I have worked with almost all the different social media platforms, and helped create social media campaigns for several different companies, often using data they already had, they just didn’t know how to use. Approaches and tools have changed dramatically in the 10 years I’ve been working in the field, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is that consumers not only expect, but DEMAND that companies listen to them.

CASE STUDY: My first client was Microsoft, where I tracked social media conversations for a variety of their products, honing in on what people are really saying about a product, what works, what doesn’t, and how they think things should get fixed!

Since then I’ve expanded and tracked and analyzed conversations on a variety of different industries and topics ranging from app development to pacemakers to filing claims to jewelry to fantasy authors to Parkour. These insights can be turned into powerfully effective marketing campaigns.

Read my take here.

CASE STUDY: MICROSOFT DEVELOPER

I tracked conversations and marketing trends for some of Microsoft’s most popular dev tools, as well as their competitors. What did devs like and not like about it? What were the barriers to adoption? From these insights I worked with the social marketing team to craft content and target which channels and type of developers would be open to trying new developer tools from Microsoft.

CASE STUDY: MICROSOFT ARCHIVIST and MIX ONLINE

One of my favorite projects was promoting the Archivist by Microsoft’s MIX Online team. The Archivist tracks and archives tweets on whatever keyword or user you want (read more about it in this blog post I wrote for Plexipixel)! I researched the most influential bloggers who might find this useful, from trend trackers to companies trying to track their brand to museums and local non-profits trying to keep track of conversations surrounding their industry. I then  reached out to each of these influencers individually, and let them know about the free site and how it could benefit their campaigns or Twitter tracking. We got some great exposure from Chris Pirillo to Robert Scoble.

Our three-person team also helped behind the scenes on a VERY last-minute campaign for Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference 2010 (PDC10), now called the BUILD conference. While the campaign focused on strategic ad placement, I was able to sneak some under-the-radar outreach, asking key influencers to promote the event on blogs and via tweets.

BONUS CASE STUDY: WING LUKE MUSEUM

In a spin-off project from the Archivist, we used The Archivist tool to help the Wing Luke Museum develop a better social media strategy! The Wing Luke Museum was trying to become a bigger part of the Seattle community. After interviewing docents and museum staff, visiting the museum, and following along on one of their walking tours, we combined our data from the Archivist and were able to build a strong yet also authentic campaign that was multi-faceted and helped demonstrate just how core they were to the International District neighborhood and Asian community of Seattle.

Humble Brag: One time Ashton Kutcher stumbled upon and re-tweeted this article I wrote. But I’m glad it went over so well! 🙂