The Social Media Marketing Blog: Acquiring My Attention in Communities

In case you haven't heard, there's a social media acquisition in play. Community builder Mzinga has announced that it's acquiring white label social networking company Prospero.

This is certainly a newsworthy item from a business standpoint: a leading company in the communities space, Mzinga has a number of major entities as clients, including AOL, ABC, ESPN and many others that aren't acronyms. Barry Libert, one of Mzinga's founders, co-authored a book that speaks to the wonder of communities - We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business. And Prospero is equally as impressive, having built social networks for the likes of iVillage, Comcast and the New York Times. You can check out their press release for more details.

As I looked over the announcement, one of the things that struck me about this is how many of the players I know in this exciting development:

Aaron Strout & Jim Storer are both at Mzinga and are a couple of top-notch social media guys, both of whom I recently saw at Boston's Social Media Breakfast (and Jim was one of my co-presenters)
Colin Browning of Prospero lives in the next town, and I've been following his Northern & Southern Hemisphere tweets for a while
PerkettPR is handling Mzinga's public relations - I've gotten to know Jeff Glasson & Christine Perkett through various social media & tech functions in Boston
Doug Haslam works for Topaz Partners, Prospero's PR firm

And, to make things even more interesting, Aaron, Jim and Colin are basically holding a press conference on Twitter at 8:30 a.m. to discuss online communities. Since Twitter is a community of sorts, it's entirely appropriate. If you'd like to get in on the discussion, you need a Twitter account (it's free) and you should follow everyone I mentioned above. Here are their Twitter IDs/links, just in case:

@astrout - Aaron Strout
@jstorerj - Jim Storer
@crbrowning - Colin Browning
@missusp - Christine Perkett
@jeffglasson - Jeff Glasson
@DougH - Doug Haslam
@scottmonty - what the hey, if you're not following me yet, you should be

I'm not only looking forward to seeing how this little Twitter experiment turns out, but I'm expecting some great things to come from the combination of these two social media powerhouses.

Labels: communities, news, social media, Twitter

About Scott

For hi-res, click here

Ranked by Forbes as one of the top 10 influencers in social media, he has been called "an unstoppable force of nature," "the best corporate social media lead on the planet," and Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, called him "a visionary."

At Ford, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.

Prior to joining Ford, Scott served as Consigliere for crayon and spent a number of years with PJA Advertising + Marketing, a boutique BtoB agency specializing in health sciences & high tech.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Scott is an active blogger and podcaster. He writes about the intersection of advertising, marketing and PR at The Social Media Marketing Blog and also writes The Baker Street Blog and cohosts I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, two literary undertakings. Scott has been featured in hundreds of news and business publications in print and on the web, in nearly dozens of books, and on a variety of mainstream media, including NBC, NPR, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Scott is a recognized thought leader in the social media industry and frequently speaks at industry events.

Scott received his Master's in Medical Science from Boston University's School of Medicine concurrently with his MBA from BU's Graduate School of Management. He lives in the greater Detroit area with his wife and two young sons, golfs all too infrequently, and has a hidden talent for voice over work.

Oh, and one last little-known fact: Scott coined the Oxford Dictionary of English-accepted term "tweetup."

You may download a headshot here, courtesy of Rosh Sillars; a PDF version of Scott's bio is here .

Books in which Scott or his work is featured:

The Social Media Strategist

Social Business by Design

Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications

Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now

Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business

Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements

Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead

MicroMarketing: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small

Spend Shift: How the Post-Crisis Values Revolution Is Changing the Way We Buy, Sell and Live

Power Friending: Demystifying Social Media to Grow Your Business

The New Rules of Marketing & PR

by David Meerman Scott

Twitterville
by Shel Israel

Six Pixels of Separation
by Mitch Joel

Monkeys with Typewriters
by Jemima Gibbons

Read This First
by Ron Ploof

World Wide Rave
by David Meerman Scott

Get Seen
by Steve Garfield

Disclosures/Relationships

Scott is on the board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium

Scott has been named to the Advisory boards of Pivot, SavvyAuntie, Business Smart Tools, The Hive Awards,
Scott is a judge for the SAMMY Awards

Named one of iMedia's 25 Top Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators

Humongo occasionally does web work for me and designed this site

No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

Scott Monty Bio

Speaking Events

Scott speaks on social media at events, seminars and conferences around the world. His topic generally focuses on corporate use of social media, becoming an online spokesperson, and specifically on the progress that Ford has made in the recent past. If you're interested in booking Scott to speak at your event, please click here to submit a speaking request for Ford-related purposes or email me at speaking [AT] this site's URL (if you know what I mean) to send a general email request.. Scott's bio and headshot can be found in the "About Scott" tab above.

Who is Scott Monty?

Hi, I'm Scott. I'm the global head of social media for Ford Motor Company. This is my personal blog, where I share my perspectives on social media - the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web - for marketers, agencies, the enterprise and the individual. This blog contains my personal views. My bio is available here and my headshots can be found here.