We are pleased to announce the recent hire of Jon Stillwell as a Social Media Strategist with SMCpros. Jon received his BA degree from the University of St. Thomas in marketing and business administration.

Jon’s #1 strength as defined by Strengths-Finder 2.0 is Competition. While taking on a host of projects to start his career here at SMCpros, Jon quickly looks to find his place within the company by dabbling in several different departments and tackling any and all tasks that come across his desk. Jon enjoys reading, sports, attending art galleries, traveling, snowboarding and finding positive ways to create as much chaos within the social media world as humanly possible. He is currently proving himself to his superiors and colleagues and insists on reaching his ultimate goal of being the most feared cardigan wearing social media strategist in all the land. Let the journey begin!

Follow Jon on Twitter

Connect with Jon on LinkedIn

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It’s been a BIG year for Social Media in 2011 – and a lot of changes have occurred. We wanted to take a moment to sit back and recap what’s changed this year and what you’ll want to look forward to in 2012.

For Facebook-  Big changes in 2011 with the introduction of Timeline. The user interface has drastically changed. Allowing users to see the totality of their Facebook presence; you can now see your profile from start to today. Additionally, the Ticker was added – a way for you to see Facebook interactions real-time while you are on Facebook.

2012 – With the looming IPO, Facebook has announced that they will introduce sponsored stories directly into users Newsfeed. Giving businesses and marketers alike the ability to more naturally engage with users.

For YouTube-  The video search engine got a facelift with a new thumbnail and layout. The new dashboard on the left  allows users to organize, search, and share their content. Also, with a deeper integration,, users can now watch and share YouTube videos seamlessly on G+.

2012 – YouTube Live, which will integrate live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform for the first time should be rolling out in new year. This feature starts with a new YouTube Live browse page, where you can always find the most compelling live events happening on YouTube and add events to your calendar. Subscribe to your favorite YouTube live-streaming partners to be notified of upcoming live streams on your customized YouTube homepage.

For Twitter- Twitter’s new layout is simple, easy to navigate and clean. The microblogging site now features large customizable header images and highlight a top tweet with an embedded photo or video.

Learn more here!

Twitter’s new design includes: Home – Where you view tweets from the people you follow. @ Connect – The place to join the conversation and find out who has followed you, mentioned you, or Direct Messaged you. # Discover  – The place to find what is going on around you; this is completely customized to the user. Me – The place to adjust and view your profile.

Twitter Brand Pages will be the 2012 focus with the ability to “pin” a tweet that users will see when they visit your page. Twitter advertising will play a heavy role in the 2012 focus.

For LinkedIn-  With their IPO in 2011, users saw many impressive changes to the professional network that saw strong growth in 2011. LinkedIn and it’s shareholders have very high expectations in 2012.

LinkedIn Social Ads were brought to the forefront, along with the ability for companies to make status updates. Status updates resemble that of Facebook and Twitter.

For Google+ started with a bang in 2011, becoming the fastest growing social network in the world. With 50 million users just in beta, Google+ saw tremendous growth. Google made this growth easy with it’s shear brute strength. As the largest search engine, many people already had a Google profile making the G+ addition easy. Google+ launched with an easy to use interface that utlizes ‘circles,’ which make it easy to organize connections. Hangouts, another G+ feature,  made an addition that allows users to live stream their conversations with others. Brand pages also made their debut in late 2011.

2012 – We expect to see a deeper integration in ads, search, and traffic. The advantage Google+ has is that Google already has a hand (a big hand) in the web space – we suspect Google+ to continue to grow.  Also expect to see more and more G+ elements (like the +1) in the search page.

For Pinterest – The silent giant of 2011.  An invite only social site that let’s you “pin” images and videos you find online. Still an invite only platform has seen growth that no one expected.

As exciting of a year as it has been in social media, we expect 2012 to be even bigger. With the major platforms listed above fighting for users and usage, expect more features, rollouts and improvements more often – but don’t worry, we don’t expect another major Facebook overhaul any time soon.

Happy New Year from SMCpros!

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We are pleased to announce the recent hire of Gary Stockert as a Speaker and Business Development Manager with SMCpros. Gary received his BA degree from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities and has worked at Fuzed Marketing.

Gary specializes in Social Media ROI, Blog Marketing, SEM/SEO, Web Presence Improvement and Creative Strategy. His passion for marketing continues to expand and grow through new experiences and challenges. Each day he works with clients who are motivated toward finding new ways of improving the efficiencies through interactive marketing. Gary believes that Social Media Marketing is where those efficiencies are found and where our world is headed. He enjoys finding creative and innovative solutions in a volatile marketplace, customized with businesses’ goals in mind. He loves meeting real business owners like you and hearing their stories and experiences. Gary is excited to be joining a Top Tier Social Media agency (his words, not ours!) and can’t wait to take his passion for helping businesses grow through marketing to the next level. He looks forward to earning each opportunity that he is afforded.

Follow Gary on Twitter.

Connect with Gary on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Gary on his website.

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Below is a list of our upcoming events. These events are open to you and your friends.

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Tyler Olson and Adam Maikkula attended the Minnesota Council of Non-profits event last week at the Hyatt Regency. The events’ speakers presented primarily on technology, communication, and social media.

When asked:
- How many of you are using facebook for your organization?
75% raised their hand

- How many of you are using twitter for your organization?
Over 50% raised their hand

During the event, we were keeping an eye on twitter and the tweets going through. On average, there were 3-5 tweets per minute that were relevant to the event. We replied back to those users with #mnnptech and encouraged them to stop by our booth.

Are you using social media for your organization yet? What’s working and what isn’t working?

Photo originally uploaded by Minnesota Council of Nonprofits

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We have once again grown! We are pleased to announce the hire of Mitchell Hislop to our team as a Social Media Associate. Mitchell is working on his BA in business management at Hamline University, with a minor in political science. He has been active in the social media world, working at both fahrenHEIGHT360 and Cool (intl) in the past, as well as freelancing. We plan to leverage his coding and web development skills, as well as have him help out on the social media side. Mitch also likes to play analyst to the web 2.0 world and beta test as much as he can.

If you would like to connect with Mitchell, find him on:

Website

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

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We are pleased to announce the recent hire of Sarah Shehata as a Social Media Associate with SMCpros. Sarah received her BA degree from the British Open University in Cairo, Egypt. While studying for her degree, she was also a full time employee at PricewaterhouseCoopers – a major worldwide auditing corporation working closely with company leadership and within the Knowledge Management Department.

Upon graduation, Sarah moved back to her home town securing a position within Watermark Learning as an Event/Marketing Coordinator.

Sarah is also the editor of a periodic newsletter for a non-profit organization that focuses on Copts and Coptic culture in Egypt.

SMCpros plans to utilize Sarah’s experience, project management skills, creative energy and passionate approach towards social media to implement clients’ requirements. Of her many hobbies, Sarah enjoys traveling and learning different cultures & traditions. During her free time, Sarah enjoys extreme sports. So far she has gone sky diving, sand boarding and hopes to get around to bungee jumping and snow skiing soon!

To find out more about Sarah, connect with her on:

Sarah’s Twitter
Sarah’s LinkedIn

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SMCpros is proud to announce the hire of Joel Feder as a Social Media Associate.  We plan on leveraging Joel’s skill sets for client implementations and social media management.  Joel’s energy and passion for both web 2.0 as a whole and the marketing industry at large will bring huge value to SMCpros.  Joel graduated with a marketing degree from Drake University in 2008.  He was the car critic for the Times Delphic (Drake’s school newspaper) while also working and having internships.  In addition to working at SMCpros Joel owns and operates his own auto blog talking about the auto industry and reviewing cars.  Joel’s two main passions in life are web 2.0 and automotive.  Joel is very active on Twitter talking about social media and automotive in general.

To learn more about Joel check him out on-

Joel’s Blog – AccelerateMpls

LinkedIn

Twitter

Facebook

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