Social Media Black Diamonds

How to hire a Social Media Director?

2011-06-23T14:14:00.001-07:00

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What is the Director Social Media supposed to do? What is a meaningful process to fill this position? Should you hire an "expert" or train somebody from the team? How much is a social media strategist What should the job description include? Will he/she need to hire more people? What budget responsibility should the position include? What is the expected outcome from this position?

Ten ways to boost event participation with social media (WTN News)

2011-05-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

Troy Janisch, from Social Meteor and American Family Insurance, always has some good ideas when it comes to social media and creative ways to use it across your organization. His recent article syndicated to WTN News is a good one.

His top tips include:

Create a Facebook Event Page
Create a social registration page on Eventbrite to promote
Create a Twitter account
Share your Facebook event page with friends
Share your Eventbrite registration page
Promote the event frequently on FB, Twitter and LinkedIn
Highlight the speaker, share insights, and interview prior to event
Share previous years pictures
Incent individuals to share event details
Advertise your event on Facebook

Find out what others have offered as tips in the comment section of the article

Ten ways to boost event participation with social media (WTN News): "Ten ways to boost event participation with social media
Troy Janisch
May 3, 2011

Social media is a great way to increase event participation by promote upcoming events. Use these tips to boost your event’s performance.

You may want to begin promoting your event on social networks three or more months before the day of the event. The basic strategy used by social-savvy event managers is to create appropriate pages on Facebook and EventBrite that can be used to promote the event, predict attendance and enable event attendees to share information about your event with others."

Social Media ROI - Social Media Academy - Online Management Briefing

2011-04-29T19:38:00.001-07:00

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High Impact Enterprise Social Media Strategies with ROI above 100% ;Online Management Briefing"
It's no longer the question whether or not there is a financial ROI on social media, but how high it can be.
Social Media Academy is introducing some "High Impact Strategies" to get ROI above 100% within a year.- Enterprise level social media engagement models
- Social Media in the support department with ROI of 142%
- Social Media in the product management group creating an ROI of 167%
- Social Media in the sales organization creating an ROI of 337%
- Social Media in the marketing department creating an ROI of 525%
- Methods, models and frameworks to create high impact strategies
- Organization models that allow high impact ROI in enterprises
- Where to start who to hire.Audience: Business managers / Business consultants
Duration: 45 minutes plus Q+A
Takeaway: Get the big picture for high impact ROI on social media

Social Media ROI - Social Media Academy

2011-04-29T19:23:00.001-07:00

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It's no longer the question whether or not there is a financial ROI on social media, but how high it can be. Social Media Academy is introducing some "High Impact Strategies" to get ROI above 100% within a year.- Enterprise level social media engagement models - Social Media in the support department with ROI of 142% - Social Media in the product management group creating an ROI of 167% - Social Media in the sales organization creating an ROI of 337% - Social Media in the marketing department creating an ROI of 525% - Methods, models and frameworks to create high impact strategies - Organization models that allow high impact ROI in enterprises - Where to start who to hire.

Leveraging Social Media as a Way To Grow Business

2010-11-22T02:31:00.001-08:00

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Axel Schultze talked about social media empowerment at this year's Xchange for Tech Innovators in Las Vegas. The past years was filled with social media marketing conversations. The biggest challenge for many businesses is still to actually reach the end user and have a meaningful conversation. Why? Because it is pretty difficult for a company with 500 employees to have meaningful conversations with 10 Million customers. The social media magic for businesses is called "leverage". Reseller, Distributors, Dealer, Broker, Agents have created business success as mediator for the past 5,000 years. And that is not going to change. The Social Media Academy is providing complete social media solution programs and is working with leading social media tools vendors including Alterian, Sysomos and Xeesm to help businesses leverage their partner ecosystems and provide a better customer experience to their respective customers.

Where Social Media Monitoring Services Fail

2010-04-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Remember the assessment homework during the Leadership class?
How time consuming it is and none of the reporting tools just spew the results?

Four Quadrant Assessment methodology
Analyze and nuderstand your market from a social point of view
The first strategic step is to create an assessment to learn where a respective ecosystem is. Our four quadrant assessment methodology includes the following groups:
- Customer mapping and field assessment
- Brand analysis
- Partner and alliance analysis
- Competition analysis
The assessment concerns about where people are in the social web, sentiment analysis, key interests and reflections.

Jason Falls wrote a very interesting post about Social Media Monitoring Services I like to share with you.

I love his conclusion = Social media monitoring is only as good as the decision-maker who does something with the intelligence.

http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2010/04/02/where-social-media-monitoring-services-fail/

best
Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

Social Media Academy NCP Model – Case Examples - Catherine Sherwood

2010-02-26T02:45:00.001-08:00

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Well thought out methodologies have only one purpose: Helping you achieve results faster with less mistakes. The NCP Model stands for Network Contribution Participation and describes the inner relationship between all three aspects. Network Contribution Participation Network provides the reach Contribution is the active engagement and content contribution over such networks Participation is the positive or negative reflection of the contribution and the actual conversation. Conversation is the currency in social media. Catherine Sherwood presents real world experience using the model

Social Media Academy - Corporate Social Media Education

2010-02-26T02:44:00.001-08:00

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The Corporate Education Program helps business teams to leverage social media for their day to day business activities. To help understand what we do and what we teach, you can listen to this free introductory webinar and get a feel for content, style and approach. The corporate education program is not the typical social media training where you learn to setup a LinkedIn profile, how to tweet and how to create a fan page on Facebook. Instead we focus on the business implications, how to leverage what is going on in the market, how to create a strategy, build an executable social media engagement plan and select the right tools for a given strategy

Social Media Academy NCP Model – Case Examples - Wendy Soucie

2010-02-04T21:42:00.001-08:00

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There is a lot of talk about listening the conversation focus how important networking is and also that a network no longer is a privilege but a must have. The NCP model helps to make sense of all of this in a logical way.

What can you do to make sure your social engagement will be successful? Using models, methods and frameworks is an old business technique that shall help managers and their teams to achieve results faster with less mistakes. That doesnt mean to create a cookie cutter social media strategy the opposite is the case: your social media strategy need to be unique, compelling, attractive, an open and trust worthy engagement. Methods have only one yet very important function: They give you a framework to create unique engagements that make sense to your eco system.

Wendy Soucie, http://xeesm.com/wendysoucie presents real world experience (Professional Services Firms, Manufacturer Technical Product) using the model and to provide an understanding about the strategic implications of Social Media
- Gain some additional insights on the listening part in this new world
- Get a whole new perspective on network size, its limits and its powers.

Social Media Academy NCP Model – Case Examples

2010-01-22T17:24:00.001-08:00

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Social Media Academy NCP Model – Case Examples

2010-01-22T14:38:00.001-08:00

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Social Media Academy - Intro Webinar Certified Social Media Strategist Program 2010

2010-01-21T02:36:00.001-08:00

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Axel Schultze, founder and president of the Social Medi Academy introduced in this webinar the upcoming

Certified Social Media Strategist Program 2010

Agenda

* The implication of the social customer to any business
* A zero budget engagement plan
* A sound social media plan from assessment to execution
* Selection criteria for social media tools
* Reporting and analytics in the social web
* Rules of engagement, management requirements
* Methods, models and frameworks
* How to create a successful consulting business from scratch
* New career opportunities with social media

http://socialmedia-academy.com

Social Media Academy - Intro Webinar Certified Social Media Strategist Program 2010

2010-01-21T01:36:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

Axel Schultze, founder and president of the Social Medi Academy introduced in this webinar the upcoming

Certified Social Media Strategist Program 2010

Agenda

* The implication of the social customer to any business
* A zero budget engagement plan
* A sound social media plan from assessment to execution
* Selection criteria for social media tools
* Reporting and analytics in the social web
* Rules of engagement, management requirements
* Methods, models and frameworks
* How to create a successful consulting business from scratch
* New career opportunities with social media

http://socialmedia-academy.com

Channel Partner Enablement Part 2

2010-01-06T02:24:00.001-08:00

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More Info about the Channel Partner Enablement Program How to Empower Your Channel Partners With Social Media Six one-hour sessions for IT channel partners (resellers/solution providers/agents/alliances) and hands-on introduction to popular tools guided by the Social Media Academy through a dedicated on-line community. Sponsor Package and Opportunity Sponsors can invite partners (up to 1,000 per class) to a thought-leadership program that will educate these resellers about how to use popular social media tools and get them better connected with the social media activity of their vendors. Sponsoring vendors will receive email templates that can be sent to resellers inviting them to register as a guest of their sponsoring vendor. Sponsors will also receive discussion post templates that can be used in online communities and social media sites to invite resellers to the program. Sponsors will also be mentioned in the marketing campaign and during the webcasts. Sponsor logos will be included on the registration landing page, the opening slide of every webcast, and within the community that is set up specially for this program. We will also encourage sponsors to blog and Tweet before and during the sessions. Reseller participants, as part of the program (homework) will be asked to connect with sponsoring vendors in popular social media spaces. Sponsors will provide information (sites and profile names) that can be transmitted to partners in the community or this can be posted in the sponsoring vendors branded partner community. Sponsors can schedule additional propriety webcasts during or after the sessions to provide more specific information. Contest can be announced by sponsors to encourage their partners to join (iPods to the first ten resellers who post in the branded community, etc.) more info http://www.socialmedia-academy.com/blog/index.php/us-program/channel-program/ and http://gilwellgroup.com

Social Media for High Tech Channel Partners - Mike Dubrall + Axel Schultze

2010-01-05T22:11:00.001-08:00

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There are lots of opinions about social media and how important it is for B2B communications, but two things are very clear: 1) vendors are embracing social media to communicate directly with customers; and, 2) channel partners are far behind on the social media learning curve. The result is a missed opportunity for resellers. There is only one way to close this learning gap. Someone has to show the channel how to use social media for business. Not just train the resellers, but provide them with the education, tools, and leadership to make them productive. But who is responsible for making this happen? The answer is another question. Who has the most to lose if resellers are not successful? Mike Dubrall - http://xeesm.com/mikedubrall Gilwell Group and Axel Schultze http://xeesm.com/axels Social Media Academy

Recap of Australia Media event on Advertising and Media trends in the Australian market

2009-10-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Background of event: http://mumbrella.com.au/events?event_id=126

Major advertiser News Limited and key heads of Ad Agencies DDB, Y&R and PHD talked about trends in media and advertising. My thoughts on what was discussed below...

Ten things I think I think:

Great turnout with both client and suppliers in the audience
My CMO agrees with Joe Talcott (News Limited) - the media must connect media buy with sale transaction much better
Expert pannel and My CMO all agree that ROI is going to replace Nielsen and other current traffic metrics as the curency of advertising
Agree that the media needs to find ways to charge for content
Don't think agencies or Media gets Social Media in terms of product development/co-creation. Te panel dodged this question when someone brought it up
Like Joe Talcott (NEWS) quote on how Radio was supposed to kill papers in early 1900s. It's not Twitter that will kill papers, it's quality of the product or lack thereof.
Liked the debate on brand equity - best answer from Matt Eastwood DDB - Brand is tangible to the balance sheet; distrust directly correlates to battered share prices of Citigroup and Bank of America
Like Matt Eastwood DDB comment - pay content works with easy micropayments and quality product
"Best ads are ones you remember and bad ones are those you forget" - Joe Talcott (NEWS)
Agencies still talking ads more than ROI

Overall, the Big Agencies and Big Media acknowledge the concept of ROI needs to become more ingrained in the product/service offering. The big challenge is making the organisation adapt to achieve this. Old habits dies hard.

An excellent panel observation said that Social Media environments best show natural tendencies and behaviours that focus groups don't give (or ads for that matter). Combine that with the observation that product quality and creativity will dictate success - more than half the battle has been won. Things are not as dire for media as people make out.

Next steps are to use Social Media to capture the customer and use co-creation to find that which can be monetised in terms of content. This is not doing a Tweet to customers and saying "what will you pay for". Instead, it's taking the time to understand the customer problem and use cases through dialogue. That's not advertising or marketing, but relationship building over time.

Social media and related strategy is a methodical process and company wide approach. When done correctly, it delivers a wonderful discovery process. The critical added ingredient is the willingness of the business to 'co-create' new products based on this. The opportunity is there and there are many success that I could reference to show how this works.

**If your business faces such a challenge, feel free to contact me to discuss your own company and industry and how Social Media can make a difference to your ROI***

Rick Speciale

Director My CMO

http://xeesm.com/speciale/

0434079762

Who is My CMO?
My CMO is a marketing service and strategy business that works with clients to achieve ROI through marketing, product development and social media

Social Media Tools Education

2009-10-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

The Social Media Academy is holding a 5 day event dedicated to the analytic tools used for Social Media. Here is a link to the agenda: http://socialmedia-academy.com/html/eventagenda.cfm. You can register at this link: http://socialmedia-academy.com/html/socialmediatoolsweek-nov09.cfm. As these tools are unfamiliar to many of those who are new to Social Media, this is a great opportunity to not only identify suppliers and tools but have expert professionals review how to use them. The dates are for November 16 to November 21. An excellent group of speakers as well. Highly recommended.

Rick S.

Accredited Guest Authors

2009-10-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

All Black Diamonds are accredited guest authors on the Social Media Academy Blog. Feel free to use this button and add it to your website, blog or other tools.
Please use this link to link to the blog:
http://socialmedia-academy.com/Blog

Sharing Black Diamonds as a group on Twitter

2009-10-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

TweepML is a simple format to make it easy for people to share a list of Twitter users ("Tweeps").

TweepML offers a group in function for Twitter - I created the Black Diamond Group - so we all can recommend all Black Diamonds with on link to follow - http://tweepml.org/?t=16873 = http://tweepml.org/Black-Diamonds/
They also provided some buttons we can add to our websites:

Best
Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

Is Social Media the New CRM?

2009-10-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

I had a recent conversation with a colleague who has been in the CRM business for many years and was thinking about the relationship between social media and the art and science of CRM. When I first got involved in social media it occurred to me that social media is CRM in its purest form. Going back a few years ago, all you could do was “manage” customers through outbound email, mail or phone contact. It was systematic, but – on balance – you were doing more “talking at” than “talking with” customers.

Social media is less systematic – you can’t just roll out a program and check off completed tasks. However, when done well, you are meeting your customers (and prospects) where they gather, hearing about what is important to them, and responding. This mirrors real-life relationships and, therefore, increases the quality of the contact. For some, it may seem time-consuming to have these one-on-one conversations, but – in reality – for each person responded to, there are many more that are listening in with the ability to send a link and get even more people involved. The reach is very long.

It seems artificial to separate out the concept of Customer Relationship Management from social media at this point in time. Customers, like all of us, don’t really liked to be managed. Maybe it should be renamed Customer Relationship Engagement?

http://catherinesherwood.com/2009/10/is-social-media-the-latest-iteration-of-crm/

Nestle Social Media: “Nestea” plunge in sentiment and how to fix

2009-09-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

Want to share with you Rick Speciales http://xeesm.com/speciale/ observations on Nestle and their use of Facebook - more about lost opportunities for them in Social Media that could have helped them deal with the negative sentiment coming out about their use of a supplier in Zimbabwe that connects them to the Mugabe regime

Please feel free to agree, disgree or comment with your own spin at this link: (took that from Rick's email ;-)

Nestle Social Media: “Nestea” plunge in sentiment and how to fix

Best
Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

The Art of Publishing in the Age of the Internet

2009-09-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

The Art of Publishing in the Age of the Internet

Catherine Sherwood http://xeesm.com/catherinesherwood posted today about:

The Art of Publishing in the Age of the Internet
Back in the early days of the internet, there was a mantra that “content is king”. Having worked for ScreamingMedia – one of the early leaders in providing “fresh content” to websites, we certainly wanted everyone to believe it. After the first wave of companies putting up static content in fairly two-dimensional websites, people realized that updated content might actually bring consumers back for a second look. However, much of that content was not really relevant – just recycled from other sources. The content that companies created directly was more relevant, but hardly compelling.

Now many of those same companies that used to syndicate their content though ScreamingMedia and others understand that the real value lies in what they create, not how it is delivered. Again, “content is king” but in a whole new way. As print distribution of content is starting to fade, the real asset is the quality of the content. Multiple sources put the number of blogs at 200 million so there is more than enough quantity, but nothing takes the place of well-researched, well-reported, well-written content. Just look at YouTube and the thousands of funny, strange or informative videos. We can all enjoy them, but know the difference between a supposedly singing cat and an episode of Mad Men in terms of real value.

I believe that newspapers, magazines and book publishers should pull out all of the stops. They can create even more compelling content in a multi-dimensional media. With audio and video to enhance the information, the opportunity to engage readers in forums, and do follow-up in blogs, their products should command close to the same price from consumers and support from advertisers that their print products do. They can balance out any losses in revenue from the savings in operations – printing, distribution, etc. They will also have the aid of advocates of their products promoting them directly in the social media and being able to close the deal with a tiny url to the publisher’s site.

Please comment - share it.

thanks
Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions

2009-09-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

Ken Burbary started a new Social Media Monitoring Wiki with a growing list of monitoring and reporting tools.

http://wiki.kenburbary.com/social-meda-monitoring-wiki

It is very handy to have all tools in a list

Best
Marita
http://xeesm.com/martiar

Congratulations Caffé Publishing Group LLC Barbara Daniels

2009-09-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Caffé Publishing Group LLC Barbara Daniels

WASHINGTON D.C. - The Caffé Publishing Group LLC has been selected for the 2009 Best of Mesa Award in the Publishing Category by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA).
September 28, 2009 -- The USCA "Best of Local Business" Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2009 USCA Award Program focused on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About The Caffé Publishing Group LLC

Established in 1991, The Caffé Publishing Group LLC is an Arizona-based Consulting Firm, offering a variety of publishing services to small, medium and large sized businesses, to include both traditional publishing methods as well as e-Publishing. The Caffé Publishing Group LLC is also the parent company to two consulting divisions, which include Caffé Social Media, specializing in Social Media and Branding Consulting Services, and Caffé Web Design, focused on Graphic/Web Design and other creative services.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)
U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a Washington D.C. based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Association

The Caffe Publishing Group LLC , Barbara A. Daniels , Publishing , USCA , Arizona , Best of Mesa - http://xeesm.com/wk4coffee

###

For more information:

6620 E. McKellips Rd., Ste. 103-1, Mesa, AZ 85215
(623) 399-4940
Email info@caffepublishing.com

Black Diamonds Fanpage and Websites Mark R. Moore / Chickenfox

2009-09-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

Dear Black Diamonds,

have you seen lately the new websites and blogs, groups of the Black Diamonds members.

I just came across of the new Fanpage on Facebook and Website from Mark R. Moore / Chickenfox

http://chickenfox.com/

Mark did a great job and created for every Black Diamond a specific page - check it out

Become also a Fan of the Chicken Fox Fanpage

Please share with all of us your activities, let all know where we can work together and help spreading the word.
Best
Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

Search Results Black Diamond September 18 - 25

2009-09-25T23:36:00.000-07:00

Please find the text results in the attachment (sorry thats the only way to share) attachment

Best
Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

Social Media Methodology Online Round Table #1 Four Quadrant Assessment Model

2009-09-21T17:14:00.001-07:00

Social Media Methodology Online Round Table #1 Four Quadrant Assessment Model

Shared via AddThis

Sum of all the conversations on the Social Web

2009-09-21T14:21:00.000-07:00

I am still working to improve to catch all your conversations on the Social Web.

But besides catching the conversation of the Black Diamonds I think it is also helpful for all of us to find conversations of interest we all can comment and get the name out

I found some additional tools who help to find blogs/conversation in the Social Web

I am pretty sure we all are using good old google alert
I am monitoring terms like
Social Media for business - Social CRM - Social Media for HR functions; Branding, e-Reputation Management, Training

Tools:
http://www.blogpulse.com/conversation
http://www.blogpulse.com/
http://www.twitteranalyzer.com/
http://socialmention.com

** my fav :
http://www.icerocket.com/

check out the Big Buzz tab - easy and one click overview

Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

http://twitter.com/home#search?q=wendysouciehttp://twitter.com/#search?q=wk4coffee
http://twitter.com/#search?q=rmarkmoore
http://twitter.com/home#search?q=catesherwood
http://twitter.com/home#search?q=g2m
http://twitter.com/home#search?q=boughtycanton
http://twitter.com/home#search?q=zemlak

Getting better reports and results

2009-09-17T01:03:00.000-07:00

To get relevant findings based on names is very tedious. The very best results - also to setup google alerts with relevant findings we all get if we are using XeeSM as a unique identifier.

To trace your "social media foot prints" on comments, blog, please sign everything with your unique XeeSM http://xeesm.com/yourname. It makes findings and tracking a no-brainer. - here we also get all findings in the groups, fanpages and forums of Linkedin, Facebook and other social networks immedialty.

Findings Mark Moore http://xeesm.com/RMarkMoore/
Findings Rick Speciale http://xeesm.com/speciale/
Findings Boughton Canton http://xeesm.com/Boughty/
Findings Walter Adamson http://xeesm.com/walter/
Findings Barbara Daniels http://XeeSM.com/wk4coffee
Findings Wendy Soucie http://XeeSM.com/WendySoucie
Findings Catherine Sherwood http://XeeSM.com/CatherineSherwood

If I refer to a blog post or comment from you I also add your XeeSM to the post, reader can connect with you immediatly in the Social web.

Thank you very much for your help.

Network - Contribution - Participation

Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

Search results for BLACK DIAMONDS from Aug 16 to Sep 17

2009-09-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

I just finished my search on Scoutlab to find all your social media activities.
The search is based on the following key words:
Mark R. Moore, ChickenFox, Rick Speciale, Boughton Canton, Walter Adamson, Barbara Daniels, Caffe Social Media, Wendy Soucie, Catherine Sherwood, wendysoucie, wk4coffee, boughtycanton , CateSherwood , rmarkmoore , zemlak

Please see below the Volume for this time period

To check the findings - please click on this attachment link

For tweets I am using Tweetmi.com
Please check out the findings

http://www.tweetmi.com/rmarkmoore
http://www.tweetmi.com/wendysoucie
http://www.tweetmi.com/wk4coffee
http://www.tweetmi.com/catesherwood
http://www.tweetmi.com/gsm
http://www.tweetmi.com/boughtycanton
http://www.tweetmi.com/zemlak

best
Marita
http://xeesm.com/maritar

Social Media Academy establishes global consulting network, Black Diamonds

2009-09-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

News Release

Social Media Academy’s Black Diamond consultants help small medium business to enter social media space.

Social Media Academy establishes global consulting network, Black Diamonds

Palo Alto, CA, September 8 - Palo Alto based Social Media Academy announces its Black Diamond global social media consultant network. Certified social media consultants from the US, Europe, Singapore and Australia are set to collaborate on a global scale to help small, medium and large businesses create social media programs that are specifically tailored to their social media ecosystems. The group engages based on unified methodologies from the Social Media Academy, including the Four-Quadrant Social Media Assessment model, the Strategy Hexagon for developing a robust social media plan, and five other standardized methodologies.Social Media Academy founder Axel Schultze said: “Business leaders have a hard time to select a social media consultant that is right for them. Too many self proclaimed social media experts only confuse customers. We conquer this problem by creating a worldwide standard for methodologies, strategy development and social media execution plans. The Black Diamond Network consists of a worldwide network of certified social media consultants with a very transparent and unified experience profile.”

"Mark Moore, from Atlanta, GA, one of the founding members said: “One of our big advantages is our globally standardized methodology approach. Any member can jump into any project and knows exactly how we all work. This provides a great project security for small and large customers”.

Boughty Canton, another founding member, from Singapore commented: “Businesses begin to understand that social media is not just a marketing tool but a general business strategy. As Black Diamonds members, we help companies to think and execute strategically”. Wendy Soucie from Wisconsin said: “An important aspect of the Black Diamond Network is our ability to provide very cost efficient social media packages to small businesses. Even though we are connected in a global network - the individual Black Diamonds operate locally. Each Black Diamond brings to the engagement an understanding of a particular regional area or even a vertical market dynamic."

Rick Speciale from Sydney, Australia and Catherine Sherwood from Albuquerque, NM see another advantage of the Black Diamond group in the collaboration of different subject matter experts. “We both focus on the financial services industry. Collaborating with other experts while maintaining a standardized operating method gives customers the breadth and depth in expertise they expect”.

Barbara Daniels from Mesa, AZ, also one of the founding members stated: “We collaborate on projects and strategic engagements as a group, each bringing our unique talents and backgrounds to create a synergy in the fast-paced world of social media that is the first of its kind. We take social media far beyond the marketing aspect, assisting companies in building mindshare and market share by imploring the proven principles and standardized methodologies of the Social Media Academy.”

The Black Diamond group is orchestrated by the Social Media Academy and organizes knowledge webinars in the US, Europe and Asia helping businesses to better comprehend the impact social media has to their business, their market and their ecosystem. The Knowledge webinar series starts in September and is free of charge. A Black Diamond reception is established to help companies find the best social media strategist for their respective needs.

The next leadership class, which is the base education to become a black diamond, starts September 16.
More details are available at http://socialmedia-academy.com/BlackDiamonds
. . .
Key words: Social media, consulting, small medium business, methodology, network, customer experience, assessment, strategy, media plan, Black Diamond, Social Media Academy

More corresponding links:Social Media Academy
http://socialmedia-academy.com/
Social Media Leadership class
http://socialmedia-academy.com/html/us-leadershipclass.cfm
Social Media Academy Methodology overview
http://socialmedia-academy.com/html/methodologies.cfm

Social sites from people mentioned in this press release:
Axel Schultze http://xeesm.com/AxelS
Barbara Daniels http://XeeSM.com/wk4coffee
Boughton Canton http://xeesm.com/Boughty/
Catherine Sherwood http://XeeSM.com/CatherineSherwood
Mark Moore http://xeesm.com/rMarkMoore
Rick Speciale http://xeesm.com/speciale/
Walter Adamson http://xeesm.com/walter/
Wendy Soucie http://xeesm.com/wendysoucie/

About
The Social Media Academy is an education and research institute providing education for business professionals from all industries on how to best apply social media to their respective businesses. The main emphasis is to help business managers and consultants to get a comprehensive education on Social Media, including strategy development, planning, execution, tools, resources ways to report and analyze development and success and help understand the evolutionary changes in our society. As part of the educational development, the Social Media Academy conducts research exploring the ongoing changes in the field and supports the continuous learning process as well as monitor ongoing changes in the field.

The main course is the institute’s leadership class which focuses on how to plan, implement and engage with social media in all business areas including marketing, sales, product development, service & support, logistics, administration and engineering.

The Social Media Academy is based in Palo Alto, California. All classes are held online to allow location independent education.

By Wendy Soucie

2009-09-07T14:00:00.001-07:00

New research on social media and its reflection of user identity
The research explores how accurate social media profiles are … ... faculty member at the Social Media Academyhttpwwwsocialmediaacademycom where she lectures ...

Black Diamond Activity & Event Blog

2009-09-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

This blog is primarily created to update Black Diamonds about activities from other Black Diamonds, including blog posts, events, comment on interesting sites and other client development networking activities. The blog however is public so others may track those activities too.

Social Media Black Diamonds

How to hire a Social Media Director?

Ten ways to boost event participation with social media (WTN News)

Social Media ROI - Social Media Academy - Online Management Briefing

Social Media ROI - Social Media Academy

Leveraging Social Media as a Way To Grow Business

Where Social Media Monitoring Services Fail

Social Media Academy NCP Model – Case Examples - Catherine Sherwood

Social Media Academy - Corporate Social Media Education

Social Media Academy NCP Model – Case Examples - Wendy Soucie

Social Media Academy NCP Model – Case Examples

Social Media Academy NCP Model – Case Examples

Social Media Academy - Intro Webinar Certified Social Media Strategist Program 2010

Social Media Academy - Intro Webinar Certified Social Media Strategist Program 2010

Channel Partner Enablement Part 2

Social Media for High Tech Channel Partners - Mike Dubrall + Axel Schultze

Recap of Australia Media event on Advertising and Media trends in the Australian market

Social Media Tools Education

Accredited Guest Authors

Sharing Black Diamonds as a group on Twitter

Is Social Media the New CRM?

Nestle Social Media: “Nestea” plunge in sentiment and how to fix

The Art of Publishing in the Age of the Internet

A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions

Congratulations Caffé Publishing Group LLC Barbara Daniels

Black Diamonds Fanpage and Websites Mark R. Moore / Chickenfox

Search Results Black Diamond September 18 - 25

Social Media Methodology Online Round Table #1 Four Quadrant Assessment Model

Sum of all the con­ver­sa­tions on the Social Web

Getting better reports and results

Search results for BLACK DIAMONDS from Aug 16 to Sep 17

Social Media Academy establishes global consulting network, Black Diamonds

By Wendy Soucie

Black Diamond Activity & Event Blog

Sum of all the conversations on the Social Web