When utilizing social media tactics as business tools, companies must remain conscientious of its effectiveness and positioning through vigilant maintenance and monitoring practices. Christian’s presentation introduced local business owners to the intimidating world of social media and Facebook via information about the basic principles and how to effectively execute them in everyday business practices.

Things to remember in establishing an effective social media strategy:

1. Define your needs
2. Stay focused on your business objectives
3. Research and know your audience and competitors
4. Make sure all information is complete and accurate
5. Frequently interact and engage in discussions to increase your presence

By the end of the event, attendees possessed an increased understanding of the social media universe and its functionality as a cost-effective marketing device to easily interact with a diverse demographic. These SBO’s are now more aware of the options available to them in the social media space and how to select the best mechanisms for their individual business offering in order to devise effective objectives and reach the appropriate target audience. Social media and its complicated structure can be highly intimidating to the local SBO; Christian’s ‘Facebook for Business’ demonstrated the simple and appropriate ways that businesses can benefit from this global phenomenon and facilitated a confident beginning for The Orbital Factorie.

So very unlike fast-moving storage tech player Xiotech

Under its new corporate leadership and our direction as AOR, they’ve bravely (and wisely) dumped the jargon in favor of new, powerfully simplified messaging. Instead of acronyms, just a straightforward promise to help customers run their storage enterprise and applications better…saving them tons of money. Isn’t that what it should be about? Explaining what’s in it for them, instead of blathering on all about us?

Still not convinced? Think about virtualization. Everybody’s sort of heard about it, but most people don’t really get it…it’s a hype category and the manufacturers are throwing a blizzard of confusion at customers. If you can find someone on this Earth that can distill it down to a core value prop better than our Xiotech thought leaders Steve Sicola and Rob Peglar, drinks are on us.

And there you have the ninth rule of Fight Club, the one that wasn’t in the movie — say what you mean, mean what you say. Preferably, in plain English.

“Run Better,” seems simple enough to understand, don’t let it fool you about the highly informative and educating nature of the campaign. We created a highly functional and user-friendly webpage to display all of the documents, including whitepapers, datasheets, customer testimonials, and technology analyst review, associated with the greatly anticipated Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) launch.

The VDI support page serves as a comprehensive guide; simply put, “Everything you ever need to know about VDI.” We managed to create a total customer experience, complete with information from the inventors themselves, commentary from third-party analysts, and testimonials from existing customers. With this straightforward slogan, we were able to emphasize our client’s value added services while addressing the need for data storage efficiency among their existing and future customers.

These guys have technology that manages storage infrastructure in a really innovative, efficient way. Companies that buy their gear stand to save a ton of money through increased disc reliability, intelligent provisioning of storage resources and more. But how to communicate that in financial terms to prospective customers?

Data sheets and white papers alone can’t tell the whole story, because every customer is different when it comes to the various factors that determine storage cost. Online value calculators are one great way to help buyers understand how much they might save by deploying Xiotech.

Using sophisticated algorithms and customer-provided input, this online TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) calculator projects potential cost savings based on unique combinations of storage volume, data growth and other factors. It provides a great way for companies to learn how much they might be able to save by changing the way they handle data storage.

And a great way, too, for Xiotech to identify customers with real needs and get them into the new business pipeline.

Fortunately, we’ve had the opportunity to help them do some unofficial brand storytelling too.

Crazy is cruel. It’s a massively misplaced label that’s insensitive to the incredible pain and suffering of people afflicted with these disorders. It minimizes the reality of the chemical origins of mental illness, and in doing so it marginalizes the victims.

Our job for Validus’ Equetro brand (and its sister product, Marplan) is to manage an ongoing educational series of eCRM communications aimed at current and prospective physician-prescribers that treat patients with depression and bipolar disorders. While the product is not new, knowledge of its efficacy has historically been very limited because the brand isn’t widely advertised or promoted. So a targeted physician recruitment and communications effort makes perfect sense, and ultimately that helps people when they’re able to get onto an appropriate form of treatment.