We’re looking for a Social Media Expert who is skilled and knowledgeable in social media strategies and best practices, leading management tools, campaign concepts and use cases. This person should have hands-on experience in growing online communities (i.e. fans, followers, blog readers, etc.) and possess a keen understanding of the best tools and tactics to measure growth and engagement.

We need a person with:

• 2-4 years of social media experience
• Background in PR, communications, or marketing
• Strong understanding and use of social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills, with a keen ability to engage in meaningful conversations, both online and off
• Ability to meet tight deadlines and work under high pressure
• Strong interpersonal skills

What you’ll do here:

• Strategize, develop and execute social media programs that support business goals for clients
• Seek new promotional opportunities, management and campaign tools
• Strategize, develop and execute social media programs for the agency
• Initiate, build and maintain positive relationships with social media influencers
• Measure social media programs; analyze and assess the effectiveness of projects and campaigns
• Educate clients on best practices that make the most sense for their needs, NOT just what everyone else is doing
• Share and educate internal team members on tools and processes that will help accomplish client objectives
• Create innovative campaigns that grow social communities and engage users
• Maintain client social channels as needed, i.e. research content, post relevant content on appropriate social channels, continue conversations with engaged users, etc.
• Maintain brand reputations by responding to and managing negative comments

Compensation commensurate with experience. This is an in-house position. No headhunters, contractors, freelancers, overseas agents, or professional job hoppers will be considered.

Qualified candidates MUST email a cover letter, resume and salary history and requirements to careers@mindgruve.com, with “Social Media Expert” in the subject line.

There has been lots of social media buzz lately, especially with the release of Google+ and Facebook’s redesigned layout announcement. But, let’s not forget about good old email. We’re sure a good number of you reading this blog post got here through our e-newsletter. Believe it or not, it’s still effective and your marketing efforts will be more well-rounded if you integrate it with social media.

In a survey from StrongMail, email and social media were the top two areas marketers planned to increase spending in 2011. This being their harmonious relationship of direct response and organic communities. Social media’s power lies in creating awareness and reaching out to new customers, while email strengthens those relationships giving that extra personal touch to drive a sale.

When consumers subscribe, they’ve given you permission to leverage them because they’re truly interested in your brand. In addition, email can hold more content and sits in the inbox. As opposed to social media, the posts are brief and a user’s newsfeed is constantly updated.

Another reason email is still cost-effective is because it has solid tracking metrics with great ROI when managed correctly. You can segment your email lists and see who’s opened your messages. Likewise, you can offer special discounts with trackable coupons that’ll easily increase revenue and website traffic.

When you add social media to the mix, it gets even better. Since 2010, email marketing providers have been working to integrate social media in their platforms and don’t plan to stop:

• Constant Contact and ExactTarget acquired NutshellMail and CoTweet to build more precise targeting based on social data.
• Vertical Response has a subscription widget that can be placed on your blog, while Constant Contact has an email sign-up Facebook app.
• MailChimp has the ability to add a “Like” button in emails, track the total number of “likes” related to email campaigns, track subscriptions from Facebook, retrieve subscriber social information, segment emails to subscribers on specific social networks and pull up profile information in emails.

In order to use these integrations effectively, here are some campaign tactics that can increase engagement in both:

• Include social share buttons in your email.
• Offer a promotion via email for “liking” or via Facebook for subscribing. Keep in mind that people will need an incentive to connect.
• Use Facebook as a landing page for a promotion linked from your email.
• Post teasers and links to your newsletters.
• Post content related to your latest newsletter.
• Have auto-tweets generated when an email campaign is sent out. Make sure to customize the tweet in the settings. Otherwise, it would tweet your email headline.

As you can see, email is another channel for more engagement, marketing and revenue. Social media enhances it by being an outlet for your audience to turn your brand message into conversational material. So you can use social media to gauge what your audience is talking about, then give them feedback through email. Remember, your email subscribers have allowed you to leverage them, that includes promoting your brand on social networks, gaining you more subscriptions and likes/followers in return. This is a cycle you should definitely take advantage of.

Facebook has grown to be the thousand pound gorilla in the social networking world with statistics to prove it, but even with that success they decided to make some big changes. These are the biggest changes they have made since their launch and there are big implications for businesses involved both in the short and long term.

Some claim that these new changes will transform social media forever. On the other side, PC Magazine reports that 86% of Facebook users don’t like the redesign. If Facebook’s new changes fail, it won’t be because of a lack of effort. Zuckerberg said in his keynote presentation at the F8 conference that they have been working on these new changes for the past year.

Summary of the Main Changes

There is already much discussion in the blogosphere detailing the specific features that have been changed. Below is a quick summary:

• A Subscribe button which allows you to follow people you aren’t friends with similar to how you would on Twitter. You can also set filters on what information you see from your friends.
• Easier ways to group people into lists with improved friends lists.
• A window with a constant flow of updates that floats on top of everything in the upper right corner called a News Ticker.
• Similar to a newspaper, you can filter the content on your homepage.
• Instantly and automatically share what you are reading, listening to, and watching.
• The Timeline has replaced the traditional profile. This video shows what Timeline will look like.
• A good general overview would be: Facebook Changes Again: Everything You Need to Know.

6 Takeaways: What it all Means for Your Brand

1. New Layout, New Opportunity
Zuckerberg described the advantages of the new design and layout solely from the user perspective and brushed aside any questions about how the changes would affect brand pages. From the Marketer perspective, every element that was implemented to help individuals express themselves will help brands do the same. For instance, the new large image at the top of each Timeline will speak volumes without a single word. Although brands haven’t actually implemented these changes, these mock ups show what will be possible. (Source: Skinnynyc.com)

2. The “Like” Taken Off The Pedestal
Many companies have invested in getting as many “Likes” on their pages as possible and now they are becoming less important. The original idea of the “Like” was for people to find, identify, and distribute good content. Many brands that were just trying to increase the number they had on their page and not produce quality content are going to have to change their approach or be forgotten.

3. Good Content or Die
The concept of producing quality content that people want rather than advertisements with hard sells has been around for some time, but it just got much more important. Sharing is becoming easier which means that there will be much more clutter to have to break through to be noticed and only the very best content will be able to do that. In addition, users will have much more control over their timelines by being able to select which content are the top stories. Facebook will learn over time individual preferences and automatically sort a user’s Timeline. Brands that are either boring or irrelevant won’t be selected and ranked much much lower or not at all.

4. Apps Take Center Stage
Apps are transitioning from being a tool to being a medium that people express themselves through. The emphasis has shifted from getting people to “Like” their brand to enabling the brand to become a part of the story of someone’s life. A runner may have “Liked” Nike’s brand page in the past, but now they will post that they just ran 3 miles using the Nike Plus app for all their friends to see. These apps will have a very visible presence in the Timeline. In short, there is a massive opportunity for brands to create apps that become an organic part of someone’s story.

5. Dare to Share? Automatic Sharing
Sharing aspects of your life has never been easier. Instead of deciding every time you want to share some piece of content, you can now decide to share a type of content once and then that type of content is posted automatically after that. For example, you can decide that you would like the music you listen to on the online music player, Spotify, to be posted and every song will be posted with the Spotify branded message to the Ticker automatically. Much of this will be facilitated through apps. This automatic sharing will cause there to be much more noise, but it is also an opportunity for brands. Creating an app that will enable people to share content like this will proliferate the amount of branded messages you have buzzing around on Facebook. Although we won’t know until everything has been rolled out and embraced, there will probably be far more of these automatic messages being posted than regular posts. This is one way to keep your brand in front of your customer.

6. Privacy: Facebook Knows A Lot More
Zuckerberg’s keynote announcement introduced all of these changes as benefits for the users, but they are even more beneficial for the advertisers. All of the additional user data is ideal to improve ad targeting. Some go as far as to say that the new changes were made primarily because of the advertising benefits and actually hinder the user experience while minimizing privacy.

The issue of privacy is a thorn that keeps causing problems for Facebook. It seems that privacy will become the user’s responsibility now even though Facebook’s CTO Bret Taylor said some new elements will actually give users more privacy control. Users have the opportunity to share much more content, but have to determine how much they feel comfortable sharing.

If you are a Facebook advertiser, the question you should be asking now is whether you want to adopt Facebook’s view on privacy and use all of the data they have available even if your customers may object to it.

In June, Google’s navigation bar got a new look as part of the release of their own social network called Google+, which is supposed to be an extension of Google. Hence, the plus sign and why the navigation bar appears in some of their other products.

Many articles have dubbed it as, “Google’s answer to Facebook” or even a “Facebook Killer.” According to comScore, Google+ already hit 20 million visitors, while Facebook and Twitter took 2 years to reach 10 million. The reason Google+ was able to reach this number rapidly was because of the credibility behind its name, the substantial amount of Gmail users they reached out to, and not to mention all the work Facebook and Twitter did to introduce social networking.

At this point, it’s too early to make any predictions of Google+ overtaking Facebook. However, it does have a lot of potential to be an alternative based on its features and plans for growth. Most importantly, Google has taken initiative to capitalize on the effect social has on search, which is a good reason to keep an eye on it as it improves.

Google’s failed attempts at being social, Google Buzz and Google Wave were too different from the competition. This time around, they’ve decided to keep Google+ more familiar with subtle nuances by combining highlights of Facebook and Twitter, and making them better. This way, users are more prone to sign up and can learn how to use it quickly. Since it was designed by Andy Hertzfeld, one of Apple’s original GUI designers, it’s like the Mac version of Facebook. The interface is cleaner, simpler and flashier where things are done in less clicks.

The main benefit that Google has nailed for users is control of privacy. It puts friends, family and business together, but in separate rooms. This all falls under the bigger concept of sharing with their Circles feature. As the Huffington Post explained, “The Google+ network is designed around users’ social circles and lets users selectively share with specific groups within their personal network, rather than sharing with all their social connections at once.”

Now we’re not going to go into detail about the interface since there’s already a plethora of articles that provide in-depth guides and resources for Google+ such as Mashable. We’re just going to go over some key features briefly:

As for businesses, they are currently working on a separate business platform and will be implementing a test program for a few select brands and companies. For more updates on this, follow Google+ project manager, Christian Oestilien. So far, he states, “It’ll include things like rich analytics and the ability to connect that identity to other parts of Google that businesses might use on a daily basis like AdWords.” While waiting for their business platform, you should start exploring on a personal account to see how you can possibly incorporate circles, hangouts, sparks, huddles, etc. into your strategies.

Particularly, Circles could give consumers the ability to congregate brands and interact with them at their leisure. It’ll reduce clutter in the stream and make content more organized, personal and viable. This forces brands to provide more quality content for a more connected relationship. With plans to integrate Google+ into their search algorithm, conversations with and about brands could show up in search results to be shared exponentially. Even their Sparks feature has some possibility of using their search algorithm for interest-based ad targeting.

In fact, we’re already seeing innovation in Google search. On July 2, they did not renew their deal with Twitter for realtime search data. That is because Google+ author profile images and the +1 button now appear next to search results. Google is taking advantage of the notion that friends and acquaintances hold more influence than experts.  It won’t be long until the +1 button starts effecting search rankings and we see profile images of our connections also appearing in search results. Personalized search results will make Google more valuable and thus, call for a more relevant advertising interaction. All this sharing will also benefit SEO greatly since it’ll be a great source of links for spiders to follow.

This is only the beginning. Just think about all the services Google already owns such as Gmail, YouTube, Android, Chrome, Maps, Calendar, Analytics and Adwords just to name a few.  They plan on making their whole suite social by connecting all of their tools and applications through Google+. As they take their time to test and improve this social network in its beta phase, Google states that it is a “project”, not a “product”.

While it’s not quite a “Facebook Killer” yet, competing with it seems to be a secondary motive. Their primary motive is improving their search by integrating social, which is a great step forward in today’s social society. So producing a powerful advertising platform based on social and search data will be a major key to its success. However, the biggest challenge they face right now is convincing people to add another social network, let alone leave one in order to see these improvements in full effect. If it thrives as well as everyone hopes and predicts, then it’ll be an opportunity that both consumers and businesses should gear up for.

SAN DIEGO, CA – April 1, 2011 – At the start of September 2010, San Diego-based digital media firm, Mindgruve, implemented a new social media strategy for Visit Carlsbad that focused on providing engaging content and exclusive vacation deals. Seven months later, Mindgruve successfully brought the Visit Carlsbad Facebook Page up to 20,000 members and counting!

Mindgruve and Visit Carlsbad worked together to provide relevant content that visitors and locals would find beneficial, including community event information, hotel deals, attraction updates, restaurant recommendations and more. Incorporating regular contests also increased page interaction while targeted Facebook ads helped reach new audiences.

“The Visit Carlsbad Facebook page has been a great help in solidifying Carlsbad as a premier travel destination. We are thrilled to have Mindgruve’s help as we continue to grow, connect with users and share the beauty of Carlsbad,” states Sam Ross, Executive Director of Visit Carlsbad.

With the addition of the “Book a Stay” Facebook tab, Mindgruve continues to work closely with Visit Carlsbad to develop engagement opportunities.

About Visit Carlsbad
Visit Carlsbad is the Destination Marketing Organization for the Carlsbad area. It serves approximately 36 area hotels ranging from beach bungalows to luxury accommodations by presenting and promoting vacation ideas, packages, attractions and deals for the area. www.VisitCarlsbad.com.

There is no doubt that digital media is becoming more and more prominent every day. Everything has a website, it’s all about fans and followers, there’s an app for “that,” and tablets are making print feel irrelevant. However, despite rumors and myths, digital is not replacing traditional media; it is enhancing it. While advertisements have shifted from “buy now” to “follow us,” traditional media is being forced to learn how to play with digital media to create a more well-rounded, powerful campaign. Because of this, companies are starting to take digital media more seriously realizing its importance in creating value for consumers. It’s this user value that provides the most powerful impact.

Thanks to the Y generation, traditional media now plays a different role when it comes to a campaign. It hasn’t lost its power to reach masses, in fact that’s where its strongpoint is. Traditional media’s ability to reach masses is used for “introducing” a campaign and driving consumers to digital media. Digital media in return, ultimately turns into brand loyalty and conversion rates. It is suggested that 70% of budgeting should be spent on traditional media to ultimately drive consumers to digital media. Thus, to be popular online, offline advertising is still key.

Let’s look at the most talked about campaign of 2010 – The Old Spice Man Your Man Could Smell Like. Reaching over 1.4 billion impressions, doubling in sales, and reigning as the top men’s body wash brand, this campaign is a touchstone example of how both medias can work together to create a fully integrated branding experience. It spent a generous amount of budget on television to introduce the campaign during the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl, then unleashed on digital media with their personalized responses via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. “Brands don’t make viral videos, users make videos viral,” states Dan Greenberg from Sharethrough, a company that specializes in viral videos. Old Spice proved this statement by only creating The Old Spice Man, while users created the experience (and loyalty) that it is known for today.

In this shifting marketing landscape, value for the consumer is priority #1. We must play in their channels and interact on their level. Phones are a lifeline in getting information, planning their day, and capturing their lives. Social media shares their lives and opinions. Movies, shows and music should be available at any time. And open, user-generated content is more credible and entertaining.

What does this mean? Personalization, interactivity and convenience are the new focus. Using traditional media to open the door and digital to build the campaign’s “house.” Some ways this is happening include: “advertainment” commercials that are completed by going on a website and/or social media, QR codes and augmented reality on printed media for exclusive content or faster access to websites, radio spots promoting local promotions that require consumers to use their smartphones to check in, and special offers and events on social media just to name a few of the opportunities.

In order to have a successful campaign, digital media is now a vital investment to create engagement and value. But, traditional media should not be forgotten as a driving force to ensure your best outcome.

Mindgruve to serve up comprehensive web redesign across top restaurant group’s entire offering.

SAN DIEGO,CA – November 11, 2010 – San Diego-based digital media firm, Mindgruve, has partnered with T S Restaurants, a well known Hawaii and California-based restaurant group that includes Duke’s Waikiki and Jake’s Del Mar, to build a new, impactful web presence. This new partnership will help T S Restaurants refine their online marketing strategy as well as provide a complete redesign for each of the chain’s 14 restaurants.

T S Restaurants is looking to strengthen its online presence while keeping its image in step with existing restaurant brands. Mindgruve, through a comprehensive marketplace audit, will redesign all of the restaurant sites as well as the T S Restaurants’ corporate website.

The 14 sites will each feature their own uniquely branded online space, which will include improved search engine optimization (SEO), user-friendly navigation and valuable information regarding the individual restaurant. Additionally, these sites will provide users with the ability to make reservations online as well as connect via each restaurant’s various social media sites.

“We are very excited to work with such a well-respected restaurant group as T S Restaurants. We feel this is a unique opportunity to apply our knowledge of integrated web, mobile and social media platforms to the restaurant space. With the popularity of their restaurant brands, Mindgruve can make a significant impact in terms of driving quality visitor traffic and online dinner reservations,” said Chad Robley, President of Mindgruve.

About T S Restaurants
Founded in 1977 by Rob Thibaut and Sandy Saxten, T S Restaurants owns, develops, builds and operates high-quality restaurants in California and Hawaii. All the T S Restaurants are situated in prime locations in some of Hawaii and California’s most desirable resort destinations with each concept reflecting the culture of its market. www.hulapie.com

In 2008, President Obama’s presidential campaign changed political marketing in various ways, but as a digital media agency we were intrigued with his use of social and mobile media to connect and garner support from the American people. After witnessing the overwhelming amount of success Barack Obama had with his voters, 2010 midterm election candidates on both sides of the aisle are embracing the power of new media, such as geo-targeted mobile ads, social websites and appealing designs that evoke a sense of sociability and openness, to connect with voters in time for election day.

Similar to President Obama’s mobile marketing efforts, candidates running in the 2010 midterm elections have stepped up their mobile advertising through geo-targeted mobile ads. Rep. Michele Bachmann used this tactic to target Minnesotans specifically at the state fair this past summer and as the Star Tribune notes, “campaigns are spending more of their budgets on sophisticated web ads that zero in on specific locations and demographics,” and rightly so. As we discussed in a past blog, mobile phones are a hyper-personal medium. Targeting smart phone users based on age, location, gender, search terms and residence can create awareness among groups of voters that matter most to a campaign’s overall success.

In addition to geo-targeted mobile ads, political parties have increased their social media use (of note, Republicans now hold eight of the top ten Capitol Hill Twitter spots, while 300 members of congress have turned to Facebook to stay in touch with the voting public) and taken steps to create community websites for constituents to interact with the political party and fellow voters. This past May, the GOP did this very thing when launching America Speaking Out. Its purpose is to solicit policy ideas from community members, who then vote for their favorite policy idea in order to create the GOP’s “Pledge to America.” The integration with Facebook and Twitter take this concept a step further as community members are able to share a policy idea and/or vote with their network of friends.

Finally, it doesn’t just end with new media channels. Design now plays an integral role in making sure the brand of a political party is open and inviting, encouraging a stronger social relationship. America Speaking Out moved in this direction with their website design and color palette in order to speak to voters who are unhappy with current leadership. Another intriguing web design change came from the Democratic National Committee. Armed with a new logo (reminiscent of Facebook and Twitter icons) and website redesign, the party’s new look was created to reflect what the DNC wishes to represent to America – “a community.”

Based on our observations of the new social media and mobile methods being used for the 2010 midterm elections quickly approaching, it’s obvious that new media is changing the face of political campaigning. With that said, we are confident that the new media tactics and strategies used today will empower politicians and political parties to expand their social reach by creating a network of supporters who will help spread their message to the American people.

Improved online media efforts and increased awareness for Carlsbad, CA lead to extended partnership.

San Diego, CA – September 29, 2010 – Following recent successes with a new website and increased online marketing efforts that have helped make Carlsbad, CA a top family travel and spa destination site in the United States, Visit Carlsbad has resigned with San Diego-based digital media firm, Mindgruve.

Through improved search engine marketing, a user-centric website experience and a streamlined visitor conversion process, Mindgruve has helped guide curious travelers to Carlsbad, CA. Focusing on improved messaging and information-rich content, the updated Visit Carlsbad brand has become a recognizable online destination for valuable southern California travel tips and insights.

“We have been extremely happy with the efforts that Mindgruve has put into our online marketing initiatives. We are confident they will continue to promote Carlsbad as a premier travel destination as we extend efforts into social media,”  said Sam Ross, Visit Carlsbad Executive Director.

Mindgruve has already started to increase Visit Carlsbad’s social media presence through website integration of Facebook “like” buttons, as well as a Facebook ad campaign and increased interaction across multiple social channels including Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. Future efforts will include online travel giveaways, custom travel applications and increased community connectivity for other Carlsbad businesses.

“Our partnership with Visit Carlsbad has been very successful thus far and we are excited for what the future holds. Extending our online efforts into social media, Visit Carlsbad’s website will become the hub of local content and useful travel insights ranging from weekend getaways to group-based travel,” stated Chad Robley, Mindgruve CEO.

About Visit Carlsbad
Visit Carlsbad is the Convention and Visitors Bureau for the Carlsbad area. It serves approximately 30 area hotels ranging from beach bungalows to luxury accommodations by presenting and promoting vacation ideas, packages, attractions and deals for the area. VisitCarlsbad.com.

Apple has recently announced its venture into the glut of social media networks on the internet – Ping. Ping is an iTunes-based community where users can list their favorite bands, follow some of their favorite artists and discover new artists through their friends. This new service was extremely popular at its inception, registering 1 million users in its first 48 hours. However, we see limitations that will likely prevent it from becoming a widely used social media tool, both from a marketing and user standpoint.

As a marketing vehicle, Ping has some work to do. Apple has leveraged its built-in audience of dedicated users as a base for future growth, but with 160 million people using iTunes, only about .006% of iTunes users are on Ping. For the music industry, there are few promotion opportunities to be found with no on-page advertising, a closed environment and little potential for sponsorships or co-branding. Marketers would be better off concentrating on a larger, more open audience such as Facebook, which features over 500 million users. Apple is clearly trying to create an opportunity to market both its own brand and the artists’ brand, but has done so with haste. While Ping has shown limitations in terms of marketing, even if corrected, poor user experience will halt any substantial growth opportunities.

What will determine future growth of Ping are its features and Apple has brought nothing new to the table. Ping has put itself in competition against better established services such as Last.fm (40 million users) or MySpace Music (71 million users) as well as a host of other services for niche music interests. The features that Ping has hung its hat on, including the ability to follow artists, recommend music to friends, and make comments on songs and albums have already been done effectively through these competitors. By taking this approach, they have chosen tried and true over innovation and done nothing to differentiate themselves. Ping has also ignored popular key features such as playlists and song play counts which could also limit future adoption. This could be forgivable if the service were executed well, but there are some issues there, too.

From an execution standpoint, Ping again lags behind. Apple has chosen to integrate their service with the iTunes interface. While this is understandable and an obvious way to leverage iTunes, it fails from a usability standpoint. Services such as MySpace music run through your browser, allowing anyone to see and hear what their favorite artists are doing. Ping, on the other hand, requires users to navigate the often clunky iTunes interface in search of artists who may or may not be in the iTunes library.

Ping has the potential to be an effective marketing tool in the future, but suffers from several flaws that need to be addressed in the present. Apple must take steps to differentiate Ping from similar services and do what they do best, be an innovative technological leader. Ping could also benefit from a more open interface that allows any artist or user to sign up. This way, Apple won’t be limiting its growth to previous users and can grow their brand more organically. Given time, Ping could become an effective social media platform, but right now it hasn’t given us a reason to use it.

By using innovative social media and marketing tactics, Sunfood’s online community increases by 100% in only four months.

SAN DIEGO,CA – September 13, 2010 – Through the use of online contests, unique content and exclusive deals, San Diego-based digital media firm, Mindgruve, has been able to push Sunfood’s Facebook Page past 75,000 engaged members.

Mindgruve has worked closely with Sunfood to create specific content targeted at the superfood community. Initiatives such as the weekly deals Facebook tab, exclusive educational content and weekly product giveaways have allowed members to remain engaged while also generating new users. “The Sunfood Facebook Page has greatly helped Sunfood increase its exposure to the health food community. With the innovations and content that Mindgruve has been able to generate, our Facebook page has become the core for a growing online superfood community,” explained Brian Bowers, Sunfood’s Director of Product Development.

In addition to the current features, Mindgruve is working to create new strategies and features to further engage the audience, which has an average of 300 people “liking” the page daily. These features will include increased promotional giveaways as well as new content and recipes from guest chefs and leaders within the raw food community.

“Sunfood has long been a leader within the raw food and healthy lifestyle communities. Their Facebook page has allowed them to continue their leadership role and provide a place for superfoodies to band together and share their healthy living experiences. Future initiatives, such as the ability to purchase foods in-tab, should only increase the engagement and interactivity for this group,” said Chad Robley, President of Mindgruve.

About Sunfood
Sunfood is the world’s leading provider of high-quality superfoods, including sustainable, organic and raw products. Distributing over 700 different products, their website has become the nucleus of the growing superfood global community. Sunfood also provides staff experts, educational materials and various other tools used for integrating the health benefits of superfoods into their patrons lifestyles. www.Sunfood.com

Through a strategic social media campaign, Mindgruve increases superfood community to over 50,000 members in seven months.

SAN DIEGO, CA – July 7, 2010 – Seven months after launching the Sunfood Facebook page, San Diego-based digital media firm, Mindgruve, has produced a series of key social media engagements to propel the online community, Facebook.com/Sunfood, to over 50,000 members.

Closely collaborating with Sunfood, Mindgruve continues to improve their efforts by utilizing a custom-built weekly deals Facebook tab, weekly product sample giveaways, targeted Facebook ads, website display ads and email marketing. “This is a huge milestone for Sunfood and our online community. Mindgruve’s guidance and knowledge of this space has allowed our Facebook Page to become the hub for all conversations relating to raw foods and superfoods, and given us countless opportunities to directly connect with our consumers,” stated Brian Bowers, Sunfood’s Director of Product Development.

With an average of 300 people joining the page daily, Mindgruve is actively working to create and implement additional features for Sunfood’s Facebook Page, including custom tabs that will give health-conscious individuals the ability to shop within Facebook, contribute to important topics of conversation and find recipes for their lifestyle.

“Every day Sunfood is doing their part to share the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. With an average of over 600 monthly interactions, it’s clear that Sunfood’s page members are actively seeking this information. We’re eager to help Sunfood provide valuable insights through more integrated features, such as custom applications, as well as other exciting initiatives, including SunfoodTV and a Superfoods Community,” explained Chad Robley, President of Mindgruve.

About Sunfood
Sunfood is the world’s leading provider of high-quality superfoods, including sustainable, organic and raw products. Distributing over 700 different products, their website has become the nucleus of the growing superfood global community. Sunfood also provides staff experts, educational materials and various other tools used for integrating the health benefits of superfoods into their patrons lifestyles. www.Sunfood.com

Let’s face it, since the emergence of social media, marketers have been struggling to find the best ways to measure whether or not their investment in it is paying off. With all the simple measurement tools available, emphasis continues to be placed on baseline ROI and industry-standard Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). However, we cannot forget that the value of social media isn’t simply based on standard measures, it’s about meeting your defined strategic goals. By focusing on how your creative intends to engage your audience, you can discover company-defined KPIs that reveal true social media success.

Cory Treffiletti hit the nail on the head when he explained that “the industry can provide guidance, but it can’t do the work for you.” Due to the importance placed on ROI and lack of focus on each individual company’s defined goals for their social media strategy, marketers are flocking to various measurement tools to utilize metrics they’ve been told are important. It’s an issue of standard measurement versus customized KPIs, such as positive brand endorsements regarding a product launch or link sharing regarding new customer care initiatives. Although certain tools can be useful in tracking basic metrics, such as interactions and community size, defining social media success beyond that is up to you!

For example, Vitrue’s Social Page Evaluator tool, which estimates the dollar value of a Facebook page based on a variety of metrics, is just that – a tool. It measures a small, ROI-focused piece of the larger puzzle. The problem is that it’s giving companies the opportunity to neglect what is important, the true value and overview of their efforts, and what will actually impact their success. And While Vitrue admits that their Evaluator won’t give a well-rounded success measure of any page, baseline ROI still appears to be the driving force for measurement considering 27,000 Facebook pages were evaluated within the first 36 hours of launch.

We’re not knocking tools that help measure the value or size of your social presence. What we’re saying is that the industry can’t tell you what is important for tracking YOUR success. It’s time to look at your current social strategies and define the goals that serve your needs. Keeping these goals in mind, you will be able to handpick the KPIs to use when monitoring if you’re achieving what you set out to do.

As social media continues to change, it will be up to you to determine the metrics most relevant to properly tracking your brand’s investment in social media.