Yahoo!

In January 2004, we teamed up with Yahoo! to begin developing its first “official” corporate social media marketing program.

Program Snapshot

The objective for the program was to concentrate on ways the company could engage industry influencers, particularly bloggers, to help increase awareness and ultimately, endorsement for the various products and services it was bringing to market. A secondary objective was to look at ways it could adopt new mediums of communication to articulate its position and point-of-view on a variety of product/company/industry issues.

The program strategy was to develop a new hybrid PR/marketing group within Yahoo! called “Influencer Marketing.” The charter for this group was to engage a variety of industry influencers using new media. It was through this program that the company accomplished many of its own “firsts,” including its first blog (Yahoo Search Blog), its first influencer outreach program, it’s first influencer advisory board, its first videos and podcasts, its first CGM advertising contest, and many, many more things. Over the next three years, the Yahoo! Influencer Marketing program grew and evolved within Yahoo!, representing nearly every property within the Yahoo! Network by late 2007.

Additional Projects

During the span of this program, multiple projects and activities were developed and executed in the following categories (see sidebar). More detail on each program element can provided upon request.

With 2009 being our 5th year of partnership, our team continues to proudly work with Yahoo! on a variety of social media assignments.

Services Used

+ Online influencer identification, outreach and engagement
+ Online reputation management, including monitoring, tracking, response
+ Community management, including moderation, facilitation and support
+ Content development, including planning, editing, formatting, publishing
+ Online media production and distribution, including audio, video, artwork
+ Web development, including blogs, communities and custom websites
+ App development, including desktop, mobile and social networking apps
+ Offline events, including lounges, meetups, and influencer/vertical events
+ Workshop training, leading educational sessions, 1:1 coaching, speaking