media’s Director of Social Media. “We had a very fulfilling 2011 and we are dedicated to making our contributions to non-profits even better in 2012,” she said.

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Plenty of brands manage their own social communities in house. Some do it very well and many others have a bit of room to improve. We’ve all heard horror stories on both sides of the equation, and outsourcing social media isn’t necessarily for every brand. However, with the right approach, a social media agency can be exactly what many brands need to ensure consistency and quality in their social presence and community management.

The CR Blog post addresses a concern shared by proponents of managing communities in house – the risk of diluting or losing brand messaging when social content is handed to an outside agency. It is a valid concern for some – but a good social agency goes into a client relationship as a partner. A strong relationship and open dialogue with clients can ensure (and in some cases refine) a social media tone and voice that both captures the brand and resonates with the target audience.

We begin every new client engagement by taking the time to gain a rich understanding of the client’s brand and business goals for social media. At Nology Media, our focus is on great content. But this process doesn’t stop at account launch. Our Community Managers are writers and relationship builders who consider a brand’s unique voice and tone before they click publish – every single time. Often, our clients will come to us with a strong brand identity, but still need help developing that voice for a social media setting. Sometimes the expertise of a social media agency is necessary to build this presence in a way that is authentic and suited to the platforms to which they publish. It is the norm for companies to outsource advertising to agencies for their expertise and ability to build targeted messaging around a specific media outlet – why should social media be any different?

Social media agencies have experience managing multiple communities, across a variety of industries. This gives us an edge when it comes to predicting user behavior on any number of platforms. The recent McDonald’s snafu around a particular Twitter campaign indicates that those who define the brand may not be the ones who best understand how a social media audience will behave. In addition, those same internal brand managers often do not have the time or bandwidth to manage social media with consistency and quality.

Social media certainly does not exist in a vacuum – it must be planned in concert with all other brand, marketing and communications initiatives – and every client is unique. If social media isn’t approached with a clear grasp on business objectives and how social can help accomplish them, the a social program won’t be as successful as it could be – whether run in house or by an outsourced agency.

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The IN-NW Conference aims to:

• INSPIRE creativity and thought leadership
• INFORM participants with best practices
• INSTIGATE action throughout everyone’s respective online communities

As members of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, and promotional partners for the conference, we’re especially looking forward to soaking up the latest on the “current and future landscape of social engagement” which will include the following topics:

• Social Engagement
• Music + Media
• Twitter for Marketing
• Tweet ‘n Eat
• New + Emerging Tools
• New Media: Getting Your Story Heard + Told
• Crisis Management
• Social Good

And even more to come!

You can register online (both members and non-members are welcome!) or by contacting Mark Grundberg. Hope to see you there!

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As of Friday, January 20, Congress has shelved SOPA and PIPA indefinitely – in part due to the public outcry surrounding the bills. CNN Money has the full story.

Many websites have entered a black out today in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its sibling, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). High-traffic sites such as Wikipedia and Google are getting invloved to help raise awareness around these bills, and to encourage the public to contact their representatives in protest. Social media outlets are also buzzing with users’ opinions, links to articles, and even updated profile pictures like this one:

image via americancensorship.org

Nology Media CEO Leigh Fatzinger shares his thoughts on the proposed bills:

As a content producing social media agency, we fully support efforts to curtail rampant piracy and want nothing more than to see sites that host and distribute pirated content (hosted mainly outside of the United States) shuttered. However, we’re interested in reducing piracy in a way that places realistic expectations of compliance and reporting on all parties involved – this includes both content producers and content distributors.

With that said, SOPA/PIPA legislation in its current form drastically shifts the policing burden to the distribution channels that content producers rely on to legally distribute their content. In its current form, with unrealistic requirements for monitoring and policing their pages, many user generated content sites will simply vanish, because they risk financial and criminal penalties. Others will have their user experience dramatically altered, negatively.

Nology Media supports an open and free internet where legal content has the ability to find its way to audiences who want to consume, share, and most importantly, promote it to the benefit of its creators. While we are pleased that the issue of content piracy is now at the forefront of users’ minds, these bills, in their current form, do more harm than good. Let’s continue the debate, find ways to protect the property of content producers from pirates, and at the same time, keep the free exchange and sharing of information open and easy for the benefit of consumers.

What are your thoughts around SOPA and PIPA?

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As Seattle braces for “Snowmageddon” 2012, it’s fascinating to see how much information is shared via social media. Twitter updates provide more timely and easily shareable information than most news sites. Following the local bus systems (@KCMetrobus and @SoundTransit) on Twitter provides up-to-the-minute information about snow routes, delays and missed stops, while the @WSDOT issues warnings and preparation advice. And as of today, #WAsnow is trending in Seattle. KOMO News, our local TV station, posts a link to the list of school closures and delays that are updated every 10 minutes.

For even more detailed info, a local well-known blogger and professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington, Cliff Mass, writes technical – yet surprisingly interesting – posts all about the current and impending weather conditions. In terms of accuracy, it would be wise to check his predictions before somewhere like weather.com

We’ve been getting everything we need from predictions to temperatures to road conditions to photographic evidence… all through social media. So tell us, how do you get your weather updates?

Afterwards, WOMMA gathered statistics about the social media activity over the course of the conference, and also collected key takeaways from attendees. Our own Director of Social Media, Megan Montplaisir, was featured in their Trends & Takeaways ebook which has now been published. Megan’s entry was a reflection on one of our favorite keynote speakers, Sally Hogshead, who preaches to “go big or don’t bother” when it comes to taking chances. Please follow this link to request your own PDF version of the ebook: WOMMA Summit Trends & Takeaways

Don’t miss out on this valuable (and free!) resource.

According to the Forrester study, only 6% of consumers in 2011 use geolocation services (up from 4% in 2010), with awareness of this type of service up to 30% from 16% in 2010. Those who use geolocation technology tend toward the young, socially influential, early adopter crowd – the ones far more likely to share product information, promotions, discounts and tips. The ones business owners and marketers want and need to experience their stores and restaurants.

Despite this slow adoption rate, geolocation offers a huge opportunity for marketers and small to medium business owners to drive traffic and word of mouth through specials, promotions and product/experience sharing. Knowing exactly when customers are near or at your location can be a huge boon to community managers and content producers on social media when it comes to customer insight and social strategy.

But, a simple foursquare search for retail in Seattle reveals that a surprisingly low number of retailers in the city are taking advantage of the foursquare Specials feature to drive traffic to their stores. Restaurants seem to be more consistently on board, but the numbers are still low – there is so much room for growth.

The foundation is there. Google+, Facebook and Twitter all incorporate geolocation into their platforms, and a number of geolocation applications and platforms are available to consumers. It is foursquare, however, that has established itself as a leader in the space, if only because the service has been the most consistent when it comes to offering the opportunity for business owners to incentivize checkins through deals, and for consumers to share experiences and tips with other users.

So, the question remains: Will an increased adoption rate by consumers finally convince marketers to take advantage of geolocation platforms and technology? Or will an increased presence of deals, incentives and promotions on the behalf of marketers and business owners result in better adoption rates amongst consumers? We suspect the latter, but only time will tell.

Happy checking in!

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“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people,” Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra said in a blog post. “But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

We look forward to exploring how brands will be able to creatively use Google+ features like Hangout, their multi-user video chat functionality. Since f8, we’ve seen Facebook shifting the focus slightly toward a more multi-media experience for users. We see this as a growing trend across the web, so it would make sense that brands will work to deliver a rich user experience through their Google+ Pages as well.

A few ways Google+ Pages differ from Facebook Pages include the ability to change the name of the Page (which is a permanent decision on Facebook Pages), and that businesses can also have multiple Google+ Pages at a time to distinguish between say, particular products or specific brand-related events (which Facebook discourages.)

What do you guys think? Will you be using Google+ to expand your brand’s social media presence? Will you use Google+ to connect with brands the same way you do on Facebook?

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Nology Media Director of Social Media, Megan Montplaisir shares her predictions for 2012.
Social media will be more influential in how consumers make decisions. The impact of Facebook Open Graph and how brands can more specifically target their audience via social media will be more evident in 2012.

There will continue to be a heavy emphasis on blogs and bloggers as people of influence especially regarding geo-targeted news. On a national level, AOL is addressing this trend with Patch; on a more local level, the West Seattle blog, http://westseattleblog.com/ is where you go to get news versus KING 5 TV.

The merging of offline with online (and vice versa) will continue – trade shows and conferences being live-streamed, in-person trainings being webcast and tweet-ups instead of meetings.

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How do you get in on some of these deals if they’re passing you by? Is this a good business to start? Are these deal sites helping or hurting small companies? [...] One of my favorite social media guys Leigh Fatzinger who started a social media content agency in Seattle called Nology, explains why he thinks these deal sites are not good for small businesses

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