Hello there – I’m Danielle Destrade Ali, and I’m the newest addition to The Cyphers Agency. Jocelyn introduced me earlier this week, and shared how I will be contributing to Push-n-Pull, the Word of Mouth division of the agency. As a social media devotee, working in this department is a great fit for me! For the next few months, I’ll be blogging about my experience as the newbie around here.

The Cyphers Agency is my first job at an advertising agency, and while I have experience in online marketing for various organizations, I had no idea what to expect at an agency. Would the workplace be like a modern day Mad Men? I hoped not – I’m not really in favor of smoking indoors. While I didn’t know what I was walking into, I did know that I would be working with people who had a lot more advertising experience than myself. I was more than a little nervous about being able to measure up to all the talent here.

My first day, I sat in on a brainstorming meeting, and expected to just observe and learn. I was a bit surprised when my colleagues were interested in my opinion! I quickly discovered that The Cyphers Agency has a friendly culture where the members of our team are constantly collaborating. Even the open layout of the office lends itself to teamwork. This lack of pretentiousness really allows everyone to share their great ideas freely. I’ve been invited to contribute my own suggestions from the very beginning, and I’ve helped come up with awesome plans for our clients. I love being a part of a team where everyone works together and supports each other, and its been exciting to get validation from my super talented co-workers.

Of course, I am still just getting my feet wet. While I’ve already had opportunities to contribute creatively, I know I will continue to grow and gain more responsibility. I’m excited to continue working, especially with our campaign for The National Chicken Council, which is an excellent example of how social media marketing can be fun, useful and effective all at once!

Keep checking back to read more about what I’m working on and learning about.

People love to be recognized as experts. This means you should tap the expertise of your customers. Ask them their opinions and reward them for it. They’ll appreciate you for realizing that they are experts and they’ll be free with their words of wisdom for you. Not only will you win another sale, you’ll increase the chances of them engaging in word of mouth marketing for you.

Many marketers offer incentives in order to gain ambassadors. By asking and appreciating their opinions, they’ll do the work for you on their own. By trusting in them, they’ll show their gratitude by buying more and recommending your products or services on the street and online.

The Cyphers Agency is glad to announce the addition of Bailey Whittaker to the Push-n-Pull division, helping us strengthen our word of mouth efforts!

Bailey, a life long resident of the nearby Annapolis area, graduated from Towson University in May 2010.  She majored in Mass Communication with tracks in Advertising, Public Relations, and Marketing.  She enjoys listening to Jack Johnson,  eating seven layer dip, wearing flip flops, and going on beach vacations.

Bailey will be responsible for spreading the word about our clients. This involves supporting others in the WOM department by blogging, conducting internet research, implementing marketing strategy, running flash mobs and events, learning all things social media, and helping with any other creative ideas we may think up.

Welcome, Bailey! We look forward to working with you!

Here is a really interesting video with some statistics about the current state of the internet and how it has evolved. Videos like this help us step back from the minutiae and realize how fast we are moving.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

…wow. That was cool.

While we’re at it, here is another video with cool statistics. It’s a little preachy at the end, but we like the overall idea:

Our Director of WOM, Andrew Krebs-Smith, recently went to the Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. Below are notes from a session on Social Media for Business to Business (B2B) clients.

Often B2B companies find it hard to enter the social media space, because they see it as a direct-to-consumer method of communication, which doesn’t help their corporate client audience. But social media has something for everyone, and this panel underlined the value of social media for B2B companies.

Most of all, social media is valuable for B2B companies because it is all about creating and strengthening relationships. As most salespeople in the B2B world will attest to, making a sale involves much more than just having a product that people want to buy. When B2B client relationships can involve multi-million dollar deals, and long-term relationships, the purchases/agreements are not made on a whim. Rather, they inv0lve creating a relationship, not just between companies, but between people.

So how can social media help? Teach your salesforce to leverage social networking tools (LinkedIn, Twitter to name a few) to create and maintain relationships with clients, prospects, and anyone in-between. This also lets all the salespeople within a company know what each person is up to, so efforts aren’t duplicated and networks are maximized. Make sure to track these efforts through your CRM tool so that you can assess return on invesment (ROI), cost-per-lead (CPL), and other key metrics.

So how do you get the ball rolling? Bring together interdepartmental team to hash out differences, get everyone on the same level, talk about situation, etc. Talk about best policies, talk about what is recommended, allowed, and how social media can help achieve your business objectives. You don’t want employees neglecting these powerful tools, but they need to have specific goals and training on how to use them so they aren’t spinning their wheels trying to figure everything out.

And please, PLEASE don’t just use these tools for blatant promotion. These tools can be harmful if you abuse them and see them as just another place for your corporate message. Someone on the panel had a great analogy: “[you] don’t walk into a cocktail party and say ‘hey! buy my book!” Instead, give your prospects value. Share your resources with customers. Use these tools to keep in touch with customers and give them support.

The question is no longer IF B2B companies should be using social media, but rather HOW, WHEN, and WHERE. Any questions? You know where to find us.

Speakers on this panel: Kipp Bodnar, David B. Thomas, Kyle Flaherty, Mica Viehamn