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    Author: Casey Hibbard

    How Microsoft Leveraged Bloggers for a Successful Product Launch

    Software giant Microsoft launches dozens of products and services every year.

    The company typically relies heavily on advertising and PR to get the word out.

    But for its Office 365 product, the team took a different approach.

    Using partnerships and social media, Microsoft connected specifically with women business owners – a key audience group.

    Rather than directing promotional messages toward them, Microsoft involved them in the process from start to finish.
    "It's definitely

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    Social Customer Service Allows Startup to Outpace the Competition

    Patton Gleason is the first to admit he can't sell. And just over a year after going live with his online start-up, the Natural Running Store, he hasn't had to try.

    "I'm a terrible sales guy. I'm awful at it," Gleason says. "But I really do like this idea of 'can a relationship really be your big marketing vehicle?'"

    Turns out, it can. By wowing customers with unheard-of service, Gleason has come close to replicating the in-store experience online. In doing so, he turned the Natural Running Store into a serious competitor in the running

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    How AutoCAD Retooled Its Marketing With Facebook

    Chris Hession has been a product and marketing manager for nearly 15 years. But recently, his job completely changed.

    "Just in the last year and a half, social media has become not just a component of our product marketing plan, but really the core component," said Hession, currently senior manager of Autodesk's AutoCAD product marketing.

    "Pretty much for everything we do, we're looking at, 'How can we make this work for social?'"

    Millions of people worldwide use AutoCAD software to design everything from sunglasses to skyscrapers. If

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    How an Alaskan Mom Brings Millions to Her Carpentry Blog

    Just over two years ago, Ana White wasn't quite sure what a blog was.

    Today, she runs her own rapidly growing destination, drawing nearly three million page views every month.

    Successful professional bloggers aren't hard to find, but a few things are remarkable about White's success:

    She writes a do-it-yourself carpentry blog. With White's help, droves of women are discovering they can build beautiful, stylish things.
    She started with dial-up Internet and does it all from her home in the Alaskan interior (where record-smashing temps

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    Sony Combines Social and Local for Successful Product Launch

    Sony Electronics makes tens of thousands of products. But the launch of its Tablet S – going head to head with Apple's iPad – called for something special.

    Adding to the pressure, Sony's social media team had a relatively small budget for the project.

    With a creative mix of social media and in-person events, Sony brought out thousands of people to locations to "Catch the Tablet" and tell their friends about it.

    Most notably, the campaign created buzz that inspired 1,000 clicks from Facebook to the Tablet S pre-order page, making it the

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    How LinkedIn Brought $72,000 in Sales for PostcardMania

    These days, it doesn't take long to find a Facebook or Twitter success story. Businesses that wisely use the tools see a payoff.

    But LinkedIn? The stodgier cousin of the group? Not so much.

    Yet for PostcardMania, a fast-growing, Florida-based postcard marketing company, unlocking LinkedIn has been a bottom-line booster. It's not just for job searchers anymore.

    Every week, the company consistently counts at least two dozen fresh leads coming directly from LinkedIn – more than Facebook and Twitter deliver.

    That's added up to more than

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    How a Scrapbooking Company Used Social Media to Beat Target as Best Brand in Minnesota

    On the morning of June 10, Kristen Jacobs was monitoring the Twitterverse for mentions of her employer, Creative Memories, as she usually does. One tweet in particular stood out.

    Upon closer inspection of the tweet and link, Jacobs discovered that Creative Memories was going head-to-head with one of America's biggest retailers, Target, in a "Minnesota Brand Madness" challenge put on by the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal.

    This was news to Jacobs (the company's web content community manager), as well as the rest of the

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    Facebook Geotargeting Draws 500,000 Fans for Small Biz

    Most of us know Facebook marketing is working when more sales roll in or site traffic grows.

    But for Alex Morrissey of JamaicansMusic.com, that moment came when a party in Indonesia ran out of goats.

    "We invited 200 people to the launch party, but because we're on Facebook, 1,000 people came," he said. "We had enough rice and peas, but we had to get more goats."

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    Startup Company Eliminates the Cold Call With Twitter

    Many salespeople swear by cold calling. But the inherent problem with it? Interrupting people when they're otherwise engaged. The person might be amenable – or might be turned off.

    "We spent a lot of time cold calling or direct emailing," said Craig Robertson, co-founder and CEO of ecycler.com. "We would catch people when they were busy and they didn't want to talk to us."

    ecycler.com, founded in 2009, is an Internet-age twist on the cash-for-cans concept. Rooted in the belief that one man's trash is another man's treasure, the site

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