Speaking at the May 8 Knowledge Session hosted by the Baltimore/Washington chapter of Sales & Marketing Executives International, Loveland provided case study examples of how companies strategically “mined” data in search of information that illuminated a path toward their business goals and leading to profits that otherwise might have been overlooked. Data mining can range from intense analytics and repackaging or mashing data, to simply sifting through company email exchanges to identify contacts with prospective customers. A sampling of take-aways from Loveland’s presentation included:

• A key to success in business intelligence and data mining is a cooperative relationship between the marketing and IT departments. Each needs a common understanding on business drivers and, in most cases, these relationships depend on executive management leading the way by recognizing the opportunities and fostering communication, innovation and creativity when it comes to using data.
• Both IT and marketing must know the business, and each must reach beyond the bounds of their typical functions. IT should step into the role of solving business problems with people and for people, while marketing should know how to use the data to benefit sales, create richer stories that lead to sales conversations, and also use the data to help focus and drive the creative process.
• Companies must set themselves up for success by positioning themselves to be in the business of collecting data and train their teams to look at their data in different ways. If you are ever faced with a situation that makes you think “there must be a better way,” then treat that as a flag that there may be an opportunity to turn your data into an actionable opportunity, Loveland said.

About SMEI
Founded in 1935, Sales & Marketing Executives International (SMEI) is the worldwide organization dedicated to ethical standards, continuing professional development, knowledge sharing, mentoring students and advancing free enterprise. For more information about the Baltimore/Washington chapter, visit www.smeibaltimore.org

During a breakout session during the Counselor’s Academy conference this week, “Mobilizing Your Firm for a Smartphone World,” presenters Linda W. Cohen, APR, CEO of The Caliber Group, Inc., and Michael Barber, director of digital strategy, Cohn Marketing, shared the following eye-opener facts and insights:

• By June 2012 (next month!) more people will read email on their mobile devices than on laptops or the computers at their offices or at home. No longer are they tethered to the stationary computer work-stations of the past;
• In 2012, a total of 58 percent of consumers will buy something using their mobile device;
• By 2013, half of the internet traffic to your site will be via people on their mobile devices;
• By 2015, more people will access the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs or other wired computers;
• To accommodate and promote all of this, the marketing spend has flipped as budgets for mobile now dominate social. Now is the time to plan your mobile marketing strategy, from providing apps to converting your website so people can access your information when they need it.

If you haven’t done so already, grab an iPhone or Android and visit your company’s website. Like what you see? Ready or not that’s the first impression you’re already offering a significant percentage of visitors to your site.

The “revelation” could not be further from the truth, and the blog post the agency shared, “Death to the QR Code,” is so off-base that it had to be written to generate comments and new readers (aka “link bait”). If you read the post, scroll through the comments as well. Either way, it got me to thinking about all of the other declarations of death in our industry:

The press release is dead – this one’s been going around for a while. Kent State Professor Bill Sledzik traces one of the earlier proclamations to 1979 in this post. The reality: there is a new role for the press release; sloppy usage by clueless PR people is the real problem. Social media is dead – Google (or “Bing”) that phrase and you’ll find post after post informing us SM is over. Twitter is dead – #exaggerations anyone? Facebook is dead – a meme resurrected this month as Google+ hit the scene; and, of course, Google is dead. As I said, anything to generate comments and links!

“We spent the morning working with neighborhood residents, representatives of community organizations, volunteers from schools as well as individuals and Greater Baltimore AHC, Inc. staff,” said Susan J. Anthony, partner with Sawmill Marketing Public Relations, headquartered in Baltimore.” We picked up trash, mowed grass in the common areas of the neighborhood and other similar tasks before enjoying a cookout together.”

This was the first year for the Barclay Greenmount Spring Sweep. Greater Baltimore AHC officials said that they are considering making it an annual event.

About Sawmill Marketing Public Relations
Sawmill Marketing Public Relations is a Baltimore PR firm and social media marketing communications agency established in 1995 specializing in the development and execution of marketing public relations programs as business development strategies for business-to-business, business-to-consumer and professional services clients. The Maryland public relations company specializes in social media, traditional media relations, media training, and crisis communications. For additional information, visit www.sawmillmarketing.com

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Rather than debate the merits of the decision to claim rights to the word and the way the restaurateur went about defending her point of view, look at how PR missteps and social media are intensifying this storm.

Many people continue to say “any publicity is good publicity.” BP doesn’t think so, and the owner of this restaurant (and gift shop and festival) surely won’t believe it when this fiasco eventually fizzles out.

The mishandling of the news led to a spoof Twitter account, boycott the restaurant Facebook page, blog posts, newspaper comment section posts, a protest and a string of critical Yelp “reviews,” all within hours of this firestorm. Fanning the flames even more, the restaurant’s graphic design (and presumably not PR) consultant weighed in with a profanity-laced post (click on comments to find the one from “springray“) that went viral, while a rejected Yelp review found a new life and many more eyeballs on countless blogs.

In the meantime, Buzz is dying to hear what counsel the unidentified “publicist” referenced in The Sun‘s column offered when the the idea to trademark “Hon” was discussed!

Back then, we didn’t quite know what to call it and wound up with the moniker “Social Content Integration.” Now everybody calls it Social Media, but we like the original name and that’s what it still says on our agency materials. Since the beginning, we’ve never viewed social media as a separate strategy or tactic. Instead, we believe it should be integrated with traditional communications and that the emphasis should be on solid and authentic content and not on automated or gimmicky Facebook or Twitter promotions that someone sitting in a back office passes off as “engaging in a conversation.”

However, that was then and this is now when integration has assumed a new and powerful role in maximizing the benefits and values of social media campaigns with traditional marketing communications ones. As many of us know, this new role for integration has expanded far beyond messaging to now include how, when and what social media and traditional communications tools are used and their exact purpose in the campaign.

We all have much to learn about how best to creatively and strategically utilize (or not) integration and to then share our knowledge with our clients so they can reap every possible benefit from it.

Recently we met with a prospective client whose business is not a tech oriented one. Imagine our surprise and delight when he indicated his interest in our help to integrate the social media tools he was already using by weaving the fingers of his hands together — the sign language of integration!

Fortunately, Facebook has a process for dealing with that pesky issue of trademark infringement. If you – or your client – believe that Facebook is indeed catching on but discover that someone already established a Page, there’s somewhere you can turn to claim your rightfully trademarked name. Go to Facebook’s “Report an Infringing Username” section to “request removal of an unauthorized Page” and you should be on your way to claiming what’s rightfully yours.

Oops, my bad.

I recently bumped into an acquaintance that I hadn’t seen in  months who explained her absence by telling me how consumed she is with the ongoing woes of the company she has been with for nearly 15 years.  The shining example of these woes is the dramatic drop in headcount since the first of the year.

Later that day I tweeted about this update using  “local,  one-time high profile, fast rising firm’”as the descriptor of her company. I hit “update,” never giving the tweet a second thought, other than it was more substantive  than “…can’t wait for this day to end” sort of post.

In a flash, I received a DM (direct message) from @robterry26, associate editor/Web editor of the Baltimore Business Journal, asking me for details about that tweet, including the name of the company. Then, and only then,  did the reminder light bulb go off in my head that Twitter and other social media tools are all about conversations!

Also, this tweet could have had serious consequences.  However, the information was accurate, verifiable and caught the attention of a good reporter who knows the source of it as well as the value of the information he was handed.

In addition to being reminded that Twitter is all about the conversation, I hope this also serves as a an elbow in the ribs to think before I tweet and then think again before I hit “update.”

Surprisingly, one of the “expert” panelists was passionate about her insistence that the candidate had the “right to post photos of herself with a drink in her hand” on Facebook without any spillover to her professional standing!  Further, this is the same  counsel that she offers her clients:  professional uses of social media tools are separate from those for personal uses and should not be connected.

She is indeed correct that she has the “right” to post anything about herself that she cares to on any social media tool she wishes. However, she is incorrect (and perhaps also naive) to expect the viewer/reader of this information to categorize it as exclusively personal with no correlation to her professional reputation.

The history of traditional mass media and now social media is replete with examples of people’s professional lives being played out in the public limelight – because they chose to or because they didn’t realize the line separating personal vs. professional is blurred at best.

I urge this panelist as well as those in the seminar audience  to use the power of social media tools to their utmost advantage but to do so with the full and complete understanding that there is no “vs.” separating “personal” and “professional” in social or traditional media.  Ever.