I am thrilled to welcome a true innovator and internet-marketing pioneer to the growing Vitrue team. Well, I should say “Welcome Back,” as many know J.B. Kropp was a key contributor in the very early days of Vitrue.  From 2006-2008, he served as our Vice President of Strategic Development.  J.B. has rejoined us and will serve as Vice President of Channel Partnerships where he’ll be responsible for expanding our product suite across our partner channels, giving Vitrue a much larger footprint nationwide.  A primary focus for J.B. will be developing new partnerships and expanding current ones with publishers, agencies and technology companies as those relationships will be pivotal for our future.

J.B. is certainly qualified and up-to-the-challenge, bringing almost 15 years of product, operations and strategic-leadership experience to Vitrue. He has both started and participated in numerous early-stage advertising and marketing companies such as Sharkle.com, Flycast Network, Web Visible and Cucina.com. He most recently served as an executive with ShareThis, the company known for the social-sharing tool that now reaches more than 400 million users across 130,000 sites on the web. During his more than two years at ShareThis, J.B. led the product strategy and distribution efforts helping pave the wave for the company’s outstanding success.

J.B. is joining Vitrue at a very exciting time as we are experiencing tremendous growth with our client base, technologies and research advancements. He is extremely creative and knowledgeable and will immediately make his mark here at Vitrue.  With J.B. joining our talented staff, we are uniquely positioned to continue our growth and further solidify our status as the leading social media management company. Welcome back, J.B.!

In the past few weeks, as the social media market continues to expand, we have continued to augment our staff and gear up for our next phase of growth.  Our new hires coincide with the accelerated adoption of full service social media solutions as leading marketers continue to look for long-term solutions that scale.

We are excited to announce the expansion of our San Francisco presence bolstered by the hiring of a seasoned Internet veteran, Jim Tramel. Jim comes to Vitrue to anchor our west coast efforts and provide tighter coordination of the global opportunities with Facebook. Vitrue is privileged to provide solutions to marketers who want to build a presence on Facebook and across the social web. Facebook is an extremely important channel partner for Vitrue, and having Jim on board to continue to foster that relationship will be key to our future growth plans.  Jim brings over 15 years of business development experience in the interactive space, including roles at Facebook, PayPal and Slide.  As our offerings for marketers who want to build and manage presence on Facebook continue to expand, Jim is the perfect fit with his experience to galvanize and coordinate the relationship and opportunities with Facebook on a global basis.

Brent Campbell and Joe Wasco also joined the business development team and are based in New York City. Brent brings several years of social media, agency and online experience. Joe also joins Vitrue just after completing a brand management associateship for Nike at the Rotterdam School of Management. Previously Joe successfully established relationships with C-level enterprise accounts resulting in multi-year partnerships for Sprint where he was responsible for existing account growth and new business acquisition.

On the engineering front, Ben Turner joins from AutoTrader.com to support increasing user-interface and design needs.  Ben brings a stellar combination of design and technical talent. Melinda Weathers and Eric Schmitt also join as software engineers to focus on client implementations and develop long-term growth plans to support enterprise level clients with reoccurring annual engagements.

On the product innovation side, we have added John Schult, a veteran programmer.  With nearly two decades of product design and innovation from EarthLink and Fusive, we are thrilled to bring his skill set to the ongoing refinement of the Vitrue SRM application suite.

We warmly welcome the new team members listed above and remain committed to finding the best and most passionate people in the business to continually deliver on our core values of integrity, leadership and innovation in social media marketing.  We know marketers want partners who can scale, grow with them and fundamentally understand their opportunities and challenges.

We are always on the look out for excellent talent.  If you want to be part of the next wave of making brands social please drop us a line at info@vitrue.com.

In April we posted a video on YouTube as I wanted to share my thoughts on the looming economic recession and the tremendous opportunity social media can play to help navigate through it.

Getting social is imperative for brands in terms of marketing but that just scratches the surface of a larger opportunity that companies should be driving toward.  Through customer care centers, many companies are off-shoring their customers by outsourcing their call centers.  As reported by MediaPost yesterday, consumers hate offshore call centers and “are nearly twice as likely to recommend the company to others if they think the contact center is in the U.S., while they are three times more likely to defect if they believe it is based offshore,” reports the Contact Center Satisfaction Index.

Social media provides a fundamental opportunity to create jobs here by getting companies to realize the importance of managing their relationships on Facebook and Twitter.  It is time to take social media out of the back room and put it in the board room as we need to rethink the way we are embracing our customers.

Companies that will win will be those that develop one to one relationships with their consumers.

Social media can be a disruptive innovation that helps our economy improve and grow as it can create real jobs for real Americans.

In the future, I believe functions within a company will blend as social media pulls together the functions of marketing, customer service and sales.  Some companies are starting to think this way and the call center is evolving to include social media.

An article earlier this week from InfoWorld also reinforced this with stats and commentary from a report released by Datamonitor “The Rise of Social Networking and Emerging Channels in Customer Service”. Analyst Ian Jacob’s points out “Social networks will not be a flash-in-the-pan craze and will not simply disappear or burn themselves out,” he said. “Companies that choose to simply ignore this trend will relegate themselves to the outdated, fuddy-duddy camp--an important distinction depending on a company’s desired demographic--and more worryingly, maybe even to obsolescence.”

I couldn’t agree more and as mentioned earlier this month, 2009 has become the true inflection point for social media as consumer adoption is mainstream.

Consumers are actively engaging with brands and telling them their issue, their suggestion, their complaint, their endorsement.

Brands need to be there - listening , responding and cultivating relationships one issue at at time like all call centers do.

On June 15, I’ll be speaking at O’Reilly Media’s Twitter Boot Camp: Game-winning Strategies and Tactics for Business, a one-day event in New York City.

I thought you might like to attend: You will learn how Twitter can build your brand and help you engage with customers, partners, and other businesses in a direct way that’s both personal and public. Many leading Twitter experts will be there sharing their valuable knowledge and experience.

Right now, O’Reilly is offering a friends and family discount of $100 off the registration fee. It’s a great deal—just go to training.oreilly.com/twitterbootcamp and use the code ORMFF when you register.