Mediaboss Marketing

HootSuite and its owl have flown into China, adding support for the countrys hottest Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo, in its social media dashboard. This could be of great use to many brands who need to use Sinas (NASDAQ:SINA - News) wildly popular Weibo for doing social marketing to Chinese consumers, as Sina Weibo still only has Chinese-language support on its site.

Along with the Sina Weibo rollout, HootSuite now also has support for traditional Chinese, as used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and among many overseas Chinese. Hootsuite has been blocked in China for some time (it was a useful workaround for using Twitter, which got blocked way earlier, until Net Nanny slapped it down), but it doesnt really matter as local Weibo users and Chinese companies are not the target of this. The Weibo support is instead aimed at HootSuites paying customers, especially for its enterprise packages, which include major brands like Seagate and Pepsi.

HootSuite announced this on its blog yesterday, as spotted by TheNextWeb, and describe it as a mere first step into the Chinese market - next up is a simplified Chinese localization of the site (which is currently being crowdsourced). Theres now also a HootSuite Chinese presence on both Twitter and Weibo (see here and here) so that clients and users can better interact with the HootSuite team.

( See also: Infographic: WeChat vs Sina Weibo for Business in China )

The Weibo integration extends to all the usual HootSuite features, such as posting text and images, Weibo searches, and analytics so that brands can better monitor how their posts are going down with Chinese consumers. Weve seen something similar come already from an Australian startup with its Hubblr site, which additionally supports Chinas facebook-esque Renren site.

Canada-based HootSuite has been busy in the region recently, adding a version for Indonesian a couple of months ago.

[Source: HootSuite blog (in Chinese); via TNW]

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HootSuite Adds Sina Weibo Support For Social Marketing to China

After so far doubling its sales this year, a Beltsville social marketing and software company looks to grow its workforce by more than 450 by years end.

Vocus plans to hire people in all areas, focusing on its sales and marketing and recruiting sectors, said CFO Steve Vintz. He said recruiting has taken on a larger strategic role at the company.

As more businesses turn to social marketing, their demand increases for software that can help them navigate web channels, like the ones Vocus offers, he said.

With a strong product in hand and a big marketing opportunity, were expanding our sales force, Vintz said. Our assets walk in and out of our door every day.

Vocus has been working with the countys Economic Development Corp. on both a career fair it held Thursday and the expansion, said Gwen McCall, president and CEO of the corporation. The corporation helped Vocus find its Beltsville location.

The county is extremely excited about Vocus, McCall said. Many of these are high-level positions with high salaries. Were excited about what this means for residents in Prince Georges as far as new jobs. Its definitely a win.

The company racked up a net loss of $16 million in the first half of the year, versus $2.6 million in the prior-year period, but revenues rose to $78.5 million from $55.5 million.

The company ranked 489th on Deloittes list of the nation's fastest-growing technology companies in 2011, along with 17 other Maryland businesses. Vocus saw 140 percent sales growth during the last five years. The company employs more than 1,200 people.

Part of Vocus growth this year comes from the 150 jobs connected with its acquisition in late February of iContact, a Raleigh, N.C., provider of email and social marketing software.

Vocus started its push for 450 new employees in the first quarter, Vintz said, adding that the company is well on its way of meeting its goal this year.

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Gazette.Net: The focus at Vocus is growth

Explore, a touring social media and digital marketing conference, stops at Gothic Moon Studio in Orange on Thursday, Oct. 18.

Jason Falls is the 39-year-old CEO of the Social Media Explorer digital marketing agency, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Last year, the company held two social media events in Ohio and Massachusetts. Success in those test markets prompted SME to develop this year's Explore, a series of two-day conferences in five U.S. cities.

Jason Falls, organizer of the Explore conference, addresses an audience.

COURTESY OF JASON FALLS

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Peter Kim (@peterkim), of advertising agency R/GA, and author of the book "Social Business By Design", will deliver the opening keynote, addressing what to expect after the current era of social business.

Michael Brito(@Britopian)of PR firm Edelman Digital, and author of the book "Smart Business, Social Business", will share examples of social business in the real world.

Marcy Massura(@marcymassura)of PR firm Weber Shandwick, and Yorba Linda resident, will talk about making sense of the many social media business needs and solutions.

Jason Falls(@jasonfalls) of marketing agency Social Media Explorer, will deliver the closing keynote, discussing how to implement what was learned at the conference.

SME chose locations that were "underserved markets, where national events and speakers don't typically visit," explains Falls. Instead of Austin, they went to Dallas. They intentionally chose Orange County over Los Angeles, partnering with the LinkedOC networking community to organize the event.

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'Explore' social marketing conference visits 'underserved' O.C.

1:44 pm | Saturday, October 6th, 2012

MANILA, PhilippinesInternational hacking group Anonymous early Saturday morning leaked two social marketing plans supposedly obtained from Malacaang.

Two spread sheet files were made available via Twitter by the hacktivist group detailing the work and financial plan of an unspecified Philippine government unit. The documents were approved by a certain Ana Marie P. Daep.

The tweet of Anonymous announcing the leak mentioned President Benigno Aquinos official website president.gov.ph, but did not say if the documents were obtained from there.

Malacaang told INQUIRER.net it was not aware of any official documents obtained and leaked by Anonymous.

Palace unaware of leaked government plans

Hacktivists have been attacking mostly government sites since Aquino signed into law the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. People in the social media and the Internet press condemn the passage of the law, saying it will severely curb Internet freedoms and intimidate netizens into self-censorship.

Aquino defended the cybercrime act, specifically backing one of the most controversial elements of the law, which mandates that people who post defamatory comments online be given much longer jail sentences than those who commit libel in traditional media.

I do not agree that it (the provision on libel) should be removed. If you say something libellous through the Internet, then it is still libellous no matter what the format, Aquino told reporters Friday.

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International hacktivist group leaks ‘PH social marketing plans’

03-10-2012 00:55 You've got your social campaigns up and running, but how do you know if they're working? Join us to learn tips to measure and benchmark your social content across social networks.

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Marketing Cloud: Measuring Up - Setting Social Marketing KPIs - Video