Proctor & Gamble Launches Social Good Campaign
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
Proctor and Gamble’s new social good campaign aims to provide clean drinking water for people in need. They have created a new widget which bloggers can insert into their blog which converts a single click into a day’s worth of drinking water. Read this article from mashable.com about the innovative social good campaign.
Procter & Gamble Launches Widget to Convert Clicks into Water
What if the one click it took to open this story could also provide enough clean drinking water for one person for an entire day?
Major consumer goods company Procter and Gamble (P&G) has launched a widget that bloggers can embed into their blogs in several days. For each click they receive from readers, P&G will donate a day’s worth of clean drinking water (about two litres) to someone in need. The goal is to generate 100,000 days worth of clean water by the end of the year.
Started in August, the widget is part of P&G’s “Give Health Clean Water Blogivation,” which showcases the power of female bloggers to help improve the lives of people in need. The participants have already donated more than 20,000 days of water.
Jennings Social Media Marketing Press Release Posted On MSNBC.com; Social Media Marketing Doubles Enrollment at Montessori School
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
The services that Jennings Social Media Marketing provided helped to double the enrollment of Smithville Montessori Academy (SMA). Robin Hilmes, director of operations at SMA, said that after 90 days she began to see drastic results. “Jennings Social Media Marketing made our website attractive to the right audience. Also, SMA was featured on websites that appealed to its target audience such as sheknows.com. SMA started getting phone calls and e-mails from people who wanted to know what our product was. Thanks to the increase in website traffic and media coverage, SMA doubled its enrollment,” said Hilmes.
Additionally, Hilmes said that all of the services provided by Jennings Social Media Marketing continue to be extremely effective. “Jennings Social Media Marketing hosts the SMA website, manages the blog, Facebook, Twitter and the e-newsletter. These tools are very beneficial to our organization. Now, parents can experience SMA on a variety of levels. They can interact with SMA through all of the social media outlets. Social media just makes it easier for parents to be heavily involved,” said Hilmes.
This press release focusing on Jennings ‘ strategies was posted here on msnbc.com.
Internet to Surpass 2 Billion Users This Year
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
More than 2 billion people will be Internet users by the end of 2010. Developing countries have the lowest percentage of Internet users, but more than half of new Internet users this year will be from those developing countries. This article written by Stan Schroeder provides statistics about growing number of Internet users globally.
Internet to Surpass 2 Billion Users This Year 
The number of Internet users will surpass 2 billion before the end of 2010, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said in a report.
The current world population is estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 6.876 billion, which would mean that approximately 30% of the population will be online at the end of this year.
There will be 226 million new Internet users this year, 162 million of which will be from the developing countries. Despite the fast growth of Internet users there, the developing countries still have a long way to go to catch up with the developed world.
How Social Media Can Improve Corporate Social Responsibility
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
As companies focus on their financial, environmental and social impacts, they must shift their attention toward better communication. Social media allows companies to communicate more freely with their stakeholders, clients and customers. David Connor offers tips regarding social responsibility.
How to Use Social Media for Better Corporate Social Responsibility
There was a time when companies used to get away with almost whatever they wanted to because they had the ability to control the vast majority of the communication about their activities both good and bad. In the prehistoric days before the World Wide Web, traditional press officers pushed out paper press releases whenever they thought they had something that would impress an audience. The bad stuff, or even the just not so glowingly positive, hardly ever got past the reputation guardians.
Coincidentally, on a parallel track, a growing movement in and around business was emerging touting something called corporate social responsibility (CSR); the balancing of a company’s financial, environment and social impacts. In the beginning, the web offered an increased amount of corporate information available. Although still rigidly protected at source by the press officers, the initial explosion of readily accessible data and search tools created more opportunities for weaknesses to be noticed for those who cared to go looking. Then social media arrived and upped the ante exponentially.
Now everybody (and especially activist groups) with a mobile phone could if they had the slightest inclination, access this overwhelming amount of information then analyse, filter and broadcast their opinions to their own and often substantial and influential networks. This near instantaneous transmission of corporate misdemeanors had bypassed complacent press officers whilst visionary marketers spied a new era.
Doctors Utilize Social Media to Attract New Patients
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
Medical Groups are learning that social media is a helpful marketing tool. Many doctors and Health Care providers are beginning to utilize deals and promotions on sites such as Groupon and Foursquare. Doctors are offering discounted medical services for those who check the sites. This article from The Los Angeles Times illustrates the way the medical field is changing as doctors find innovative ways to attract new patients.
HealthKey: Doctors Experimenting with Social Media
Monica Dillon wasn’t happy with her eye care provider, so when she saw an online deal for an exam and glasses for $50, she clicked on it.
The accountant, who lives in Columbia and works in Washington, doesn’t ordinarily get medical care without a recommendation. But the offer was too good to resist — and, as she notes, there would be no surgery or undressing.
“The timing was right so I jumped on it,” she said about her purchase via Groupon, a deal-of-the-day e-mail sent to tens of thousands of people in the Baltimore region and millions nationwide. “I’d be more cautious about laser surgery or hair removal. That would take more research. But this worked out; they found a problem with my prescription.”
Katzen Eye Group, the company behind the deal, is among the growing number of health care providers testing the latest in social media. They’re intrigued by the opportunity to attract new patients who might have no or little insurance for specialty services, and to provide information and services to current patients.
Web pages, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts have become a staple of businesses. The newest trend are dealmakers such as Foursquare (a mobile application allowing participants to “check in” at locations and win small rewards), Scoutmob (e-mails that promise discounts at hot spots in cities such as Washington, though not yet Baltimore) and LivingSocial (a Groupon-like deal site).
Report on Online Marketing: How Effective are Facebook and Twitter?
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
Twitter and Facebook are effective marketing methods which are growing in popularity. Austin Carr’s report on online marketing techniques provides graphs and statistics that show that among social media sites, Twitter is the most effective tool for click-throughs.
Twitter Crushing Facebook’s Click-Through Rate: Report
What is the most effective way for marketers to spread their message online? Facebook? Twitter? Company blogs? Email?
According to a new report by marketing firm SocialTwist, Internet sharing trends have shifted heavily shifted toward social networking, but other platforms still have a strong presence for word-of-mouth advertising. SocialTwist analyzed more than a million referral messages send using the company’s Tell-a-Friend tool, a widget that lets users share sites through social media.
In the last year, social networking sites saw a 10% increase in usage, and a 16% bump in click-throughs. Overall though, email still accounts for 55% of referrals.
However, when it comes to click-throughs, social networking sites are far more effective, accounting for more than 60% of the market share.
Social Web: Guardian of Net Neutrality
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
The social Web has encouraged entrepreneurs and business leaders to continue defending web neutrality. This article by Jon Goldman on mashable.com outlines the important factors of net neutrality.
Why the Social Web is the Guardian of Net Neutrality
The spread of broadband Internet access allows us to explore and devour an array of content (entertainment, news and information) with a convenience and speed unimaginable to those accessing the web a mere five to 10 years ago. And in the past two months, discussions within the Internet and media industries about the continued viability of net neutrality have centered on those issues of convenience and speed.
Proponents of net neutrality have come out in full force rallying around the notion of a free and uninhibited Internet; one controlled only by consumers’ imaginations and desires, rather than corporate profits. They argue that an Internet divided into separate and potentially unequal access points would give favor to those companies willing to pay top-dollar to have their content and entertainment available to consumers and businesses who are also willing — and able — to pay a premium for access.
Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes articulated why net neutrality is so important when he told Information Week that “Preserving an open Internet that is accessible to innovators — regardless of their size or wealth — will promote a vibrant and competitive marketplace where consumers have ultimate control over the content and services delivered through their Internet connection.”
Thank you B2CMarketingInsider.com for Featuring Jennings Social Media Marketing
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
Thank you to Brian Rice for publishing Valerie Jennings’ article regarding why businesses need organic SEO on B2CMarketingInsider.com.
Why Businesses Fail Without SEO
The evolution of social media continues to effect search engine optimization (SEO), and this is an on-going problem for many business owners, CMOs and brand strategists. While Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Metacafe, LinkedIn, blogging, SEO press releases and flickr give companies an advantage to monitor, drive website traffic and increase awareness, the bottom-line is that most companies will wait to understand SEO.
Social media will enhance SEO, and by reviewing reports such as Google’s Keywords Tool, businesses can evaluate results immediately for free. Now business owners, CMOs and brand strategists can work with online resources to evaluate what keywords will drive their search engine results.
Cosmopolitan Magazine Launches Social Media Campaign
Cosmopolitan Magazine is one of many magazines to introduce new campaigns. The magazine is implementing social media techniques in order to send their message to desired readers. The magazine aims to reach the “fun, fearless female” by including her in the campaign, which allows visitors to insert photos of themselves to the photoshoot video. This article from The New York Times shows how social media is being used in the Cosmopolitan advertising campaign.
COSMOPOLITAN magazine, Hearst Magazines’ popular publication for young women, is harnessing the power of social media for its first global, digital advertising campaign.
The main focus of the campaign — which will be introduced in New York on Thursday on a billboard in Times Square and at a reception for advertisers, media buyers and press — is a video that simulates a photo shoot for a new Cosmopolitan ad campaign.
Valerie Jennings 
Cassie Stubs
Katie Stumpf
