She left Russia in her 20s for Anchorage, Alaska where she earned her bachelor’s in business. Fast forward a few years to when she joins Intel’s Portland marketing team.

In 2004, the CEO started an internal blog and was soon followed by other Intel executives. But they published sporadically and there was no central organization.

Alongside Bryan Rhoads, a.k.a. The Blogfather, Ekaterina developed the Social Media Center for Excellence, which now boasts seven fulltime employees.

“If you want to make a change; if you want to build a world where people have more connectivity, then you need to reach out and touch everyone. We are imagining a future world with our customers and then we make technology that makes our customer dreams come true. It’s why we bother. It makes absolute business sense.” - Ekaterina Walter

Ekaterina has also helped outside of Intel by speaking at dozens of events and joining WOMMA’s Board of Directors. Hers is a story of bringing a global B2B leader to the customer-level, where a valuable community has thrived.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 at Forbes

This video examined the Social aspect of becoming a Talkable brand.

Key Takeaway: Motivations matter. The study found that “people talk about brands to impress others and express uniqueness, and increase reputation.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Watch all of John’s Talkable videos at BrandAutopsy

John, alongside Geno Church, will breakdown even more academic research into digestible and actionable takeaways at WOMM-U, May 7-9.

Retailers: Yes

Brands that are really blowing up on Pinterest are retailers. Right now, Etsy dominates – a natural choice considering how visually focused they have always been. eCommerce has always been a visual experience. Now retailers have an opportunity to have their wares pinned all over the internet in non-ad form.

Everyone else: Maybe (sorry!)

In social media, there are a lot of bandwagons to jump on. Smart brands don’t want to invest time and resources into social media that is just a flash in the pan or too niche for their customer base. Yes, Pinterest is driving lots of traffic and very popular. But unless Pinterest provides a real solution to a problem that already exists, hold back.

Key Takeaway: Pinterest, like other social media, is a tool that might help your brand. However, it might not. Keep your goals close.

But hey, Mark Zuckerberg just joined.

Read more about Pinterest at The Digital Influence Mapping Project and MarketingProfs

In this two-part series, PEMCO Insurance CMO Rod Brooks shares insights into how a regional insurance company sustains brand conversations with an unexpected strategy.

In the Northwest, everyone knows the guy who sports a pair of sandals with a pair of wool socks.  Around here, there are certain quirks that set the people of this corner of the country apart from other regions.

That’s the sentiment at the center of PEMCO Insurance’s award-winning “We’re A Lot Like You. A Little Different.” advertising campaign, which features more than 50 tongue-in-cheek descriptions of people frequently spotted around the Northwest, including the ever-popular Sandals and Socks Guy.

Just last week, PEMCO added five new Northwest Profiles to the mix, which were welcomed with fanfare from across the region.  And despite its nearly five-year run, the campaign continues to ring true for many of our friends and neighbors.  In fact, in December 2011, Seattle Magazine named it the “Best Local Ad Campaign We Never Tire Of.”

Continue Reading on All Things WOMM…

Jeremiah Owyang, Partner at Altimeter Group, published an analysis of how global brands can manage their increasing number of social media accounts. For the analysis, he surveyed 144 enterprise-class* corporations and 32 vendors. In addition, qualitative interviews were conducted with “71 industry experts, brands, and vendors.”

The Findings – An Uncontrollable Risk

Just a few years ago, major brands were debating if and how they should be involved in social media. It appears many of them decided to delve right in. These enterprise-class averaged 178 social media accounts! That doesn’t even include employee accounts. Furthermore, many didn’t even have an accurate inventory of their own accounts.

Numbers like these made me think about WOMMA’s social media. By my count we have:

• 1 Main Twitter account (@WOMMA)
• 4 Blogs
• 2 LinkedIn groups
• 1 Member community
• 1 YouTube account
• 1 Foursquare location
• 1 Flickr account
• 1 Slideshare account
• 1 Plancast account
• 1 Delicious account

That’s thirteen. About two for every one employee. I can certainly see how a company in multiple countries with thousands of employees could average 178.

What’s to Do?

Managing nearly 200 social media accounts is a CRM nightmare. Altimeter found that just over half of the vendors surveyed had integrated CRM with brand monitoring systems. Despite this, Advanced corporations shelled out an average of $272,000 on custom integration of their social tools and CRM systems.

Providing a coordinated customer experience is nearly impossible. From the report:

“Elizabeth Rizzo of PR agency SHIFT Communications told us, ‘When publishing through these platforms you can’t stay on top of all these messages and can’t tell what’s been responded to.’ The result, according to Ken Burbury of Digitas, is ‘a huge risk in brand reputation or reputation management.’”

Social Media Management Systems (SMMS) to the Rescue!

Like any superhero, no SMMS provider is perfect. One brand that Jeremiah interviewed stated:

“Every single [SMMS] tool is lacking a robust analytics package… You’re forced to use hybrid solutions.”

SMMS Growth

The SMMS market is ripe for growth. In fact, wheelbarrows of investment are flowing into SMMS startups. Altimeter Group found that private financing and angel investment range in the low six figures with Series A ranging from $1-3 million.

The Market Rundown

The crowded and nascent market can lead to a lot of buyer confusion. Included in the report was the below figure which examines the strengths and weaknesses of SMMS companies.

Click image for full size.

For the full report on the SMMS market, visit Jeremiah’s blog – Web Strategy.

*Enterprise-class defined as companies with over 1000 employees as of Q2 2011.

Social Business:

Reorganizing business operations needs to go beyond breaking down silos. Savvy businesses will put a focus on embracing the often chaotic social world into their goals, objectives and executions.

Mobile:

As smart phones and tablets grow in market penetration, brands will need to understand how their customers use mobile devices. Knowing that will drive how they do mobile.

2012 Challenges:

Going from 1-to-many to 1-to-1-to-many.

Read Brian’s full analysis at his blog, The Space Between @ & WWW

Fresh and Free

The two new key elements are:

1. Customizable large header images

2. A “Top Tweet” option where brands can prominently display a particular tweet, complete with any embedded photo or video.

The redesign was explained in detail by Twitter.

Let us know what you think of the brand pages! Likes, dislikes, otherwise – we want to know.

Read more about the redesign at Ad Age

Key Takeaway: Focus on objectives, not platforms.

WOMM - Any business action that earns a customer recommendation.

Examples of business actions that can spark customer recommendations include:

• Delivering better products and services
• Providing a great customer experience
• Following through on excellent customer service
• Using advertising to create awareness and appreciation
• Rewarding customer loyalty
• Mobilizing brand advocates
• Engaging with customers through social media
• Plus, so much more…

WOMMA believes the most effective word of mouth marketing follows five vital principles, outlined here in our brand spanking new video:

Join us in making word of mouth marketing credible, respectful, social, measurable, and repeatable. If your company isn’t already a member, consider joining. Contact Jason Dent, our Member Development Director, at JasonDent@WOMMA.org or 312-853-4400.

The worst part is how they were using the ad to drive traffic and discussion on their Facebook page. Once comments soured, ChapStick warmed up their delete finger. Community wrath ensued.

It seems like we see one of these firestorms once every couple of months, maybe more. The cited post had a bunch of community manager resources that will help you prepare for a crisis like this. Take a look.

Key Takeaway: Preparing now will pay off in droves when the time comes. Prepare by learning everything you can about other brands in crisis. Also consider running simulations and debriefing afterward.

Find all the resources at Ant’s Eye View

Ant’s Eye View is a WOMMA member.