Metzger Associates Celebrates Five Years Of Social Media Practice

Online, March 1, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Boulder, Colo. - Metzger Associates celebrated the fifth anniversary of its Social Media Practice by hosting a morning of industry thought leaders' observations and predictions for communicating in the new millennium.

Speakers included: Dave Taylor, one of the country's most widely read bloggers and founder of askdavetaylor.com; Doyle Albee, president of Metzger Associates and director of its Social Media Practice; Linda O'Neill, general manager for customer operations at CenturyLink in Kansas City; Dean Rizzuto, Metzger's Web Development Practice director; and Michael Fraietta, chief listening officer at Jive Software. Highlights included:

Dave Taylor: "New technology like the iPad is just another step in the evolution of how we use media. The future of social media is about creating mortar-devices like this that hold together our digital worlds-not simply just producing more bricks." Taylor also predicted that 2010 would be the last Olympic games not widely available to view freely and in real-time. "Medalists are announced instantaneously on Twitter and Facebook, scooping the networks' delayed broadcasts. Who wouldn't want live Olympic updates for the sports they're most interested in?"

Doyle Albee: "Social media has become a fixture in our culture because it hasn't changed what we do, but simply how we do it. We want to be in conversations, not lectures." Albee also stressed the importance of quality over quantity in networking: "Social media is not about numbers. I don't care how many followers you have, if they're not invested in the discussion then all the friends in the world don't mean a thing. It's about relationships."

Linda O'Neill: "The worst thing a company can do is build a social media silo. Companies must implement integrated social media strategies and share customer care data among all levels of management. Effective organizations use customer feedback from other departments, including marketing, PR and call center data, to really understand what customers want. The most important thing is to provide content to your customers, and the best way to do that is through social and new media."

Michael Fraietta: "Social media erased the distinction between our 'work' and 'personal' identities. It's empowering for business because it gives power to the people. We're all entrepreneurs now."


Dean Rizzuto: "If you're on Twitter, be sure you're constantly engaging your followers, establishing your credentials and showing your expertise because all tweets, even those you feel are innocuous or unrelated, are subtle self-promotion." He added, on the subject of using video for SEO, "Always include tags, keywords and other metadata with a video. Though the content in the video itself is not indexed, people regularly find sites now through YouTube, because search engines index the metadata you create for it."

About Metzger Associates
Boulder-based Metzger Associates is the Rocky Mountain region's premier integrated strategy and communications firm. Since 1991, Metzger Associates' strategic methodology and keen focus on business goals have created value for innovative growth companies ranging from the Fortune 500 to early stage technology companies. Please visit www.metzger.com or www.metzgerblog.com.