By Kwasi Fraser

Well, while the feud between Mayor Cory Booker and Conan O’Brien was going on, Mayor Booker was still in the business of working for the city of Newark and getting things done.  MrSilver, the alias of one of the founding members of the social media search engine and analytics company, Samepoint (www.Samepoint.com), can attest to that. 

MrSilver owns a mixed used building in the City of Newark and has witnessed a significant spike in the water charges over the last two months, amounting to over an 1100% increase.  This increase was in spite of the fact that one of the apartments was vacant during this period and two of the commercial tenants occupy the building for at most 4 days per week.  After making several failed attempts to contact the City of Newark Water department, MrSilver decided to take his request for resolution to the social web. 

On Tuesday October 6th 2009, MrSilver posted the following Tweet at the Mayor of Newark “@CoryBooker I need your help, our water bill increased by over 1120% over the past 4 months. No one is returning my calls to resolve this.”  Within minutes the Mayor of Newark responded to MrSilver with “Please DM me your phone # & I’ll call 2nite. RT @mrsilver I need your help, our water bill increased by over 1120% over the past 4 months.”  MrSilver then shared his information with the Mayor and they both spoke on the morning of Wednesday October 7th, 2009. 

Following the conversation the Mayor’s staff escalated the issue and was able to coordinate and schedule an investigation with the City of Newark Water Department.  MrSilver expressed his gratitude to the mayor and his staff for the quick call to action, and remains hopeful that the issue will come to a speedy resolution.  The exchange, along with updates, between Mayor Cory Booker and MrSilver can be tracked via the below links:

http://www.samepoint.com/real-time.php?q=Water+Bill+Increased

http://www.samepoint.com/real-time.php?q=MrSilver

Most CMOs I’ve spoken to recently have hinted at a decrease in their overall marketing budget.  Many are looking to social media as a more cost-effective means of building brand, driving traffic and delivering a strong bang for the buck.  But, most don’t know where to begin.  That’s the social media quandry - where to begin the conversation…

I always advise friends, relatives and clients that the first step in social media is listening.  You need to monitor the noise to find the buzz.  That’s what Samepoint is all about, finding out what people are saying about your brand, product, company or self.

After you find the conversations that relate to you, become part of that discussion.  Once you’re making your opinions known, you’ll see how the world of Social Media opens up new avenues of conversations, as well as new relationships and insights.

Social media can offer an extremely cost-efficient marketing channel.  There is no cost to making a comment, or emailing an influential blogger, or writing a post yourself.  The only expense is that of your time.  So, listen to what’s being said and get involved in the conversation.  Since most marketers are cutting back on their ad dollars, they’ll have plenty of time to tap into social media.  Once you start, the return on investment will become evident.

Stephen Pierce of DTAlpha Talkback gave us a nice plug on his podcast, titled, “8 Cool Resources Oozing with Power to Make YOU More Money.”

With a podcast name like that, how can you not give it a listen.  Thanks Stephen.  We appreciate the praise. And we look forward to hearing many more of your conversations.