Given that in four days I will have officially been at my current job for three years – god, has it really been that long? – I feel it’s only appropriate to start ramping up this blog again after almost a year of neglect.

And let me tell you, a lot has happened in this past year.  For starters, my company is almost entirely under new management.  Most important to me was the induction of a new VP of marketing back in, oh, May of this year, and from that, the creation of a proper marketing “team,” the likes of which I hadn’t seen in quite some time.  With others handling the stuff that used to take up much of my time – organizing trade shows, for example – I was free to nestle into my role as the company’s Online Marketing Manager.

Some of you might recall a few of the posts I wrote last fall (1 | 2 | 3) that dealt with the ever-present problem of companies not taking advantage of all that social media has to offer.  Quite frankly, while back then I was definitely pushing for the creation of a social media plan, I found myself falling into the same scenario to which Paul Chaney alludes in his post yesterday, entitled “Social Media in Organizations: What Happens When You’re the Only One Talking?“  That is to say, my social media efforts did more to boost my own personal brand than my company’s.

Buuut … things have changed now.  Our VP of marketing is very, very open to the use of social media as a marketing tool, and I presented him with a plan for the next six months that includes, among other venues, current statistics, strategy going forward, and metrics for our company website and blog (yes, we finally have a blog after months of me yipping about it!), Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and so forth.

Look for a string of posts to appear in the next few weeks regarding social media marketing best practices.  I’m looking forward to getting this show back on the road!