Every year, BtoB’s Social Media Marketing Awards are rewarded to companies that exhibit excellence with an innovative social media marketing campaign or initiative for a number of different award categories including Best Use of Twitter, Best Use of Facebook, Best Use of Mobile and more. A few days ago, BtoB revealed the lucky winners and runners-up of this year’s awards.

I’m proud to announce that Cisco Systems was honored with a few different winning titles. The Cisco Global Mobile Events  App and the Social Media Training & Certification Program won within the “Best Use of Mobile” and “Best Closed Community” categories, respectively, while the Cisco Systems Facebook page was deemed runner-up for “Best Use of Facebook.”

Congratulations to all winners who will be recognized and presented with awards during BtoB’s Digital Edge Live conference to be held in San Francisco, CA on March 20, 2013. In the meantime, you can check out the complete list of 2013 BtoB Social Media Marketing Award winners for each of the various categories.

Tags: BtoB, cisco global mobile events app, facebook, social media awards, social media marketing, social media training and certification program

The other day I was reading an article about “Cognitive Dissonance: Why Social Sharing Creates Employee Advocates”. Intuitively you would suspect that “employee sharing can influence your employees to love your company more” but I’m always thrilled to see research, data and science to support these theories. Thank you, Psychology!

If you’re still skeptical about why employee enablement in social media matters, consider these factoids:

(1)    41% of people believe conversations with company employees to be the most credible specialist sources of information.

(2)    There are over 10 million social mentions of the Fortune 100 each month…With Twitter generating the most amount of chatter.

(3)    56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored.

(4)    70% of brands ignore Read More »

Tags: activate, advocacy, ambassadors, amplification, authentic social media, employees, Executives, how to, marketing, scaling social media, social media, training, viral, WOM

On February 14th, it’s hard to keep your mind focused on work. If you’re like me, you were wondering if the flowers, candy, and teddy bear you ordered would get delivered to your wife on time, or if the butcher would have any steaks left by the time you made it to the market after work. Frankly the last thing on my mind was the possibilities enabled when we connect people, processes, data and things, also known as the Internet of Everything (#IoE).

This Valentine’s Day, Cisco’s Social Media Marketing team leveraged a broadly engaging topic that very few people would associate with the Internet of Everything through real-time marketing. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, content marketing, Internet of Everything, IoE, Real-time Marketing, social media, social media listening, Tomorrow Starts Here, Valentine's Day

What are you doing on April 18 & 19th, 2013? Mark your calendar for a social media event with Cisco! This event is titled Social Media for Savvy Marketers. You can join this event live or connect via our live webcast. Registration is required. Hurry because space is limited for this free event! Some of our featured sessions will include:

Driving Social into Business

Long gone are the days when social was only a marketing practice. Today, social impacts all corners of an organization -- legal, customer service, finance, client managers, crisis management and even product development. There are very real business implications in this socially connected world, and it means that companies must learn how to drive social into their business. This requires education, best practices and policies that many do not already possess. Read More »

Tags: ciscosmt, events, marketing, mobile, social media, social savvy, social search

Welcome to the Cisco Sizzle! Each month, we’ll be rounding up the best of the best from across our social media channels for your reading pleasure. From the most read blog posts to the top engaging content on Facebook or LinkedIn, catch up on things you might have missed, or on the articles you just want to see again, all in one place.

Let’s take our first look into the Cisco vault …

16 Years and Counting
What makes your company great to work for? For the 16th year in a row (yes, 16 years in a row!), Cisco is on Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” list!

Today: The Internet of Things
Dave Evans introduces the Internet of Things (IoT) through an infographic that represents the increase of “things” connected to the Internet.

Tomorrow: The Internet of Everything
Dave Evans takes a look into the Internet of Everything (IoE), which brings together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before.

Connecting the Unconnected
Remember the days of dial-up? Cisco VP Marie Hattar looks at the evolution of the Internet and how Cisco technologies are fueling the transition from IoT to IoE.

Tomorrow Starts Here
Cisco is waking up the world. Explore how IoE will change the way we work, live, play and learn:

World Economic Forum: Pushing Innovation
Last month, Cisco CEO John Chambers participated in a World Economic Forum roundtable discussion hosted and moderated by TIME. In his words, “if you don’t take risks and don’t push innovation, you will get left behind very quickly.”

Tags: #BestCos, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE, IoT, Tomorrow Starts Here, World Economic Forum