Interview with James O'Brien- Part 1: How to Get Started with Mobile Marketing

Last week, in the first of a two part series, I interviewed mobile marketing consultant James O'Brien on the Straight to the Point podcast series about how companies can get a mobile strategy started and where mobile marketing is headed.

I've known James for twenty years and admire the expertise he gained from working with commercial, political and government clients in his career. An expert in online marketing, email compliance and privacy regulations, James is the founder of J Obrien Global and is currently a partner with MobiMKT, a mobile application development agency.

You can listen to the podcast here: Interview with James O'Brien- Part 1: How to Get Started

What did we cover?

• How marketing is being transformed by mobile technology and the movement of the audience onto mobile devices
• How important is social media to achieving marketing objectives now? 
• How important is mobile marketing to the marketing mix? 
• For a firm without a mobile strategy, what is a good first step? 
• What marketing trends do you see that are going to impact the industry most over the next few years?

Top 16 Public Sector Social Media and News Sites You Should Know About

I'm always a bit flabbergasted when I meet someone in the government marketing space, mention GovLoop or Gov2Social, and I get a blank stare. I know we are in the early adopter phase of using social media to help contractors find and close deals, establish partnering opportunities and grow stronger relationships with government...and I know that just because I know something, doesn't necessarily mean everyone else knows it too...

But how can you not know about GovLoop?

OK, so in the interest of spreading the good news about social media and the public sector contracting business, here is a list of top social media and news sites that you should know about...

(this isn't a comprehensive list-- please leave a comment if you feel I've left something important out...)

1. GovLoop - the Facebook for government, GovLoop has 30,000+ people registered there
2. GovTwit - is a large repository (3,000+) of twitterers in federal, state and local government and the contracting community
3. FedScoup - an aggregation for must read government business blogs, news sites and social media streams
4. MeriTalk- smaller than GovLoop, MeriTalk positions itself as the social network for government IT people
5. FutureFed - learn about Microsoft's solutions and ideas for a more efficient and effective public sector
6. Brightside of Government - Microsoft's social media platform for state and local government executives and the unique issues they face
7. Gov2Social - a repository of social media implementations, case studies and" how-to's" across all levels and functions of government
8. Google Public Sector- thoughts from Google's government group
9. IBM Center for the Business of Government - collection of white papers on the issues facing governments today
10. FOSE - the ur-trade show for government IT
11. FCW and GCN- two magazines from the 1105 Government Business Network that cover the technology policy and management community and government IT specialists respectively
12. Governing is a online magazine that focuses on the issues most important to government leaders and employees
13. Washington Technology- also from 1105, this magazine focuses on the contracting community, especially technology providers and partners
14. Federal News Radio (AM1500) is a local DC radio station that covers a myriad of issues pertinent to the government employees and contractors. Also available over the Internet...
15. Dorobek Insider- one of FNR's hosts is Chris Dorobek who also puts out an informative email newsletter and website
16. GovExec- focused on the needs and interests of government employees

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