Recently, our good friend Tamara Gielen passed the Blog Olympics “stick” to us when she posted her favorite blogs. It was quite the task to narrow it down to 7 blogs, as there are about 20 of our favorites that we would like to include on this list. It is now our Blog Olympics duty and pleasure to share our 7 favorite blogs that we like to read:

• No Man is an iland
• EmailKarma
• B2B Lead Generation Blog
• Small Business Trends
• Techno//Marketer
• Techcrunch
• The Email Wars

Now that we’ve listed our favorite blogs, it’s their turn to step up. The blogs that we’ve listed should now pass the stick and list their 7 favorite blogs…see the trend? The favorite blogs do not have to be email marketing blogs.

Please note that the blogs are listed in no particular order. The only rule is that you have to link to the blog that passed the stick to you, but you cannot add this blog to your list of favorite blogs.

Enjoy and keep on passing the stick!

There has been a lot of talk in the industry lately about the “subscriber experience.” We want to know about your opt-in process. Click here to answer our short survey and share your thoughts with us. We’ll post the results in our next issue.

Here’s the breakdown of social media tool usage from our previous survey:

Linked In 100%
Facebook 83.3%
Blogs 83.3%
Twitter 50%
Summize 50%
RSS 50%
Ning 33.3%
Delicious 33.3%
Widgets 33.3%
Digg 33.3%
MySpace 16.7%
Podcast (Audio/Video) 16.7%

Capturing customer intent can prove to be a difficult task if you do not use the right approach. I recently attended a webinar on this topic, hosted by Blue Sky Factory clients, Chris Brogan and John Stone of CrossTech Media and CrossTech Partners. Many of you may know Chris Brogan from his excellent blog, where he shares his insights as a social media expert. Chris joined John and covered how to approach this issue in “Capturing Customer Intent: Digital and Face to Face Channels.”

The purpose of the webinar was to explain how to capture customer intent from a company’s standpoint. These stages are attract, engage, transact, fulfill, support, and retain. All of the stages are equally important and Chris and John stressed the importance of communication in each stage. The key points I took away were:

• Consider content marketing and relationship marketing strategies right away.
• Build an audience intelligence solution.
• Listen across your touch points and across the web.
• Integrate your digital marketing and live event channels.

They also touched on social networking, blogging, and building strong relationships. It’s not easy to find a connected process to deal with all of these stages, but if you can get it right you have the opportunity to improve customer retention, create new opportunities, enhance service, and lower your costs.

 To view the recorded version of this webinar,  click here.

 The results are in from our Mobile Device Survey:
* 70% of you use a mobile device to view emails
* 41% of you receive HTML emails with images on these devices?
* 64% of you save emails on your mobile device to view later on your PC
* 62% of you use the view in browser link on your mobile device

Social Media’s growth and influence on the web continues to explode. We’re interested to see what kind of tools you use! Click here to share your thoughts, and look our for the results in the near future.

I came to work for Blue Sky Factory less than one year after I completed my undergraduate college program. Finishing school and entering the corporate world was quite a shock, in more ways than one. During my college experience, the social networking site Facebook exploded. Just 5 years ago, many people may not have known about Facebook. Nowadays, it seems impossible that someone might not have at least heard of it. After graduating from college, I continued to Facebook faithfully. Like many other young professionals, I was using Facebook to keep up with friends without having to make that dreaded phone call, look at their photos and post my own, and keep tabs on people from the past.

Within my first month of working at Blue Sky Factory under our CEO, Greg Cangialosi, I learned that social networking communities could be used as a marketing tool and not just to keep up with old friends. I observed our company’s branding consistently grow through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. I had never thought of the possibility of using social networking to build professional relationships, not to mention increase business exposure and branding! Not only does Greg use his personal page on Facebook to network and communicate with other professionals in the industry, there is a completely separate page for Blue Sky Factory.

The page features everything about our company that anyone would need to know - from our company’s overview, to upcoming events and recent blog updates. The page is maintained as a marketing vehicle and notes are frequently added regarding company news, stories from our monthly newsletter (Factory Direct), and other BSF updates. We use the page to not only educate people about our company and industry, but we also keep it up-to-date with information that people can use and that will keep them coming back. Our employees, clients and others who have an interest in our company are “fans” of the Blue Sky Factory page. To check out the BSF page or become a fan, click here. You can see who’s a fan of the page (maybe someone you know?), top stories, events, notes, and discussions.

As a new addition to the company, it is important for me to stay on top of the latest technologies and branding opportunities. I have learned that what I use in my personal life can be leveraged in the workplace as well. As more and more professionals and businesses join Facebook and other social networking sites, we will continue to see marketing opportunities present themselves in places we may not have thought of before, but that make perfect sense.