On January 31, I will say farewell, but not goodbye, to Eastwick. After a year leading the agency’s social media and strategic services practices, I’ve decided to forge out on my own as an independent consultant in social media and executive communications.

I’ve worked with some incredible Eastwick clients, like Seagate, Fujitsu, JDSU, StrongMail, Ustream.TV, and so many others, so thanks to all of you for letting me be a small part of your success. Through my new venture, Socialized, I will continue to provide social media counsel and implementation to Eastwick and its clients, so I will continue to work with many of you.

I want to thank Barbara Bates and Elaine Cummings for bringing me in and letting me learn about agency life. I’ve enjoyed my time here, and I have learned an awful lot about world class media relations.

Eastwick already has a great 2008 under way, aided by the leadership of new president Lisa Hempel. And there are so many people inside Eastwick with great social media experience and aptitude that makes the agency ideally poised to lead the industry in helping clients adopt these technologies for real business value.

Stay in touch!

Joel

Agency Social Media, barbara bates, Careers, Eastwick Blogs, eastwick communications, elaine cummings, Joel Postman, lisa hempel, Media Artifacts, socialized

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Ran across a very clever use of Twitter as a small business marketing tool. I received notification that John Harris is now following me on Twitter. Interested in seeing who he was, I checked out his profile and found he is a tax accountant the CEO of J.K. Harris, a tax representation firm. Harris posts income tax hints on Twitter, like:

“IRS allows Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit for 5 GM vehicles: 2WD/4WD Chevy Tahoe, 2WD/4WD GMC Yukon and Saturn Vue Green Line.”

So I added him to the list of people I am following, and I now get tax hints delivered on my Twitter stream. I’ll probably stop following John after I file.

What could possibly be a simpler social media vehicle for an accountant, attorney or other professional who wants to reach potential clients and provide a useful service? Twitter is free. It takes about three minutes to set up. Updates take less than a minute. And the “follow” function is set up in a way that you don’t get “commercial” messages unless you opt in.

Business Communications, income tax advice, john harris, Social Media, Twitter

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1:49 P.M. PST. Expect insurrection, global capital markets in freefall.

I really like Twitter’s humility and friendly approach to this:

This was up within two minutes of Twitter going down and contains links to help and ways of contacting Twitter. Nice job of transparency and admission that something is wrong.

Much better than Facebook apps’ “working out a few bugs, if the problem persists, come back in a few days.”

Updated: 1:59 p.m., it’s back up.

Updated again: 2:03 p.m., sort of.

Microblogging, Social Media

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“I have been an Apple watcher for years. I freelanced for Mac pubs in the mid 1990s. Now that doesn’t make me more of an expert than anyone else. However, I am inclined to believe this alleged Steve Jobs keynote leak. It sounds real. Jobs’ keynote is tomorrow at the Macworld Expo.”

read more | digg story

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