First, the good news. Brands are starting to ‘listen’ to what people are saying. There are great listening and social media management platforms available, such as Spredfast (plug disclosure…I’m an advisor). However, it’s typically a few people inside the company that are paying attention to user generated content. There’s still a long way to go to make this listening penetrate the depths of an organization to achieve what I call “Customer Oxygen”. Then, there’s the analytics

What a dilemma! You are asked to reduce budget, cut costs, reduce expenses. However, you need your BEST to gain market share, compete for customer dollars and emerge from the recession as a winner. You need the best employees, technology, service, partners, vendors, and agencies so you can outsmart and out-execute competition. You need the best to drive demand when marketing rules are being reinvented by customer conversations. You need the best because, more than ever befor