It has been quite a ride. It’s hard to believe that Kendra and I founded Neovia Solutions just two-and-a-half years ago. It’s even harder to believe the state of the social media landscape at that time, especially in our mid-sized city. It was August 2009, and we could see that social media wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, it was only becoming more and more integrated into our daily lives. And we knew that this meant businesses would need help navigating the new digital landscape.

That is what we’ve done ever since.

We’ve worked with large corporations and solopreneurs. We’ve set up 500+ locations on Foursquare in one go, and we’ve launched first websites for growing companies. We’ve been fortunate enough to work with clients who we believe in, from non-profits to politicians to hardworking small businesses. Perhaps what we’ve loved most is seeing the spark of recognition in our clients’ eyes when they realize that they can do this by themselves. After all, that was always our goal – to teach our clients how to take the wheel once we got the ball rolling.

When my cofounder Kendra departed Neovia this summer to focus her efforts on her other business ventures, me and my team of awesome (Adriana Oliva and Martha Castro, interns extraordinaire) steamed forward. 2011 was another smashing year for Neovia, and I couldn’t be more proud.

2012 will bring the biggest client of my life to the table – a child. And so, my first baby – Neovia Solutions – will take a backseat this year as I prepare for this little bundle of life change.

We don’t expect you to wait for us to open our doors again, so if you need a new website, logo/design work, search engine optimization or help with social media strategy/build-out/training, we’ve included our recommendations. We’ve partnered with these companies, and they are tried and true.

If I may say so on behalf of the entire Neovia Solutions team, it’s been a helluva ride and we hope to see you all again next year!

Recommended resources

Website design & logo/design work
Rippke Design
www.rippkedesign.com

Search engine optimization
Image Freedom
www.imagefreedom.com

Social media
Sweb Development
www.swebdevelopment.com

In it for more than the cotton candy this year.

We’re up for our first SXSWi panel this year (!!!). If you don’t know anything about SXSW Interactive, it’s kind of the end-all, be-all for social media and interactive conferences. At least, it’s grown to be that way. Last year, something like 20,000 people attended officially, and god only knows how many went “badgeless.”

Help Us Get There

The conference is five days, centered around panel sessions led by industry peers. In 2012, I hope to be one of those peers. We’ve made it past the first round, but now we need your help to get past the second round. This week is the last week of voting for our panel using the SXSW Panel Picker. If you have 60 seconds, please click this link and vote for our panel.

What’s This Panel All About?

It’s called Humans + Robots: SEO & Social-Friendly Content. (SXSW is all about the cool panel names, by the way.) What we want to do is bring two SEO Humans and two Social Strategy Humans together to talk about what social search is, why search engine algorithm changes matter for content marketing, and how to create a strategy that will help you develop content that will make humans and robots happy.

Who’s On It?

Our own Holly Hoffman is one of the Social Strategy Humans, as you might’ve guessed. Tiffany Monhollon of ReachLocal is the human who came up with this bright idea, and she’s the moderator. The other Social Strategy Human is Jenn Pedde of 2tor. The SEO Humans are my pal Matthew Egan of Image Freedom and Mike King of Publicis Modem.

What Will Attendees Get Out of This?

Key takeaways include: 1) An understanding of social search and why both SEO and social engagement matter for your content and blogging strategy. 2) How to write a social-friendly, keyword-rich headline that gets shared and indexed. 3) Tips on how to write engaging, share-worthy SEO copy that humans and robots both love.

More Info

What to know more about what we’re doing? Check out the following:

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/13303?return=/ideas/index/10/name:Humans
http://humansvrobots.tumblr.com/
http://humansvrobots.posterous.com/
Twitter hashtag #humansvrobots

A few new studies haven’t cleared the matter up much. A MerchantCircle survey found that 58% of businesses liked daily deals as a means of customer acquisition, but 42% listed ineffectiveness of customer acquisition as their number one reason for not using such sites again.

A Rice University study offers conflicting data, however, where businesses who used daily deal sites said 77% of those who took a daily deal were new customers, with 20% of them becoming repeat customers.

It looks like our answer to this question remains the same. If you are wondering if you should use a daily deals site like Groupon or Living Social, ask yourself what kind of return you would need to make it worthwhile.

Here are a few ideas to help you ask the right questions.

Do Some Research

Look for case studies of businesses in your industry that have had a good return on these sites. Conversely, find businesses who were not successful and ask them what went wrong. Was it the deal, the industry, or the public that didn’t work?

Do the Math

Figure out how much such a deal would cost, and compare the investment and potential return to other marketing and advertising options. Is this the hardest that dollar amount can work? Would it be better to take that money to print advertising, social media marketing, or promotional give-aways, like t-shirts, to your already loyal customers?

Don’t Expect a Silver Bullet

There’s no one thing that’s going to solve all of your marketing problems. We’ve found that the best approach is multifaceted and integrated, using relationship marketing tactics, social media, and even traditional media, in a strategic fashion to achieve a specific business goal, like brand awareness or customer acquisition. (If you need help creating such a strategy, we can help.) Go into a daily deals offer knowing what to expect.

If you’ve had experiences with a daily deals site like Groupon or LivingSocial, please share them with us and other readers in the comments.

This week we’ve decided to give you a roundup of some new articles that do a lot of different things. It’s been a busy week and we didn’t want you to miss out on some important and helpful information that’s been popping out of Mashable in particular. So, in an old fashion tip of the hat to Mashable, we present you with some of this great content getting you up to speed on what’s up with all of these different platforms.

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What’s Up With Smartphones? Well, we’ve got tips for you to make your app more discoverable. It has to do with optimization, in-bound leads, and customer reviews. Oh by the way, soon your phone may be able to tell you when you’re sick. When will we see the phone that tells you what the right thing to do is?

What’s Up With Twitter: They’re putting promoted tweets in your timeline in the Next 2 Months. And by the way, I hope you like the new twitter. Because the old one is dead.

What’s With Facebook? They’re experimenting with comment ads. This is an interesting move, and is a nifty new idea that you may want to start considering. With this addition to the ad strategy, en element of engagement is instantiated that wasn’t present before.

What’s Up With LinkedIn? They’re perpetually getting better, and now they’re using column ads and profile promotions to encourage follows and recommendations, similar to some of the features on Facebook’s right hand interface column. Imagine, on the side of your LinkedIn page, “you might be interested in applying for this job”.

How is content marketing any different from product marketing? It is true that product is a kind of content, but content can mean a variety of things. It can mean a video, white papers, sharing a presentation on Slideshare, a blog post—in short, business generated, not-for-sale product. Most content takes the form of releasing information, expertise, or instruction to a viewer, reader, onlooker, what have you. Product marketing is, in the first place, trying to get you to purchase a product. While content marketing is, in short, driving you to consume and enjoy information that may be of use to you.

Then what’s the point? Well, we’ve got some videos from the Neovia Summit last week premiering shortly, but for now suffice it to say that this kind of content marketing allows people to know, like, and trust your business–ultimately leading to sales. But, for the good of business, your heart has to be in the right place or you’re just another dude throwin’ ads in my face. Dig?

But let’s put our feet back on the ground and dig our cleats into the turf. What we have here are a series of articles that demonstrate quality content marketing, and offer practical, bottom line advice on how to use it. Remember to check our Facebook page and Twitter for updates on when those videos are coming out.

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Three steps to generate higher ROI from content marketing. You’ll see the beginning of this article, which has some helpful stats on the efficacy of particular content marketing strategies. You can read the rest for a free membership, but hey, we’re not gonna make you.

How 3 Companies Took Content Marketing to the Next Level. Learn from the best! Husbpot, mint.com, and American Express all chime in here.

The Importance of Writing Well For Social Media Content. We know it’s important to write well (DoNt wEee!!!^&) in any circumstance, but why does that sentiment seem to evaporate in some social media contexts? Humanities students unite! Writing makes the social world go round after all.

5 Step Model For A Killer B2B Content Marketing Strategy. These guys really do have an impressive content marketing model, from extensive planning to evaluation. Take a note or two, and, when considering content you’d like to produce, think: what kind of content would I like to see as a social user?

11 Ways to find new content for your social strategy. Every businesses #1 worry in content marketing is? “What do I talk about?” Don’t worry, this happens to everybody, ourselves included. Luckily when Social Media Examiner had this problem, they decided to talk about what to do when they had that problem. Thanks SME!

3 Advantages of Using Content Marketing for SEO. Something you certainly want to consider in your content marketing strategy.

image from richesinnichesblog.com

We’ve always admired Kendra’s energy and stamina, and we often wondered at it. Turns out, we were right to wonder. In her own words, “…It’s exhausting. The energy and attention needed for each of those projects created a life that was anything but balanced. Beyond that, it ultimately led to more reacting than planning, not a good business strategy.”

Read more about her decision on her blog here.

As for Neovia Solutions, it’s business as usual. We’ve known for a few months that we were headed in this direction, and any changes we needed to make were made then.

Happy trails, Kendra.

Thank you for helping Neovia Solutions get started and grown into what we are today. I can say that without her I may never have been able to make the leap to start a business on my own. The past two years have been a wonderful ride, and it’s a bittersweet goodbye to our fearless leader as she heads in a more balanced direction with her life.

Blogs are particularly effective for establishing yourself as a thought leader in your field, but different types of blogs need to be managed in different ways. So below we offer you a variety of recent articles covering the advantages and techniques of the blog form. Enter the blogosphere!

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Why Your Self Hosted Blog Is More Valuable Than Your Facebook Page. The power of Facebook is quite near undeniable, but in the end might not be what you need. There are certain advantages blogs have, including the opportunity to be paid for ads (rather than pay for them), more effective SEO qualities, and more.

7 Ways Guest Posting Can Boost Your Reputation. You don’t have to do all your blogging yourself. In fact, having someone else take over the job for you every so often is one of the best ways to establish your position as among a group of thought leaders and expand your audience. This article focuses on reputation building through getting other bloggers in your field to guest post.

The PR Pro’s Guide To Blogging. This is a PR Pro’s guide to begin blogging. Most PR strategies these days even require a blog component, so if you’re not savvy where do you start and where do you go?

5 Techniques to Create Raving Loyal Fans. If social media is about community building, what better reward could you have than having a passionate, engaged community? These techniques are not for the conservative of mind–they urge you to step up, be overt and honest, to make the risk of offending people. This brand of blogging achieved a particular goal, so it will be up to you to decide if this is where you want to go with your blog campaign.

image courtesy www.rylanclayne.com

As always, we’re taking your questions. Did we not hit on the exact thing you wanted to know about? Get at us.

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2 Email Marketing Strategies That Work. This article offers the Short Course Strategy and the Further Interaction Strategy, which are designed to increase open rates, build relationships, and help involve the reader in your multitude of web content.

Humanize Your Email With A Well Timed Thank You. This one gets straight to the point. In all of these articles you’re going to see some constant advice: people don’t like feeling that they’re being sold something. It’s important, as always, to be honest, genuine and human. Thank you notes certainly help–see this article for the proper timing.

Emails Are Content Too. For whatever reason, many organizations are a bit hesitant when it comes to what to put in their emails. What’s the proper content? Can I put this, can I put that? This article encourages you to treat your emails just as you would with any other content venue. Likewise, and perhaps moreso, look at the emails your sending as potential blog posts. Take nuggets from them and you have tweets and fan page updates. Your emails are worth it. Be bold, be original–do your thing.

Email: Option vs. obligation. This raises some interesting questions not only about outward emails but internal email as well–primarily concerning email flood. The article claims that, when we send an email, we feel the recipient is obligated to respond in some way. But what are the implications of viewing it as an option? Keep this in mind when for internal purposes as well as for external purposes.

5 Proven Ways To Increase Email Subscriptions. This is the start of a really solid article suggesting some useful and creative tips for getting more people to subscribe to your email. To read the whole thing you’ll need a MarketingProfs subscription, which is free.

image courtesy emarketing-strategies.blogspot.com

Are your fans this passionate? Well…that may be a good thing…

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Most days you’ll go into work, talk to some customers or clients, and, if you’re reading this, you probably spend a reasonable amount of time talking with online fans, followers, etc. Sometimes you see them, but, especially if your organization is web-centered, often you don’t. This might not always your top priority, but in today’s post, we encourage you to, for the next few months, bump it up a notch or two or six.

There’s something about face to face interaction to which, despite the efficacy and revolutionary grandeur of the web’s new marketing tools, social media has always conceded. And we defy you to consider a handful of times that you’ve had a more riveting interaction on the web than you did in real life. There’s something mysteriously complex and fascinating about talking to someone. Human beings are social. And if social media is all about building relationships, then there’s no replacement for a good handshake, good eye contact, and a welcoming, comforting attitude–really talking. In the small business world, people follow people, not entities.

We’re asking your business, for your sake and ours, to be something to do.

So this week, as the Summer rolls itself in and the city gets its itch to go out and play, we’ve got a handful of articles talking about how to set up and promote live events, how to integrate them with your existing social media strategy, and what kinds of things you can get out of them. Enjoy!

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8 Ways to Improve Events With Social Media. This Mashable article goes through the strong fundamentals of live events–establish social networks, incentivize invites, new tools, live streaming, and a lot more. This is key.

5 Quick Tactics for Supercharging Your Events Marketing. If Mashable covers the fundamental strategy, the logic of it all, then MarketingProfs covers the pathos, the attitude of it all, giving you a smart “how” to guide you through your event marketing.

3 Reasons Live Events Are Good Content Marketing. Another smart one from the Profs. Live events allows you to get your content to an audience in a way that’s fun and engaging for both parties. What would you rather go to? A webinar or a half day summit with lunch and cookies! See, it’s not even a question.

How To Market Your Events With Social Media. From Technsare, we see a very backend-heavy approach to event marketing with a large focus on monitoring and preparation. Great considerations and advice.

Spring Brings Fans Out, Marketers Calling, “It’s Event Season”. Now while this post focuses on sports events, there’s a lot to take into account for your own purposes. With beautiful weather around, maybe your business could be one of those “things to do” in your city.

The Royal Wedding Was The Sixth Largest Web Event In History. So you could plan a royal wedding. That’s one option. But if that’s not within your means, take this article as fun and helpful for seeing the history of web events.