So you have a Linkedin account, a Facebook Page and a Twitter account. Maybe you check in to your gym or the place you have lunch on Foursquare, post videos on YouTube and try your best to figure out how to fit Google Plus into the mix. In short, you’re doing what people like me have been urging you to do — you’re engaged in social media conversation. Congratulations. Now, what do you know about your social standing? Do you have Kred? Do you have Klout? Just as a bank uses your credit score to measure your financial soundness, and Google Analytics measures your website’s reach, services Klout.com and Kred.com measure your social media influence. If you haven’t used either of these services, it’s worth the time to head over to each site and check it out. But be warned, once you sign up and see your scores odds are human nature will kick in and you will become obsessed with improving them. Klout measures, as the language-distorting name implies, your social “clout.” When you sign up, you authorized the service to connect to at least one of your social accounts (Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus) and linking to more will yield a more accurate measure of your influence across the entire social web. Klout can also connect to Linkedin, YouTube, Foursquare, Instagram, WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Last.fm and Flicker with half a dozen more on the way. Klout uses these connections to come up with your Klout Score, reported as a number on a scale of one to 100. The average score is in the 20s and as one’s score moves up the scale, it’s much more difficult to increase one’s Klout Score. Klout defines influenced as “the ability to drive action” and looks at interaction through social networks over a rolling 90-day period. Engagement is key, and Klout will rank a person with fewer connections but more engagement (via Retweets, Mentions, new Follows, Likes, Wall Posts) higher than one with many connections but little interaction. Klout also lets you compare your score, side by side, with anyone else using the service. Depending upon whom you choose, this can be an uplifting or depressing activity. How does Klout make money? By hitting up vendors, of course. Brands pay Klout to offer Klout Perks to Klout users in an effort to get these “influencers” to talk nicely about specific products. As a Klout user, I’m told there are no strings attached to this Klout swag and just like the material world, the people with the most Klout, get the biggest Perks — we’re told this can be a great gift like airline tickets or computer gear. Personally, all I’ve gotten so...

Today, more than ever, marketers are building campaigns using a mix of traditional and new media, and for good reason. Recent studies, like The 2x Cross Media Multiplier Effect, by Outsell, Inc., show that combining print, events and digital media makes for a far more effective marketing message than using any one type of media on its own. As an industry, printers have always served the advertising, publishing and marketing communities, so now we have to follow this trend and provide a wider mix of solutions to them. Many printing companies have already taken the initiative to change their brand and add a wider range of services to their portfolio of offerings — things like mailing services, promotional products, customized e-commerce sites services or personalized marketing campaigns that mix print with web or mobile destination pages. Others are just taking their first steps down this path and could use some guidance as they move forward. Regardless of where a company might be on this transitional path, there is always more to learn and room to grow. That’s where the Integrated Print Forum comes in. The Integrated Print Forum is for anyone who wants to learn everything there is to know about integrating print with other media to enhance their company’s product offering and build new revenue streams. We’re holding the inaugural Integrated Print Forum at Printing Industries of America headquarters near Pittsburgh, PA — if you’ve never visited, we have a fabulous facility. The entire program is dedicated to offering real strategies around all the hot new business options, with a focus on providing tactics to take back home and implement immediately. Topics on the agenda include mobile marketing best practices, integrated marketing program management, real options for augmented reality, marketing automation, social media for business, personalization and maximizing a database, staffing for the future, e-commerce and doing business in the cloud. The marching orders for all of our presenters is that by participating in any session, an attendee will discover a new idea or technology, consider a fresh strategic direction and learn realistic tactics for business growth. We have some great speakers on the lineup, including Lon Safko, author of The Social Media Bible, Michael Schneider, CEO of Mobile Roadie, and Ethan Boldt, Chief Content Manager at DirectMarketingIQ. Check out the session descriptions to learn more. Since everyone learns differently, the sessions will be presented in different ways, including interview-style conversations, roundtable discussions, and real hands-on labs for folks who learn by doing. And for anyone that wants an in-depth look at what some of the vendors in the digital print/integrated marketing arena have to offer, they can jump into a sponsor’s how-to lab. The opportunity to network will extend into the evening, as the group...

We’re now accepting entries for the web2awards, and, in its third year, it’s poised to once again highlight print service providers that are using web and online technology to grow their businesses. We continue to improve and refine the competition, with a new streamlined entry form that will make the actual entry process easy and separate categories for small, media and large companies to even-up the playing field. And this year we’ve added two new categories that recognize how social media has a growing role in what we do. The Social Media/Cross-Media Campaign/Promotional Case Study category is one in which we hope to see a lot of participation. If you have a story about how you’ve used social media or cross-media to showcase and grow your business, we want to hear about it. Have you used Twitter to find customers talking about your business and held a conversation with them? Did your YouTube video score you thousands of hits and bolster business? Are you using QR codes in a way no one else is? Tell us your story and include as much evidence as you can (especially tangible metrics if you’re measuring things like responses, traffic on the site, SEO ranking changes, etc.) The judging on this will be a bit different than the other categories, it will bit more subjective, but our panel of judges look forward to hearing what participants have been doing in our integrated media world.   We’re calling the second new category the People’s Choice Award and we think it will be a lot of fun. The web is so people-focused, and we think it makes sense to give anyone, not just our esteemed panel of judges, a chance to vote in the web2awards. After the entry deadline on May 31st, we’ll be putting all the entered sites onto the web2award site. Entrants can point their customers, friends, family or anyone they wish to that page so they can cast a vote. We’re not putting restrictions into the system, so people can vote multiple times for the same entry if they wish. The purpose of the People’s Choice Award is to offer a way for entrants to take a more active role in the competition, possibly use it in their own brand-awareness campaign, and maybe even raise the web2award competitions visibility as well! We hope everyone has fun with this. To let people try it out before the 2011 entries are ready, we posted the 2010 participants and put up a voting page. The winner of the People’s Choice Award will be recognized with a unique trophy at the end of the competition.  For more information about the web2awards, the rules, how to enter,...

It’s January 20th and there couldn’t be a better date to set as Inauguration Day for the Social Media Field Guide website! The site and this blog, Field Notes, is the always-updated addendum to the book Social Media Field Guide: A Resource for Graphic Communicators, just published by Printing Industries of America Press. We wrote the book for anyone (but with a focus on our peers in the graphic communication/print service provider industry) interested in using social media to further business relationships, reach out to new potential customers and yes, even help sell (gasp!) one’s products and services. We think it’s a pretty well-rounded guide—take a look at the Book Resources section of the site and you’ll find some sample pages to read and judge for yourself. Saying that, we also know that the world of social media is one that spins at an ever-increasing rate and something new happens just about every day (heck, almost every hour!) A book is a wonderful tool for a deep dive into a subject, but when it covers technology, we think there should be a venue for readers to discover the latest in related news and information. That’s where the website comes in. We gathered some of the best RSS feeds and links to social media-related resources sites and posted them in the Links & Feeds section. You’ll find the top three most current stories from those feeds in the blue box on the Home page so you don’t have to dig too deep for the latest news. We’ll add new how-to tips to that section of the site often to help you take advantage of all the tools available to help you on your social media journey. And Mary and I will keep the conversation going through this blog.  We hope that you’ll join us with your own comments as well.  I’m looking forward to having a lot of fun with this ever-growing, always new site and I know you will find it a useful resource. Please drop a note and tell us how you like the site! — Julie Shaffer...