Call it tummeling, networking or just advocating for the power of social media engagement, Shauna Causey now has a more colloquial title to commemorate her contributions to the Seattle social scene in 2012. The statuesque social media maven was just named “Schmoozer of the Year” at the Seattle 2.0 Startup Awards presented by GeekWire. In true, larger-then-life, evangelical pageantry, Shauna’s name was writ large, in letters four times as tall as she is, across the luminescent video wall of the Experience Music Project “Sky Church.”
“Schmoozer of the Year? It’s nice to know what people are saying about me behind my back,” she quipped on stage. The social media advisor who has worked for the Seattle Mariners, FOX, Fox Sports Net, Comcast and Nordstrom is the current president of the Seattle Social Media Club and serves on the board of directors for Social Media Club Seattle, Leadership Tomorrow and Reel Grrls. Causey is currently the VP Marketing for Decide.com, an online service dedicated to helping consumers buy electronics with no regrets.
As busy as the social queen bee in the hive, Shauna spent the earlier part of her award-winning day as a luncheon keynoter for Avvo.com where she “info-tained” a banquet room of several hundred lawyers at the Avvocating Social Media Conference at Bell Harbor.
“Is it possible for a brand to be a friend?” she asked the audience to think about. Shauna believes the answer is decidedly affirmative, if companies will give their customers “a seat at the table.”
As Head of Social Business for Nordstrom, Causey took a studied approach to understanding how to best engage with customers at various levels. One revelation was understanding when Nordstrom customers were most receptive to social communication. As a NY Times article affirmed in a similar study, Twitter and Facebook users are most relaxed both before and after work and on the weekends. It wasn’t long before Causey was scheduling the Nordstrom outreach for Sundays when people felt less distracted and more comfortable.
Of course, social media is also transforming the way communication gets delivered in the first place. “I find that the responses to my “DM’s” [Direct Messages] in Twitter get a response rate of around 90%, compared to 10% or less for a press release,” she said. “I don’t even include my email address in my signature anymore. I prefer to get messages via Twitter DM.”
So what was Shauna’s advice to the group of legal professionals who were soaking up everything they could to make their businesses more social?
“You need to invest a minimum of 15 minutes every morning and every evening in social media, to read what is being written to you or about you, and to reply,” she confides.
Her former employer, Comcast, may be the world record holder for speed of response, with the missionary zeal of the Comcast Cares program Causey worked on.
To save time, Shauna advises that busy professionals consolidate all of their social media networks under one digital dashboard. “I set clients up on HootSuite,” she says, “where they can view the majority of their social media activity at a glance.”
Shauna also provided keen insight on h0w the use of Facebook and Twitter can be used to develop new business relationships, not simply by aiming messages at others, but by [Facebook] “Liking” and [Twitter] “Retweeting“what others have posted. By “following, liking and retweeting” posts from those whom you respect and want to engage with, you stand an excellent chance of catching their attention and brought into their inner circle.
A special interest and pet project Causey founded is named Voluntweetup. It is a recurring event for non-profits to learn how to leverage social media. The grassroots event has expanded to as far away as South Africa.
Congratulations to Shauna on winning “Schmoozer of the Year.” Perhaps next year ‘s award can be upgraded to the “Schmooze, Shmingle, and Bingle” trophy! [24×7]
