I am currently working on a strategic planning project and I am incorporating the Balanced Scorecard developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. It got me thinking about how one might apply the Scorecard to social media strategies. I know that I am not the first to consider such an approach but I still thought it worthwhile to give you my take on it.

• People (a.k.a. Learning) - Develop Workforce

• Internal - Enhance Operational Efficiencies

• Customers - Grow Market Share Or Share of Wallet

• Financial - Improve Profitability

When an organization is considering its social media strategy, a Balanced Scorecard might look like this:

• People - Develop the social media capability of the workforce

• Internal - Embed social media within operations where possible and appropriate

• Customers - Layer social media onto existing marketing activities

• Financial - Lower cost marketing and customer engagement

From wikis for collaboration and information sharing to CEO’s who tweet, social media can and should become part of an organization’s operational DNA. Granted it may not be possible and/or appropriate in every case but companies are changing how they create and share information as part of their collaborative efforts. In some ways, social media can be credited for making the walls between business units or silos and management layers more porous and less of an obstacle standing in the way of solving problems and making progress.

The timeless adage "don't fix it if it isn't broken" is the opposite of what thought leaders aim to do. Seth Godin, an illustrious thought leader, recently stated, "want to know why so many companies can't keep up with Apple? It's because they compromise, have meetings, work to fit in, and fear the critics...". As a thought leader is he right?

In 2009 we saw a horrific number of U.S. businesses being broken as bankruptcies rose 38% according to Reuters. Bloomberg reports 8 million jobs were lost due to the recession over the same period. Without a doubt a complex set of factors had its insidious hand in the restructuring of corporations and American lives. But how much of this demise was caused by the malaise of satisfied accomplishments that accompanied years of success and seemingly endless prosperity?

Thought leaders have a duty to assist in the continued destruction of our prior templates for how businesses run. It was a tragedy that the grim reaper of recession tapped market forces on the shoulder and gave a wake-up call, but it was due to happen.

Sally Hogshead, has become a thought leader as an after affect of getting marketing results, winning a variety of industry awards and becoming a best selling author. In her latest blog she started with, "I believe you do not have to be an asshole, or work for one, in order to do great work". Great thought leaders call out the elephant in the room and remind us of the obvious so we come back down to earth and move on to better things.

Who Is Helping You Destroy Status Quo?
As you look forward into 2010 ask yourself what criteria you are using for finding a thought leader that helps you destroy your old ways of compromising. If you're reading books and blogs and attending corporate events that reinforce what you know, you're not in the presence of a thought leader. Whether you are a business owner, an executive or someone making their way through the shuffle of life we owe it to the grim reaper of 2009 to not settle back into status quo.

Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image, reminds us how to filter a noisy world of advice and determine who is the right thought leader for us, "If you're following someone and they're really not adding any value to your life (your growth, development and education), drop them." Think of all the books, blogs and articles you've read during your lifetime. How many people have really helped you destroy your old way of thinking and move onto something better? How much was just noise? Have you been inspired lately to 'destroy your business' based on better advice?

An Opportunity To Participate In Destruction
Share your story below about how you assisted the 'destruction' of a business with your leadership or tell about how a thought leader (in a book, event, coaching, etc.) helped you destroy your old thinking and move into innovation. 2 free tickets (worth $399 each) will go to the person who has the best comment below for The Art Of Marketing held in Toronto on Tuesday March 2nd. Note: tickets are not transferable to cash, collection at the event is required.

Reproduced from MarketingVOX - Because it is meant to look fun, putting together a social media campaign - or integrating one into a larger online initiative - can be surprisingly difficult. There are many challenges to capturing and engaging user interests online - starting with finding the right person to lead that effort, says Andrew Ballenthin, president of Sol Solutions.

That point was driven home last December when Ballenthin put together Blog-Off II a 12-day, seven-judge contest to test participants' qualitative and quantitative effectiveness in social media marketing fundamentals.

From that marathon he concluded the following about what to look for when hiring a social media expert, which he shared with MarketingVOX in an exclusive interview.

According to Ballenthin, the person you should be looking for will have:

1. A significant business and communications background - preferably a minimum of 3 to 5 years in marketing, journalism or media. "This forms a foundation for understanding effective communication strategies and implementation."

2. A history of success in their communications background. "You wouldn’t let a mechanic work from a text book or just on their own car before they safety your car." Look for someone who has proven repeatedly he or she can deliver expectations for program results that have real business value.

3. A series of measureable accomplishments in social media that can be independently validated. "Having ten thousand followers on Twitter means you learned once how to create this achievement but an expert is someone who has achieve above average accomplishments several times."

4. A true understanding of your customer’s relationship with social media before proposing a program. Your customers may not want anything to do with Twitter of Facebook or never have used LinkedIn MarketingVOX, Ballenthin says. "An expert should build a vibrant profile of your customer’s online behavior and model a program that’s good for them versus the latest gadget and trendy sites to go with."

5. Straight answers when you ask about measuring social media campaigns. 'Social media is too new to be effectively measured' is a common and erroneous claim, he says. "In marketing we understanding that we need a baseline on what we want to change in a business before implementing a new program. If you want to improve retention, cross selling, nurture marketing, prospect acquisition, brand loyalty and use social media marketing to try to achieve that, run the program and measure if there was a difference in these areas or not.

6. A focus on getting a return on investment. "This is where mainstream marketing backgrounds are important. An expert should be interested in validating a financial improvement not just giving you cost."

7. Clear methodologies. Social media is not new anymore. There’ve been hundreds of articles and cases studies on what does and does not work and effective processes. An expert should have a clear set of methodologies they work with to get consistently replicable results otherwise you may have a one hit wonder, if that.

8. An emphasis on an integrated marketing. Social media success rarely happens on its own. "Great social media campaigns require databases, emailing, advertising, publicity, industry influencers and more. It’s exceptional that social media marketing can just happen because it’s a good idea in the right place, other media needs to support effective results."

Jonathan Lister did the typical social media marketing mistake of over-blowing video and YouTube's potential by representing a few success stories versus talking about the reality for the masses. Many of the audience questions at the end were fumbled demonstrating his lack of depth in YouTube's analytics and future strategies.

Considering the talk was on the Evolution of Online Video, Jonathan missed the boat as he plugged away at YouTube versus the complete lay of the land. There were even multiple chuckles from the audience as the slide came up presenting Google's Nexus phone due for 2010 as people recognized Google's self promotion versus industry objectivity on multimedia phones and the industry's evolution of multiple leaders.

As a side note, I recently came across this article on TechCrunch and found 10x more value from a few minutes of reading versus one hour of sitting in Google's dissertation Context is King: How Videos Are Found And Consumed Online.

How Yahoo Saved My Futile Search Results

But let me back-up and share how I should have known it wasn't going to the stellar presentation from the beginning. I Google mapped the address on the ticket, which didn't include a postal code, and was pleased it was only 6 city blocks away from my office. Due to cold weather, and a lack of walking time, I took a taxi. I gave the taxi the address on my ticket and... he couldn't find it. Finally after driving aimlessly around he dropped me off with no sign of where to go next, but it was "somewhere close by".

I guess the puzzled look on my face caught some passerby's attention and they shouted over a few times to get my attention. "This way", one of them volunteered. We entered a building that was not "search friendly": no signs posted the way to the event. We chuckled among ourselves as someone remarked, 'a Google presentation without a way to search and find the presentation room??' Thankfully the good samaritans walked me the rest of the way because I had no idea where to go. As we took our separate seats I said thanks, we made introductions and I was pleased to find that Yahoo employees had rescued me.  


A Few Statistics And Points From The Presentation

So back to the presentation. Here are a excerpts that were worth noting if you haven't seen them recently;
- 50% of people are willing to pay for premium content. Keep in mind this is Boradcast Network produced content versus User Generated Content or Professional User Generated Content.
- Online video advertising was up 34% in 2008. We were told no 2009 statistics were available.
- YouTube is a social media network because of interactivity, not just a video viewing site.
- As advanced mobile device proliferate more video is being uploaded and this trend is expected to dramatically change the landscape of video content and interaction in the near future.
- YouTube is moving from a user generated site to a platform as more networks and professional productions are offering their content through YouTube.
- Video can should be a part of extending every marketing campaign. Uploading bloopers or commercials can give marketing spend added life beyond the initial campaign.
- Peer generated content is expected to occupy 25% of the captive market by 2013.

Non of these statistics will come as a wow if you do a bit of research. However they are a good reminder that technology and how we communicate with each other, our peers and our clients are in a state of change.


2009 Video Success Stories

Jonathan Lister shared several online video success stories but missed the points on how they had achieved direct and indirect monetization. Monetization and success metrics are important whenever talking about social media and it's future place in business. Without these overlays we're only talking about hypothetical value to a business. Following are a few of the stories covered and my overlay of monetization and metrics.

Remember the story of Susan Boyle? Did you know that just 6 of her top videos have over 151.7 million views? YouTube propelled Susan from being on a "Britian's Got Talent" to being an international household name overnight. Online video helped record labels see there was demand for her talent across the world. Wouldn't you like to know you have a product or service that's in high demand before it's even available for sale? How much is the research data worth to you? What is the value of the pre-launch campaign and the mass media coverage Susan Boyle achieved before even launching her career?

The video "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" has over 41 million views on just one video. That upload resulted in the bride, an aspiring choreographer, gaining prime time TV coverage. She was offered several jobs which enabled her to choose a career she wanted in an area she loved.

The "Evian Roller Babies" YouTube video had over 40 million views between the Europe and the US version. I don't believe the video can be tied to an increase in sales but it was a PR success as multiple magazines, websites, and social networks generated Word Of Mouth Marketing on a phenomenal scale. From a brand recognition perspective the campaign was launched in July of 2009 during the peak of summer's heat:  not a bad move for reminding people to buy Evian when they're buying water and cooling off. Think of how much would it cost run a full PR campaign that was pushed into mass media. Also look at the value of the brand recognition and the fact viewers spent 61 seconds captivated versus a 15-30 second TV spot. What value would you assign for that viewership if you were Evian?

It should be remembered that these stories are exceptions rather than the rule. My research for clients on YouTube campaigns has often returns the conclusion that those who dominate their space started months and years ago with online video. What does separate the winners from those with lack luster results is getting started, persisting, refining presentation and content, and nurturing their relationships in this arena. If you want to be the business with tens or hundreds of thousands of views the best time to get started is now before your competitors set the standard you have to match or surpass.

With over 55 million people on LinkedIn are you sure your company is getting the most out of it? Following are a number of powerful ways to market your company and actively make yourself known to potential customers, suppliers, strategic alliances, media and other LinkedIn users. LinkedIn doesn't keep track of how many dollars flow through its site in jobs, new business, media exposure or strategic alliances. Yet the 2% who have mastered LinkedIn know there's hundreds of thousands of dollars that are moving back and forth between members weekly if not daily.

Warmth opens doors -What most people miss with LinkedIn is that while you have access to literally millions of people, including all the Fortune 500 companies, you are not working with software, a web site or working a numbers game. What you are working with is real people like you who want the same warmth, professional approach and quality relationship that you would want from a new networking contact. Those who are master networkers offline understand the need for charm, authenticity and reputation management. One of social media marketing's biggest secrets is being able to develop this persona online.


3 First Essential Steps To Boost Your Marketing On LinkedIn

Note: each one of the topics could be an entire how-to page (or several) of itself. The goal with this article is to give you top line insight into areas that you can explore deeper.

1. Personal Profile -"Dress to impress," a prospect's first impression of you online is everything. Don't take any part of your personal profile for granted. Each element of your description tells a would-be prospect something about you and whether you're a good fit with their needs or not.

Key areas to pay attention to:
- Picture, have something professional, warm and consistent with who they'll meet in real life. DO NOT have family pictures, sports shots, outdoor poses, etc. LinkedIn is a professional network and people want to see professionals on it. Keep the casual shots for Facebook and Flickr.
- Jobs,use professional language and ensure you have a full online resume. An incomplete profile can make you appear disinterested and lacking detail orientation.
- Use the "More" features, there are a host of options to make your profile vibrant including adding company presentations, blogs, your personal reading list and more.
- Pay attention to "key word density". Your "Specialties", job titles and descriptions, and personal "Summary" should reflect the words your customers search on and be wisely repeated throughout your profile. The pay-off is how many times your profile comes up in search results per day: aim for at least 20-40 minimum.
- All of the above translate into being found, being like and being contacted. Your personal profile is a  brochure for yourself and your company. Don't settle for less than perfection.


2. Company Profile -This is significantly under utilized by large and small businesses alike. In most cases people just don't know about it. To find it go the top menu bar, look for "More" on the right hand side and select "Companies". LinkedIn is very user friendly for getting set-up and most of the steps will be self explanatory.

A few companies that have done a great job fully utilizing this feature fully include; Cisco who has 66 jobs posted; Research In Motion who has 25 jobs posted; Accenture who has 16 jobs posted (as of January 12, 2010).

Key areas to pay attention to:
- Ensure all company staff select the company profile when they set-up or join the organization. This ensures consistent brand and public relations representation.
- Have all your staff join LinkedIn and set-up their profiles. The more people in your company, regardless of their position, the more likely your company will be found in search results within LinkedIn and external search engine returns.
- Utilize as many features as possible for a company profile including, logo placement, consistent company description as your website and sales collateral, full company details with address and number of employees and website, add your blog feed in the News section, don't forget your stock market information if applicable.
- Ensure senior staff sign-off on the company profile. You never know if media, clients, future staff or future investors are watching your organization.
- Your company profile is a free online mini-site. Create a profile that attracts business at all times regardless of what search engine locates you.
- Equally important is reviewing all staff's LinkedIn profiles to ensure position titles and descriptions accurately represent the company image and message you want to portray. Every public face in your business is an opportunity to attract or repel future clients.
- Don't be afraid of competitors evaluating you: there's dozens of ways they can get the same information online or in the industry about your company. The days of private data are coming to a close. What might protect you from competitors might exclude you from potential customers.


3. Segmentation Analysis -with such a huge membership on LinkedIn how do you know what your opportunity for finding clients are and developing an online following? Answer - segmentation analysis. Many people join social networks without knowing how many people and businesses can be accessed. The results of your findings may determine whether you put more or less time into LinkedIn.

If your target audience just isn't large enough, close enough or not easily found LinkedIn may not be the right marketing resource for you. That's OK. It's better to put effort into marketing that has reliable results rather than just 'hoping for success'. Also consider that only 30% of all LinkedIn members use the site on a given month. This statistic is a result of studying Compete.com and measuring monthly unique visitors versus LinkedIn's total membership.

Starting point for LinkedIn segmentation analysis:
- Find the search box near the top right hand side of your home page. Click once on the default search "People". You will see a window drop down with the options for "People, Jobs, Companies, Answers, Inbox, Groups". We want to focus on "People" and "Companies" for now.
- A simple search would be to enter an industry term to find out how many people used that word. So for example if you are an executive recruiter you might enter in the "People" search, the word CEO. You'll see over 700,000 returns. The term President has over 2.48 million returns.
- Another simple search you can do is on "Companies". If you were a software company you may have a few target markets you want unqualified sizing for such as retail - 15,000+ returns, hospitality 4,800+ returns, hotels - 3,884 returns. Keep in mind many companies do not have their profile set-up and are best found by entering the same term under the "People" search option.
- Another option is return to your "home" page, look at the search option again and select the word "Advanced" at the far right side of the search box. Click on it.
- This will give you some detailed options for searching on people and companies that include specific key words, location (down to zip/postal code), industries and more.
- Keep track of the data and the specific companies and people in search returns so you can have resources to go back to. This segmentation work and data mining are powerful resources for converting resource into revenue.


Measurements Lead To Defining Payback Potential

The outcome of this segmentation exercise helps you see how much of your target market can be found on LinkedIn, where they reside, what industries have a high representation of members on LinkedIn, and more.

It is suggested that an evaluation is done at this point. Your goal is to decide whether there are enough target prospects on the site to make the effort of a regular LinkedIn marketing program worthwhile or the time is better invested in other growth efforts.

This is an essential exercise if you're serious about getting results. If your audience meets your criteria on being an acceptable size you are in a good position to start a whole series of deliberate marketing activies. This data gives you a baseline for measuring whether you are achieving the response rates and participation levels you need that will have an acceptable payback for the resources deployed.

There's 2 caveat's to this point: in some cases the size of the audience matters less if you have additional marketing objectives. First, there are a substantial amount of media groups that search LinkedIn looking for news stories. Your LinkedIn marketing could get you online and offline press opportunities you wouldn't have had access to otherwise. Second, you may want to develop a profile as a thought leader in your industry amongst your suppliers and peers. This often results in speaking engagements, collaboration and great branding which cements your role as a recognized leader.

The better you measure the size of opportunity with your LinkedIn audience reach, the clearer your goals, the more you learn what LinkedIn has to offer, the better the position you are in to achieve a payback or know when to redeploy marketing efforts elsewhere.


Watch for future articles on LinkedIn marketing that include:

4. Connections - building a quality and quantity based following
5. Events - the value of letting your network know about key dates
6. "Answers"- how to move from masses to individual connections
7. "Polls"- a great way to collect data that helps make effective decisions
8. Groups - "News", how to reach a hundred thousand or a million members
9. Groups - "Discussion", how to build a leadership position and more
10. Groups - "Answers", how answers helps develop connections
11. Groups - "Create", is hosting your own group worth it?
12. Slideshare - how to showcase what you want to be known for
13. Communication Plans - set goals and move from busy to effective
14. Analysis - is the time worth it? What is good versus poor performance?
15. Return On Resources - is LinkedIn an effective channel for growth?

In 2009 there was a lot of talk about social media, but how do you know if the people giving advice are competent in the field or theorists? In 2009 this blog I had the opportunity to innovate an event called Blog-Off contests. These were events that offered social media enthusiasts the opportunity to be measured and show they knew how to apply several of the fundamentals critical for social media marketing effectiveness.

This past December Blog-Off II (#BlogOff2) had participants from 6 countries. 3 professionals emerged who demonstrated statistically and qualitatively they were leaders in social media marketing. In addition to the statistics, 7 judges, with strong background in marketing and digital media, volunteered to evaluate contestant's qualitative competency. Meet 3 evaluated social media top performers (for more contest results click here):

1st Place - Sean Nelson
2nd Place - Sam Diener
3rd Place - Tim Ruffner


What Does It Take To Be Effective In Social Media?

Following is what the 3 top performers had to say about how they utilized social media marketing for securing their top positions in the contest. To learn more about their views on what they did to effectively apply fundamentals in social media marketing see online interviews and articles link.

Sean Nelson - "The results I achieved were based on tapping into what I call the 4 C's of social media; Communities, Content, Conversation and Conversion." "When it came to the contest I tapped into my networks and benefited from the credibility of the last two years." Email. Blog. LinkedIn.
 
Sam Diener - "The key to building community is to interact with your readers through your content. Content writers seem to forget that there is an actual PERSON reading their copy. You can't just talk at people... your content has to have a conversation with the reader." Email. Blog. LinkedIn.

Tim Ruffner- "...I tapped into my personal network for input on my writing skills before making it available to my industry contacts. This collaborative process helped me create even more impactful and useful content." Key social networks used included, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Delicious, Stumble Upon and YouTube. Email. Blog. LinkedIn.

While the advice may seem intuitive all 3 professionals backed up their insights with results. Following are the top 5 blogs during December 1-12, 2009. As the founder of the Community Marketing Blog I've worked with over 50 social media professionals in 2009. These numbers are within the top 5% of social media marketing results I've seen anyone produce: in addition 7 judges gave these blogs top marks for value, originality and quality.

The option I am weighing is to totally eliminate print advertising except for spot ads, run at key times and geared to promote our websites and our web pages as opposed to 'advertising a listing', thereby driving more consumers to our various web sites and capturing more of the buying public overall. I can easily estimate that if we move our money from print to web we can probably attract an additional 800 leads next year minimum. How would I sell this new plan to our sellers? Simply put I would say this, "Mr and Mrs Seller, we've tried advertising "Listings" in various print publications in the past and have gotten un-favorable results. Our new strategy is designed to pull in 200% to 300% more buyers into our websites, where your home will be listed with complete details, photos and more.

Traditionally in the real estate business we have been taught the old adage, "Listers are Lasters", which simply meant if you have control most of the listings then you control most of the business. Although I am a Big Fan of Tradition and I do Love to Control my Own Share of Listings in this Business I am also a "Forward Thinker" and realize the explosiveness of the internet and all of its advantages. What I am proposing is to control Most of The Listings by Controlling Most of the Buyers. This will be accomplished by bombarding the web with a Web Presence Assault unheard of previously. Through our Two MainWeb Sites as well as our Special Pocono Lake Community Website and our various Blog Pages and Social Media not to mention our various Real Estate Networking Communities.

Our Motto is "Old  Fashioned Hands on Service With To days Most Modern Technology" but our mantra for 2010 will be "We Control The Buyers Then We Control The Business"

Blog-Off II 2009 Winners

Congratulations in your demonstration of excellent social media fundamentals in this contest.

1st Place - Sean Nelson
2nd Place - Sam Diener
3rd Place - Tim Ruffner

These top 3 performers will be lavished in $45,000+ worth of prizes and a few more goodies that have been added since the contest started. Their exploits and success stories will be publicized across 5 countries and have an audience reach of several million people. What a great finish to 2009! Click here to see prize details on the original contest entry page.


What Did They Have To Do To Win?
The top 3 winners had to excel in quantitative statistics and superior writing capability to the satisfaction of our panel of 7 independent volunteering judges, the Dream Team. The 3 winners excelled in:

- Captivating blog headlines - unique and relevant to the content of the article
- Article quality - originality, depth and quality of writing
- Traffic - the number of page visits were they able to generate
- Dialog - the amount of comments and how well the writer engaged their audience
- Length of visit - the average amount of time visitors stayed on the post


What Were The Top 5 Blog-Off II Posts?

Author	Title	Page Views	Minutes Viewed	Total Comments
Sean Nelson	The 7 Worst LinkedIn Mistakes…	6,183	6:17	107
Sam Diener	Why Twitter And LinkedIn Are So Small	2,913	4:36	117
Sam Diener	6 Things SEO Experts Won't Tell You…	2,107	5:55	106
Sean Nelson	Are You A Lion, Turtle, HoundDog…	1,930	5:09	103
Tim Ruffner	Accelerate Your Product To Market…	923	3:07	35

Upcoming Publicity Schedule
Watch this page for details on the winners media campaign that starts January 4th, 2010. Their story will be covered by bloggers, online talk shows and news releases and more. To be directly notified of the upcoming schedule or request more information on this event email the contest founder and director at andrew@solsolutions.ca.


Statistics On Blog-Off II

- Preceded by Blog-Off I in May 2009. This event had 15 entrants from 4 countries of which 9 became occasional writers for the Community Marketing Blog.
- Blog-Off II ran from December 1st - 12th, 2009
- 28 people entered the contest from 5 countries
- 7 judges from 3 countries volunteered to asses competitors
- 10+ businesses sponsored over $45,000 in prize value  
- 110 blogs were posted on a wide variety of topics
- Over 27,700 page views were generated during the contest
- Visitors stayed from 1.61 minutes to over 6 minutes
- 1,262 new comments were generated between readers and writers
- Readers came from over 30 countries
- Referring traffic: 52.5% LinkedIn, 22.2% direct, 3% Facebook, 2.2% Twitter


Who Were The Top 10 Bloggers?

1.	Sean Nelson
2.	Sam Dien
3.	Tim Ruffner
4.	Lucia Brawley
5.	Steve Martile
6.	Therran Oliphant
7.	Janet Barclay
8.	Mike Browne
9.	Elizabeth Thomas
10.	Laurie Dillon Schalk

What's Next... Blog-Off III and MasterMind Session
Watch for Blog-Off III coming in the first half of 2010. Sponsors and media partners are already signing on. Contact andrew@solsolutions.ca if you would like to participate. This event promises to be larger and more spectacular.

On January Thursday January 14 at 11:00am EST we will be holding a MasterMind conference call for the contestants to talk about the event, share success secrets, ask for help and network. If you would like to listen-in email andrew@solsolutions.ca and request details: a $50.00 USD fee will be applicable to non contest participants.


Special Thanks For Your Support
Mike McClure - Creative Director The Yaffe Group, Mark Sinclair - Founder and Executive Producer yourBusinessChannel.com, Jon Hansen - Author and Acclaimed Talk Show Host of PI Window on Business, Conrad Hall - Three time author, Patrice-Anne Rutledge - Author of of 28+ books, Shadrah Sharma - Founder and editor YourStory.in, Ted Morris - Managing Director 4ScreensMedia, Andrew Jenkins - Principal Volterra Consulting, Julie Tyios - CEO Red Juice Media, Leon Hill - CEO uSocial.net, Ginevra Kirkland - Community Manager Six Apart, Jim Love - CEO Chelsea Consulting, David Newland - Social Media Director Canoe.ca, Hugh Reilley - Talk show host ThatChannel.com, Daintry Springer - President Black & Sharp Company, Tami Magaro - Principal Mindeliver Media, Paritosh Sharma, John Robinson - Joyspoon, Joseph Thornley - CEO Thornley Fallis

Five hours later, after Bryson Ross was pronounced dead at the hospital, Ross tweeted again – This time about remembering her son, with a picture attached.

Within moments of her tweets, her online friends began organizing a central place for cards and donations to be sent by her readers and followers.  This public outpouring prompted criticism from some, and thrust Ross into the public eye through the media.

Shellie Ross now faces much media criticism for tweeting about her son’s death. But Ross was initially reaching out to her network to ask them to pray for her son; not giving a play-by-play, as some have framed it. Certainly, no one would question Ross’s intent if she were to pick up the phone and call friends and family to deliver the news – Twitter is just another method of contact (albeit more casual), where Ross could share her grief with the world.

Questions have been raised as to how anyone could be composed enough to tweet during such a crisis. As social media starts replacing more traditional methods of communication, however, I feel that more people will turn to these methods to deliver a message, especially in a time of need. Trisha Haas, founder of the site Momdot.com, where Ross is employed, defended Ross’s tweets, noting the Ross tweets a lot and is friends with a lot of people in the blogging community.

ABCnews.com quoted another mommy blogger, Colleen Padilla, who said: "In the defense of her tweeting during a tragedy, that is her community… I think today, the Internet is a place where moms are seeking support, advice and answers."

I don’t feel it was wrong of Ross to reach out over Twitter in a time of crisis. I know many people who wouldn’t hesitate to ask for prayers or luck when facing a challenge, and I feel Shellie Ross faced one of the most anguishing moments a mother could have. What are your thoughts on this incident? Post them here or reply to me on Twitter @JulieTyios.

Click here to read the article from ABCnews.com.

Click here to read a post about the tragedy at BBC's dot.life blog.

Discussions about how to win new clients usually involves discussion of the “network" myth.

You may have recruited experts to your company in order to have access to their professional networks. Word of mouth marketing and referrals is the most dependable way for specialized, knowledge services to win new clients. 

And yet, when it comes to getting inside large, complex organizations, the “network myth” becomes apparent.  How often has the expert you hired on the strength of their network been disappointing?

I call it the “network myth” because everyone's network which has been built face-to-face has a geographic limitation.  Not only is a referral from a personal network likely to be to a peer, with similar background and responsibilites, but there is a likelihood of that access being limited to one business level or one geographic location. 

"Natural" networks may not provide access to the “dream client” companies on your wish list. Social networks are frequently a mirror image of an individual.  If you are a CPA, your network will probably include a lot of folks like yourself. Moreover, your network will probably represent a specific industry and specialty.

Let’s say you are considering hiring a CPA who has spent most of their career in consumer packaged goods, supply chain financial management because they would understand you.

Your firm has a lot of consumer packaged good companies on your roster but you’d like to do work in the wireless industry. 

Will hiring this person, even though they have a Rolodex to die for, help your firm to diversify into the wireless industry where long-term prospects are probably better?

Catherine Mcquaid is a Big Game Hunter in the Urban Jungle. Her clients are mid-sized business services firms who want to win consulting assignments with the Fortune 1000. Trained as a semiotician/literature critic, she runs a key account development business. 

Her strategies for engaging senior executives of large companies can be used by big game hunters everywhere.  She writes on Major Account Acquisition strategies.

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To contact directly: email,  phone, 416.923.0877; Skype: cmquaid