What is it about this rapidly expanding microblogging tool, oft-referenced as the blog counterpart of Twitter? More and more, brands are hopping on this platform to appeal to audiences in a different way. There are other large blog communities, but on Tumblr the instilled follow, like, and reblog create greater opportunities for good content to spread. And interestingly, rather than the standard blog post thriving on Tumblr, the jewels of its operation lie in photos, videos, quotes and questions – text snippets with a bit of edginess or inspiration also prove to be popular.

The strategy appears to be working. Since our last stats check in 2010, Tumblr has grown to see roughly 51 million new posts daily, hosts more than 41 million unique blogs, and grew a staggering 900% (!) over the past year (check out this super interesting Tumblr infographic that Mashable whipped up recently). Not to mention, it operates in eight different languages.  In four short years, Tumblr has grown from relatively “underground” to international microblogging network, mostly due to its informal appeal and brand-building potential.

Here’s an update on how several different organizations have taken to Tumblrhood lately, and maximized their brand presence:

• Popular soft drink maker Coca Cola launched a Tumblr to share happy content with teenage bloggers, referencing everyday opportunities to recognize life’s simple pleasures—even featuring some older Coke graphics and advertisements. The effort is part of Coke’s goal to connect with teens and other Coke fans on new platforms and through more visual, aesthetic experiences.
• The Standard Hotel, a popular hotel located in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, launched its Standard Culture Tumblr. It serves as a pop-culture forum, featuring content from guest bloggers, downloadable music, and videos. It also promotes a calendar of pop-culture attractions for each of the hotel’s cities.
• Fashion brands—seemingly built for Tumblr with their highly visual cultures—cover the site with looks from their collections, even disclosing links to sales. (See Bergdorf Goodman, Kate Spade, and Oscar de la Renta’s PR director).
• News sources are by far the leading brand category on Tumblr, from Newsweek to Rolling Stone and NPR. Many of them have fun with their posts, whether it be for teasing content, pulling memorable quotes or sharing compelling imagery.
• Activists and political organizations are increasingly using the platform to share views, political cartoons and videos supporting their beliefs. (See  the Rainforest Activist Network’s recently launched Tumblr dedicated to tracking Bank of America’s criticisms and shortcomings, the Republican National Committee’s blog devoted to examining President Obama’s presidential record over the past three years, and the President’s own campaign Tumblr, in support of his re-election for 2012.)
• Celebrities have hopped on the platform to share some of their favorite content and near-and-dear causes with fans (see Alicia Keys, Glee’s Dianna Agron, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt – even Lady Gaga played with it for a second). Sometimes, even faux-celebrity Tumblelogs arise, to maximize the fandom of certain well-known Hollywood figures, or poke fun at them (See Suri’s Burn Book, a funny blog positioned as written by Katie Holmes’ and Tom Cruises’ adorably rich and famous toddler, and celebrity-fun-poking webcomic But You’re Like Really Pretty).

For fun, here’s a snapshot of some Tumblr engagement on Text 100 NA’s end, engaging you with the people behind our brand and work culture:

• Textual Harassment (Text 100 NYC’s Tumblr): A catalyst for my crush on this place.
• Text Appeal (Text 100 Rochester’s Tumblr): Texties of northwest NY.
• Text Messages (Text 100 Boston): Text 100 in Beantown.
• Text in the City (Text 100 San Francisco): Silicon Valley’s finest.

What about the rest of you out there in the Interwebs—are you finding Tumblr as a useful tool? If you used it early on, how has your usage changed? How are you using Tumblr to support your brand, whether personal or professional, or what are some examples of usage you’ve seen that support or question our observations? Let us know in the comments below.

1.       From Bolt-on to Business as Usual

The advent of social media saw marketers attach themselves to channels such as Twitter, Weibo and Facebook with palpable glee. Many felt they were low-cost ways of pushing more marketing messages at a receptive public, and gleefully measured success per 1,000 likes in the same way they’d previously lapped up media coverage measured by the pound. Social networking activity was rather clumsily ‘bolted’ on to existing marketing and communications programs, and often left to its own devices.

The lessons of 2011 told us that social isn’t a ‘bolt’ on. For many consumers, Facebook is the Internet. Facebook traffic is going up and web traffic is in decline. 1-800 numbers are passé – customer support is 24×7 and on your social network. The mission for 2012 is to create a seamless experience across a range of historically disparate social media, digital and offline properties. Wishful thinking? For many, perhaps. But in the social consumer’s mind, the change has happened. Better interaction across business functions isn’t just management dreaming, it’s social consumer demand.

2.       Social goes mobile

More than 300 million people are accessing Facebook via mobile apps as the smart phone becomes the primary internet access device. The users have spoken and in 2012

marketers must be ready for them. The brand relationship is increasingly dependent on smaller screens.

Variables such as geolocation, NFC, mobile search and augmented reality need to be ns which need to offer compelling – and directive – experiences. We’ll need to start marketing through mobile channels first, making better use of images, video, and less text.

factored in as time and location become critical for brands wanting to capture greater mobile wallet share. For those that haven’t considered this, take a look at your website on a smart phone. Hope you’ll like what you see…or more crucially I hope your consumers like what they see.

3.       Influence is currency

2011 saw the influence debate really take off. Google and Facebook are fighting tooth and nail for your social credentials. Klout and Peer Index both have gained greater recognition over the year but with their success has come controversy. The fact that

Klout’s changes caused uproar indicates that reputation measurement is here so stay. 2012 will see even greater use of influence scores as the industry seeks a better standard.

Better algorithms will dictate greater use of scores in shaping PR tactics. Our focus will increasingly be on understanding how the influential and vocal minority can help us shape our client’s brands. Customers and employees will play larger roles in marketing programs as social currency becomes easier to measure. The ability of Klout and its ilk to keep innovating and providing more specific data will change the way we look at PR forever.

4.       Changing channels?

In 2011 the social network wars exploded. The emergence of Google+ saw Facebook and Twitter make significant changes to their UIs. Niche social networks like Instagram and Pinterest found a home on many desktops and mobile devices. In 2012 we’ll see Facebook, Google+ and Twitter continuing to innovate and greater ability to focus conversations

for more specialized groups. Will social consumers remain loyal or will new networks emerge to challenge?

Outside of the social networks, traditional broadcasters aren’t standing still. The entertainment

and social media industries are colliding, with Twitter in particular helping create a new discipline called social TV. Second screen apps such as Umami

and Gracenote are also blurring the lines further.

In 2012, stories will increasingly have to be told across networks to keep consumer attention. There will only be greater attempts at integration while simultaneously the big networks will do more to keep consumers within their ‘walls’. The challenge for brands will be to keep on top of the niche and large social networks and traditional broadcasters. It will be critical to keep an open mind and be willing to experiment as the channels jostle for position.

5.       PR’s future

My final prediction is a big call but that’s the pleasure of forecasting. From my perspective PR will go through a required change in 2012. The shift will reflect the other nine trends I’ve talked to. Our ability to react to changes in channels, consumer behaviors, tools and technologies will cement our future as an industry.

Images sourced under Creative Commons license from flickr users midgley, jcarlosn, Jeff Hester and Moyan Brenn, respectively.

But now, Pinterest is giving me the opportunity to redeem my aesthetically-challenged youth, and then some. The site, which launched in 2010, is a virtual pinboard – a social curation service that lets users organize and “pin” things that they find interesting . People use pin boards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes and organize their favorite recipes, according to Pinterest. I know what you might be thinking – it sounds kind of girly – and it is, at least right now. In fact, 59 percent of Pinterest’s users are women between the ages of 25 and 44, according to Mashable. But if this isn’t your target demographic, stay tuned – Pinterest’s audience is continuing to grow and more men are starting to get on board. And during the week ending December 17, Pinterest had 11 million visits – that’s a 4,000 percent increase from just six months earlier.

The concept of Pinterest is not entirely new. In a way, it took what sites like Tumblr and Delicious had been doing and turned it into a more image-focused, structured set up. It doesn’t incorporate the blog-like stream used on Tumblr and Facebook, but is instead focused on visuals and short commentary in the most shareable way possible.

For me, Pinterest is an online version of my childhood bulletin board. But for brands, Pinterest is opening doors to new and creative ways to engage with social consumers. So if Pinterest is a network that lets users display their favorite online content in one place, how can your brand get some of its content “on the boards”? Here are three ways to start getting engaged and bring some serious personality to your brand:

• Add a “Pin It” button to your website. It’s the age of sharing and most content sites use plugins like Add This to offer visitors one-click sharing options for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites. Pinterest offers its own version of the sharing button, so if your website is image-heavy or has lots of visual content, consider adding the “Pin It” button to your existing sharing options.  This allows readers to automatically share content from your site on one of their Pinterest boards.
• Create a company page. There’s a slew of brands already using Pinterest to further their brand personality. Brands like Michael’s,Whole Foods, Chobani and Travel Channel are great examples of ways to promote a brand through Pinterest, without necessarily pushing their own products – something which Pinterest advises against. Instead, these Pinterest pages share images that capture a lifestyle while relating back to the brand. For example, Michael’s features boards dedicated to party planning, wall décor and DIY projects, while Whole Foods shares images of sweets, winter foods and inspiring kitchens. The key is curating content from sources beyond their own websites to show consumers a holistic view on a particular industry, expertise or topic. And while this may seem easy for traditional lifestyle brands to tackle, this approach leaves room for B2B brands and other industries to get creative, too – take a look at AMD’s Pinterest page or Drake University’s page for some inspiration.
• Engage with other users. Like all social networks, Pinterest works best when its users collaborate. Companies with a presence on Pinterest should make a point to follow other users and to “repin” or “like” posts that catch their eye. Users can also comment on pins, which gives brands ample opportunity to offer a tip on a DIY post or a suggestion for a recipe (keeping with the examples of Michael’s and Whole Foods). Even better, by getting engaged with other users, brands can gain insight into what consumers find intriguing or are passionate about. It literally gives you a glimpse into the minds of your customers, so consider how you might be able to use that information to improve and enhance your products or services.

If you haven’t been lucky enough to score an invite to what might be the hottest emerging social network of 2012 (so far, at least), be sure to drop us a line and we’ll get you set up.

Tell us: Are you using Pinterest? Have you interacted with any brands? Or, are you a brand just getting involved with the site? Do you just want an invite so you can test it out for yourself? Join the conversation on our Facebook page.

Whether that page is specifically about your brand or more generally about a type of product, what people read there will inform their buying behavior. So, obviously it would be great if you could somehow control the information on those pages.

First the good news; the whole point of Wikipedia is that anybody can edit the content of pages – it’s a crowd-sourced encyclopedia.

Now the bad news; it’s against Wikipedia’s policies for people with a conflict of interest to edit pages. If you represent a brand, you shouldn’t be editing that brand’s page, or any pages that are related to the brand’s areas of business.

Maybe you work in the PR department of a camera company and you’ve noticed that the Wikipedia page on digital cameras doesn’t mention the cool new technology that your company invented, so you think there can’t be any harm in adding a few facts about it. That still counts as a conflict of interest, especially since you’re unlikely to present a truly balanced view of the technology.

OK, so you realize that updating the page isn’t entirely legit, but if you do it anonymously and you’re really, really careful to write the copy so that it sounds balanced, nobody will ever know and you’ll probably get away with it, right? Wrong. It’s easy for Wikipedia to identify which organizations have edited different pages and it’s not unheard of for PR people to be named and shamed for ignoring the conflict of interest rules.

This is all starting to sound a little impossible – how is a brand supposed to have any control over the way it’s represented on Wikipedia with all these restrictions? That’s the point. Wikipedia does not exist as a mouthpiece for brands, political organizations or anybody else; it’s intended to be an unbiased and factual source of information.

There have been some recent high-profile examples of organizations editing Wikipedia in breach of the conflict of interest guidelines, and one positive outcome of this is that it’s ignited a debate in the PR industry about how we approach the issue. More importantly, it’s encouraged the site’s founder, Jimmy Wales, to engage with the industry to clarify his position and this will hopefully lead to a better understanding of the rules. Neverthless, it’s a little disingenuous to pretend the rules for PR people are confusing – the rules have been in place for a long time and are fairly clear for anybody who cares to read them.

While you can’t control the content of Wikipedia pages, you can influence it (and isn’t that what PR is all about?). Behind every Wikipedia article is what is known as a Talk Page, where people can discuss the content of the article and propose changes, and it’s here that we can suggest edits and amendments to pages. Usually the moderator community will respond to your suggestions and, with a little negotiation, you’ll be able to get the changes made; so long as you follow the guidelines.

According to Wikipedia’s published rules for PR people, you are allowed to directly edit pages to correct things like grammar and spelling errors, fix pages that have been vandalized, and add independent references/sources to verify the content. But you cannot remove content that you don’t like, or add content that is designed purely to promote your organization’s interests.

I have included Wikipedia’s guidelines for PR people below but the golden rule is that if you’re not absolutely clear on how to do this correctly, don’t make any changes and get advice from somebody who understands the process clearly.

I work in PR, and would like to fix up the article about the person or company I represent. Is that okay?

Possibly, if you do it in a way that respects Wikipedia’s goal of being an accurate, unbiased source of information.

Please do

• revert obvious vandalism
• fix minor errors in spelling, grammar, usage, or fact
• add or update facts, such as a person’s date or place of birth; a company’s location or number of employees; or details of a recent event
• provide accurate references for information that’s already in the article

Please do not

• try to use Wikipedia to promote or advertise your client(s)
• remove negative material
• copy-and-paste content from another site, even if you manage the other site
• add information that cannot be independently verified, or that isn’t significant for an encyclopedia article
• work on material that’s particularly controversial or has disputed facts

If you’re not sure a particular edit will be welcomed, then please feel free to ask in advance on the article’s talk page.

Please be aware that other people will edit what you’ve written, and that each article’s history page is public and will reflect exactly what you have changed. If you aren’t willing to accept that, then you should not edit.

 

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.

Have a question for Anders? Leave a comment here, tweet him @anders_lundin, or email him directly, anders.lundin@text100.se.

When people say they want to optimize a press release for SEO, they could be talking about two different things:

• They want to optimize the release itself so that it gets more web traffic
• They want the release to help drive traffic to a product or campaign landing page on their company website

In most cases there’s no good reason to drive web traffic to a press release. Consider the following points:

• The PR team should already have pitched the story and sent the release directly to all relevant media in the first place
• Journalists do not search on Google for relevant press releases to write about; that’s just not how it works
• By the time the release shows in search results, the story will already be old

SEO activity should focus on driving traffic to pages which will lead customers into the sales funnel, but if you’re trying to optimize a press release for the same set of keywords, you’re diluting and confusing that activity. You would be wasting resources by pushing your audience to a piece of online content that has practically zero value for them.

It makes much more sense to use a press release to help drive traffic to a relevant landing page. In order to do this effectively you need to know two things:

• The address of the page to which you want to drive traffic
• The keywords that you want to optimize on that page

The SEO team should be able to give you this information, and it’s important that the landing page and related keywords are both relevant to the content of the press release.  Make sure your press release includes a link to the landing page, using the keywords in the text that describes the link (this is what SEO people call ‘anchor text’). For example:

• Text 100 is a global technology PR agency

In this example the anchor text is “technology PR agency” and we’ve linked to a relevant landing page on the company website. This helps the search engines associate those keywords with that web page. If possible try to include the link in the first couple of paragraphs of the release’s body copy, this is where it will do the most good.

Are you ready for the big secret that nobody else will tell you? You’ve already done everything you need to optimize the release for SEO. Really, it’s that simple.

Remember, we’re not trying to drive traffic to the release itself, we’re simply using the release to improve the SEO of your chosen landing page, so there’s nothing to be gained from trying to over-optimize the rest of the release.

What happens next?

Good: If the release is hosted on the same website as the landing page (perhaps in the company’s online press center) you get a little SEO value from an internal link (links within the same site).

Better: If the release is syndicated via an online wire service, you get extra SEO value from external links (links from third-party sites)

Best: If the story gets picked up by the media and they keep the link you embedded, you get a lot of SEO value by having a keyword rich link to your landing page from an authoritative and highly relevant third party site – this is the holy grail of SEO, and it’s where PR can really contribute a lot of value.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.

Have a question for Lars? Leave a comment here or reach him on Twitter @larsbas.

In the middle, there many businesses that have made solid steps but run the risk of seeing their fledgling communities wither and die under the growing threat of recessionary cuts.

And in the distance, we have organizations that are well on their way to becoming social businesses. They have vibrant, self-supporting owned media communities while experts from many business functions act as ambassadors in earned media networks. Their customers and employees are actively engaged in digital discovery and collaborative service development, and all of this is wrapped up with measurable and meaningful ROI.

But let’s be frank. This is certainly the exception and not the rule. With this ideal in mind, it seems timely to look the trends that are likely to shape social business adoption in 2012 and beyond…

1. The year social grows up

The writing is on the digital (or is that Facebook?) ‘wall’… interactive marketing is here to stay. With analysts predicting spend hitting nearly US$80 billion by 2016, social media and digital are no longer the playthings of pajama-wearing bloggers and tweens. Beneath the headlines, though, there lies another story. Social media is hard. The streets aren’t paved with digital gold. For example, Reuters recently reported that financial advisors are seeing declining benefits from social media. In the same month, The New York Times told us Facebook visits were dropping.

Our client IBM’s Social CRM study highlighted the emerging gap between marketing perception and social consumer reality. It showed that while brand marketers felt consumers came to their social networks to feel brand love, the actually were more interested in receiving coupons, discounts and customer support.

In 2012, brands will increasingly be faced with a series of hard choices. I said in last year’s trends post, that a presence in the big four of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube was becoming a non-negotiable. The hard choices come as they realize that building a thriving community in each is time consuming and – without firm goals in place – possibly pointless.

There is a case for maintaining a minimal presence in one channel – perhaps using it as a bridge to another. For many brands, YouTube isn’t a strong community option – but is undeniably the video sharing leader. In this example, they should focus on other channels to build engagement while directing consumers to their videos – and then back to other, more appropriate channels for conversation or to purchase.

All of becomes more complex as brands need to maintain a watchful eye on emerging channels. Case in point is the much maligned Google+ which is tipped to hit 400 million users by the end of 2012. Are you there yet?

Maturing social consumers will also start modifying their behaviors. Social media overload will see them dropping away from social networks that don’t give them what they need. Those brands that have established social presences should start 2012 by asking their loyal, high-sharing social consumers what they want – and modify accordingly. This is especially important for those that have plateaued, are struggling to attract new followers or are seeing engagement levels dropping. The opportunity for brands in 2012 is for smarter, probably smaller, social networks that are built around tangible social customer needs of the vocal, high sharing minority and measurable business outcomes.

2. The age of social consumer relations management

The days of customers being happy with 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday support are coming to an end. Encouragingly, many brands have responded with social brand media monitoring programs and customer support staff in owned social media channels. While things are on the up,  2011 saw brands such as FedEx, Ocean Marketing and Qantas added to the pantheon of social media fail case studies.

Clearly, we’re not there yet. An October 2011 study from by Conversocial found many retailers failed to respond to complaints in social networks. Secondly from the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ school of customer support, issues have also blown up when attempts at online customer interaction have been judged inappropriate. And we’re also seeing backlash when brands have failed to anticipate the likely online reaction to their social media marketing attempts.

I predict 2012 will see the emergence of social consumer support functions. People with solid expertise in managing and predicting online customer behavior will play a much greater role in all facets of a brand’s online presence. The social media gold rush days are coming to an end. We need experts helping to plan and manage discussions. Surveys have told us people are looking for customer support in social channels, so get your customer support people there. This will force even deeper collaboration between business functions and with external agencies. It will also force jobs to be restructured as social consumer support – with its deeper customer understanding – taking a much more strategic role in business decisions. Begs a question – will PR become a social consumer relations function,

3. Drop the ‘social’ as social business becomes business

McKinsey reports that social technology use is increasingly correlated with operating margin improvements and market share leadership. Great news, especially for those of us who see social business becoming, simply, business in 2012, just as e-commerce became commerce before it.

In 2012, we’ll see a rapid adoption of social technologies changing all facets of business, whether they want to change or not.

At this year's #CampDigital, Jeremy discussed the social business evolution with Clelia Morales, Head of EU Social Media at eBay; Christophe Rocca, Regional Marketing Manager Southern Europe & Benelux at SanDisk and Jonathan Jiménez, Corporate Communications & Social Media at Vodafone.

The days of a marketing-led social media function are coming to a close. Smart companies are building centers of excellence that are supporting all business functions in a coordinated fashion. They’re also investing in training all employees, realizing that the core demands from social consumers are for subject matter expertise, not the size of someone’s Twitter following, Klout ranking or ability to text 100 words a minute. Text 100 has created an ambitious Digital Certification program where consultants, HR, IT, Finance staff and Office Managers are all tasked with improving their thought leadership, digital consulting skills, community management and training.

Like an increasing number of companies, we’ve realized our social consumers want to interact with us through social channels. In response we’re redesigning our client support, marketing, recruitment and internal communications channels to suit the requirements of our audiences.

The mission for 2012 is for marketers to let go of other business disciplines. Future success won’t be in their ability to interpret what their colleagues in customer service, human resources and so on do and deliver on their behalf. It will be in their ability to partner, coach and ultimately enable these functions.

4. Spokespeople evolved: Executives to experts

A recent GlobalWebIndex report found that B2B decision makers were highly socially engaged and rated conversations with brands on social networks as more influential than webinars, sales presentations, conferences or corporate entertainment. The more complex the decision, the greater the need to ask questions of experts in online communities.

Social consumers who make big decisions want to talk to the right people online. We’ve pushed C-level executives into the spotlight for more than a hundred years – and if they’re the right people to manage these complex online conversations then we need to arm them for the discussion.

We’re increasingly managing Digital Academy training for our clients. These programs help people from customer support, sales, marketing, human resources and so on use social networking channels such as Twitter and LinkedIn to support their business goals. The resulting programs see these experts blogging on corporate websites, managing communities in company discussion forums, and acting as ambassadors in external earned media communities.

Through 2012 and beyond we’ll see people from all business functions playing similar expanded roles in support of their own objectives. This is a logical next step for those companies that have developed owned media properties across Facebook, twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Based on our experience, it’s best to start with one business function, division or product and build a program around someone with a greater aptitude for social media. Measure their success – learn from the things that didn’t go well – and evolve the campaign around them.

5. Big data becomes business as usual

IDC’s “2011 Digital Universe Study: Extracting Value from Chaos” told us the world’s information is doubling every two years. Last year saw 1.8 zettabytes created and replicated. That’s a lot of info and while most PR people would run a mile before diving into the data, that’s one fear our profession is going to have to face.

In 2012, marketers will need to use hard metrics to gauge digital and social marketing ROI. We’re entering a tough economic environment where even harder questions are going to be asked of the PR tactics we propose. The time for social media experimentation is waning in the hunt for solid bottom-line results.

The answer increasingly lies in what’s being called ‘big data’. While the definitions are blurred, at its core big data means using a range of data sets including competitive information, online data such as social networking behaviors, offline data and customer information to enable a three dimensional approach to business decisions.

From a PR perspective the emergence of better, easier-to-use more targeted tools combined with geo-location technologies will mean data will play a meaningful role in PR activities. We’ll go beyond reach and “participation” measures such as likes and retweets and instead derive action-oriented insights from our metrics.

Big data will also help us understand the individuals we’re influencing so we can create more targeted strategies. And if this still makes you want to run a mile, 2012 will also see a rise in specialist data analysts who will increasingly play a role in shaping communications decisions.

We’ll put up part two of this post next week. As always, your thoughts are very welcome. To discuss directly with me, fire a note to jeremy.woolf@text100.com.hk.

Photos courtesy of flickr users Stuck in Customs, KY_Olsen, Text 100, and Koenvereeken, respectively.

New York

Let me paint you a picture of how this came to be, and the work involved with Text 100 becoming one of the Best Places to Work.  Firstly, kudos to Jennifer Yu, a former NYC intern, who is coincidentally rejoining Text 100 as an Account Coordinator on December 19^th.  Jennifer brought the opportunity to Jeff Cleveland, who took the lead working with Katie Kelley, and others, to complete the intensive 80-question employer survey.  Let’s pause.  This was no easy feat, and I want to thank you both for your taking this on and putting in the time to make it the best.

Partnering with the Best Companies Group, an independent research firm, Crain’s sent out a confidential 72 question survey that NYC employees completed, asking questions on our benefits, policies, corporate culture, career advancement, and more. The results from the employee survey counted for 75% of the total score, and helped us land our top spot in the rankings.  Thank you to everyone in NYC who participated in this survey!

The honor grew further once Aedhmar was asked to speak at the December 2^nd Crain’s luncheon, where the rankings for the Best Places to Work were revealed.  Text 100 bought a table at the event, allowing for a handful of Texties to be a part of the luncheon.  To select the attendants, Jeff, with the help of Ava Lawler, created a fantastic and challenging quiz about Text 100.  Could you answer, “Which ELT member interviewed Bill Clinton just months before Clinton declared his intention to run for president?”*  The top winners received a seat at the table, and a front row seat to see Text 100 take home top honors of truly being one of the “Best Places to Work in NYC.”

At the end of the day, what does it mean to win these types of awards?  It’s a true reinforcement of our employer brand and collateral demonstrating the type of organization candidates seek.  It’s one thing to say we are a great place to work, but another to be recognized amongst hundreds of NYC employers for being one of the best places to work in the most populous city in the United States.

Let’s raise a glass and cheers to Text 100 and to everyone in New York who helped us rank #7 in Crain’s top 50 Best Places to Work.

*Oh, and it was our very own Scott Friedman, who had good fortune of that Clinton interview!

Below, catch a first glimpse of the key findings of our Automotive Buzz study:

• Only a few brands managed to create a consumer brand profile in social media that matched their corporate brand personality.
• Among 40 automotive brands tracked across more than 170 million websites worldwide, eight brands dominate online conversations and remain in top 10 across all three shows: BMW, Daimler, Audi, Honda, Ford, Toyota, VW and Porsche.
• The social media platform with the largest share of conversation was Twitter, followed by blogs and YouTube. Facebook was the least relevant consumer platform for auto brands.
• Of 14 different brand attributes measured, concept cars still create more social media buzz for automotive manufacturers than environmental or fuel efficiency topics.
• BMW was the only true social media out-performer, dominating all online conversations and leading on performance, with Daimler leading on design and pleasure, and VW leading on green conversations.

Want to know more? Download the full report and visit our Automotive Buzz Index hub for further information.

Got comments or feedback? Start a discussion with us by either leaving us a comment below or following us on Twitter and using the hashtag #autobuzzindex.