SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMINER — It’s the Holy Grail of interactive marketing: getting "social media influencers" -- the ones with the voice and the reach, the ones to whom everyone else listens -- to endorse and promote what you’re doing. Recently, my company managed to inspire 60 such influencers to participate in our event, called The Influencer Project, and they even took it upon themselves to help spread the word. People like Social Media Examiner’s own Michael Stelzner, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk, David Meerman Scott, and others all signed on. We were grateful beyond belief. Some of the brightest minds in social media spoke at The Influencer Project. Why’d they come on board? And how’d we do it?...

WEB STRATEGY — Excited about your new Facebook page but don’t know what’s next? What does a truly advanced company look like in social business? They can say yes to seven or more of these ten criteria. We’ve been interviewing the most sophisticated brands in the world when it comes to social business for our upcoming report on "Enterprise Social Strategists Role." We’ve come to learn which companies are advanced and why. Secondly, I meet a variety of companies who tell me they are "Very advanced, having done this for a few years, and have dozens of Facebook efforts" but when I ask them some specific questions on their sophistication, they often retract their statement. Corporations that have these and other following elements in place, may truly be sophisticated when it comes to social business:...

DACHIS GROUP COLLABORATORY — I tweeted recently that all of the details of planning an online community reminded me of planning a wedding. I submitted the tweet at the very moment I felt overwhelmed by the details of coordinating so many moving pieces weeks before launching the community. For the past three months, Dachis Group has worked closely with a community platform provider to design, build, and launch an online community for a client partner. I am a member of the Dachis Group team managing this project, and I decided to write about my experience...

IMEDIA CONNECTION — With the growth of mobile consumption, many companies are rushing into app development without fully taking into account the factors required to develop and launch an app successfully. As a result, mobile apps that have failed the submission process or have failed to perform -- in terms how the app functions, number of downloads, ratings received, and, most importantly, meeting the client expectations -- have become a common occurrence. The problem with having your first app flop is that damage to a brand's reputation can take place. Even if you fix your app later, convincing people to download an app that they had previously deleted will be a challenge -- especially with more than 15,000 new apps being approved in Apple's App Store each week. Additionally, recovery of the failed app creates additional costs to your initial investment. So what are some of the most common mistakes made in app development, and how can they be avoided altogether?...

DIGITAL INFLUENCE MAPPING PROJECT — Last post I proposed benchmarks for what percentage of a B2C marcom budget should be spent on social media. The next logical question is how to allocate that spend. Clearly every product, business goal, world market and end user target will impact that answer. Despite the recent gains in more seniors adopting digital habits, I still wouldn't use the Old Spice video strategy to reach 65 and over Americans. Context matters. Looking at just traditional marcom efforts (leaving out functions like customer care), there are two ways to spend on social media marcom...