Our social media coach Janet Fouts just posted a very interesting article on social media measurement in the IABC newsletter. We’ve always held that you can’t hold your social media presence to one metric or the other, but that the important thing is to figure out what your goals are, how you will measure success and then determine what tools and strategies will reach your goals. However, people still insist on having metrics.

The debate continues. Recently we’ve had a lot of discussions internally and with others in the field about setting expectations. When do you expect to see return on the time invested in creating long term relationships? One of our clients pointed out that she often spends 6 moths to a year just to gather data, segment the market and determine the goals for a particular marketing campaign. Then it may take another 6 moths to a year to see the carefully created alliances blossom into measurable return. Yet people seem to expect that a social media marketing campaign will happen faster because the reaction to a particular post or video can happen so quickly.

the thing to remember here is that those times when you get a big hit in social media seldom sustain the interest. These days the attention span is short and the consumer moves off after the next big wave in a heartbeat.

So, what to do? Build lasting relationships with the knowledge that you’re not in “this” for the short haul. You are building long term programs to help increase communication of your message and turn your faithful friends, followers and readers into evangelists. Your virtual sales force.

While we invite you to discuss your campaign with us (well, Janet actually), we ask you to be realistic in your goals and to believe us when we tell you the truth about social media instead of what you’d maybe like to hear.

Social media is hard work and it takes a committed team to build trust in their relationships. That doesn’t happen quickly, but we firmly believe that a relationship based on trust and sharing information will reap bigger rewards than any flash-in-the-pan campaign.

We’re very excited to announce the site we built for The Dining Room at the Langham has won a Magellan Award for 2009! The Magellan Awards received entries from top travel organizations and professionals worldwide, and to be selected a Magellan Award Winner is a tremendous achievement and showcases the high standard of excellence maintained by The Dining Room at the Langham within the travel industry.

Tatu Digital Media created the website as well as a Wordpress blog and Twitter presence for the restaurant and Janet worked with them as a social media coach. The site showcases Chef Michael Voltaggio’s cuisine (Yes, he’s the one from Top Chef!) and The Dining Room’s elegant ambiance with beautiful photography.

Way to go team!

We are quite proud of this site. It really shows off the amazing cuisine, the well deserved world-wide accolades to the chef and their amazing staff. It’s always good to know that our colleagues at the Web Marketing Association think so too. Congrats to the design and coding teams on an excellent job!

Hey, we got a design award way back in June and plumb forgot to tell you about it! It’s a nice award because it comes from our peers for a site that we are quite proud of, the Ritz Carlton Dining Room in San Francisco.
Check out the award here.

Hey, a little recognition is due our designers, CJ Brasiel and Gary Epting, who received Web Marketing Association Awards for Healthcare Providers and again in Medical for Hearwell for Life.

The Ritz Carlton San Francisco site won in the Restaurant Category.
Congratulations!

Everybody wants to make their office “greener” these days. We work hard at Tatu Digital to be as green as a office full of electricity guzzling computers and gadgets can be.
Another way is to support other businesses who are helping the world be a greener place. We came across a pretty cool stock agency that not only has archives full of vintage images, but they go he extra mile to go green too.
Alamy sent money to Climate Care to purchase carbon offsets and used the offsets to pay for a project to supply solar powered electric lanterns to low-income families in Kerala, India. How cool is that?

New to buying carbon offsets? You’re not alone, but it’s a booming business of late.

Here’s the deal.
Say you’re driving a relatively fuel efficient passenger car to work every day. You get about 30 mpg, and you’re driving 12,000 miles/year. Your commuting will release about 3.55 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year.
But wait, you can offset your carbon emissions by buying offsets. Your offsets are used for projects that actually reduce the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere, thereby zeroing out your shameful destruction of the environment.

While it seems like a bit like going to confession this actually DOES make a difference in the world. Carbon offset projects are for things like renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects. Often in under developing countries who need the help. As more and more people get a clue about global warming look for ways to reduce their climate impact, carbon offsets can provide an important solution to global warming.

It doesn’t mean you don’t have to conserve, but it does mean you can spend a little money to help others and maybe not feel so bad about driving that you can’t avoid.

Want to know more? Check out Carbon Fund or Treehugger.com (don’t giggle) for more info.

Tatu is excited to announce that Chefs for Humanity has won another award for design and useability!
We’ve been awarded a “Standard of Excellence” in the Non-Profit category from the Web Marketing Association for 2006.

We’re proud ofthe site and the cause it supports. Way to go team!

Campagne Restaurant website wins a Gold award in the third annual Portfolios.com Awards Show!

The competition was international and websites were selected in areas of Advertising, Graphic and Web Design, Photography and Illustration.
Check out the rest of the winners and don’t forget to stop by the virtual party!.

Hey, not one but TWO awards! This one is for our design of Campagne Restaurant and Café which won a “Standard of Excellence” from the Web Marketing Association.

Who? The Web Marketing Association is the producer of the WebAward Competition.
Now in its 9th year, the WebAwards is the premier annual award competition that judges website
development against an ever increasing Internet standard and against peer sites within their industry.

We’re proud of the site and happy for the hardworking team at Campagne Restaurant and Café,
one of Seattle’s finest French restaurants.

We’re happy to announce that ONTHERAIL.com won a “Standard of Excellence” from the Web Marketing Association.

Who? The Web Marketing Association is the producer of the WebAward Competition.
Now in its 9th year, the WebAwards is the premier annual award competition that judges website
development against an ever increasing Internet standard and against peer sites within their industry.

We’re pleased to see this recognition for ONTHERAIL, which has set a standard in design
in the industry since 1996.