1. Find that one thing that you do well, and OWN it!

Disney’s thing, like Zappos’, is delivering happiness. Disney’s theme parks around the world (currently Anaheim, Florida, Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong, with Shanghai coming soon) are branded the “Happiest Places on Earth”, and they excel at creating happy family memories.



2. Create a company culture that inspires ALL of your employees.

Without exception, each and every Disney cast member I met was happy, upbeat, and genuinely interested in what they could do personally to make my family and me happy, regardless of their actual job description. Disney may excel at hiring and training, but I believe it’s the company culture that Walt Disney created that continues to inspire employees to today.



3. Be ubiquitous in your customers’ lives.

I realize being a two-toddler household places me in the center of Disney’s marketing crosshairs, but take a look around you at how many instances of Disneyana you encounter in an average day. When I go to the Post Office, I’m greeted by Toy Story’s Buzz and Woody. Sorry Martha, but the term omnimedia applies to no one better than the world’s largest media and entertainment conglomerate with: animation and live-action film production, television, travel, theatre, radio, publishing, and online media. Every Disney hit, of which there are many, is aggressively licensed, bringing in not only substantial additional revenue, but helping to market the source material.



4. Empower your employees to satisfy customers, and give them the tools they need to do so.

Over the course of the week, I was never once told “let me speak with my manager”. No matter how small or large, the help I received was always immediate, facilitated by support systems which never appeared to be offline.



5. Engage your customers to continually improve your products.

I had been to Disney before, but was surprised by the large number of “new” attractions. Yes, the characters from my own childhood were still there, but they all of the latest characters were also front and center.



6. Give back to the communities in which you operate.

The city of Orlando is as much the house that Walt built as the Walt Disney World theme park itself. Arguably, Disney put Orlando on the map, creating an “anchor store” which supports thousands of other businesses. Disney is also an active supporter of Orlando-area charities, and gives free passes to children whose families cannot afford the admission fees.



To me, Disney is the most successful company on earth. Not in terms of the highest revenues or earnings, but in their ability to make the world a better place through their mission of delivering happiness on a daily basis to such large numbers of people around the world.



What’s next for Disney? I have no doubt Disney’s Imagineers are already testing ways to leverage social networking and geolocation to further engage their customers. I can see both kids and adults earning Foursquare badges for every ride and attraction (”Mayor (or should that be ‘Captain’) of the Pirates of the Caribbean!”), and knowing real-time where their friends are in the parks. On the last day of our trip, we ended up sitting next to my daughter’s dentist on the train. Had all of us been using Foursquare, we would have known the day we arrived that both families were visiting Disney at the same time.



As we continue to build SocialGrow, I will keep in mind what I learned from Walt, and an iconic little mouse.

At the March Web Innovators Group meeting here in Boston, it really hit me how our engaging people on social networks, by sharing what we know and what we are doing in social media, has had an incredibly positive impact for SocialGrow’s brand awareness and recognition in the real-world.



I felt like everyone at the event had seen Jennie White’s “5 Startups Who Are Killing it on Twitter” article she had published earlier that day, so immediately recognized SocialGrow on my nametag and knew who I was. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that before at an event. Everyone wanted to know more about our software application, and how we’re using Twitter to reach out to potential users. We all know how much easier it is to talk about your company, your brand, and your products with someone when they have read something about you online. Especially with a product that does something which hasn’t been done before, social media gives you real-time feedback to help you explain the unique value of your product in a way that traditional advertising cannot.



Jennie’s article was not our first online recognition, however, we’ve also been named one of MassHighTech’s “5 Startups You Should Follow”, and Microsoft’s global BizSpark Startup of the Day. SocialGrow’s participation in Microsoft’s BizSpark Startup program, has further enabled us to connect and engage with our potential users online.



So how can a tech startup, and for that matter, ANY new company use social networks and online social media marketing “introduce” themselves to their target customers and help those customers to understand their brand’s unique value?



1. Hire a great CMO, who is both strategic and hands-on. You need someone who deeply understands not just marketing in general, but social media marketing in particular. SocialGrow’s CMO Ken Herron started engaging potential users online months before we launched our Alpha release, and has steadily worked his way up Kent Huffman’s Systemic Marketing’s “Top CMOs on Twitter” list.



2. Freely and generously share your expertise in your blog posts, Twitter streams, Facebook Fan pages, comments on others peoples’ blog posts, and MeetUp groups. Don’t forget to take advantage of any PR opportunities you see at Peter Shankman’s HARO.



3. Share your content so as to maximize its SEO and potential for virality, by being sure to include keywords which will help people to find what you’ve written. Required reading for all of us how to increase the effectiveness of our inbound marketing efforts are: HubSpot, David Meerman Scott, and Dan Zarrella.



4. Share “link love” with the people who you believe to be the best in your field (as I did in tip number 3 above), and they may share it back with you through their tweets and posts.



5. Continually create and share quality content. On Twitter, post at least 3 times a day, and on your blog, post at least once a week.



6. Actively participate in in-person networking events, proactively seeking out and introducing yourself to the other participants. At the last LaunchCamp Boston event, I made it a point to seek out Jeff Cutler, Joselin Mane, and Jason Evanish. Don’t be afraid to sit in the front row, as I did in Scott Kirsner and Wade Roush’s session on PR.



7. Hire a great designer to visualize your brand’s identity. SocialGrow’s logo was designed to communicate the concept of healthy, positive growth, and we use it everywhere so people will instantly know when it’s us talking.



8. Finally, pay it forward. All new companies need help. If you can help a fellow startup with introductions, feedback, or simply being a good beta tester to help them to improve their product, then do it. You will not only make new friends, but learn things which will help your business along the way. Then when you need help yourself, and you will, you’ll have these people in your network. We all want to be successful!



Learn more about SocialGrow, and our milestones to date on our Crunchbase profile.



How have YOU used online social networking to increase your company’s brand awareness? I look forward to your comments!