Participatory Marketing Network to Host Webinar with Edelman Digital’s Steve Rubel
Webinar Topic: The New Rules Of Customer Service – Participate Or Perish

NEW YORK (March 17, 2009) — The Participatory Marketing Network (PMN), a new organization dedicated to helping marketers transition from push and permission marketing to participatory marketing, today announced a new webinar, with leading blogger and social media expert Steve Rubel. Rubel is SVP, Director of Insights at Edelman and authors the popular Micro Persuasion blog on digital trends (www.micropersuasion.com), which launched in 2004 and has 50,000 daily readers. In addition, he is actively followed by more than 16,000 people on Twitter and writes a bi-weekly column for Advertising Age. Rubel’s topic for the webinar, “The New Rules Of Customer Service – Participate Or Perish,” provides a framework on how to increase customer service satisfaction using social media and encouraging participation. The Webinar will be sponsored by TNS Cymfony, a PMN Premiere Sponsor and leader in analyzing market influence in social and traditional media. To register for the live webinar, which takes place at 2 PM EST on Tuesday May 26th click here.

“We’re delighted to showcase the talents and insights of one of the industry’s foremost thought leaders in social media,” said Michael Della Penna, Co-founder and Executive Chairman “From his popular blog Micro Persuasion to his work on digital trends at Edelman, there is certainly no person better qualified to help brands understand how to leverage the power of participation to grow customer relationships.”

Webinar Details:
The New Rules Of Customer Service – Participate Or Perish
Let's face it, the world has changed - a generation is emerging that will never dial a 1-800 number to reach customer service. New enabling technologies have made consumers more efficient self-organizers, hyper-connectors and mass producers of their own media. This necessitates that companies adapt and become more nimble. It also means companies must embrace participatory marketing strategies and tactics to address customer issues and to evolve and protect their brand.

In this session, noted Web 2.0 expert Steve Rubel will provide:

• A guide to increasing customer service satisfaction using social media participation
• An overview of the tools and technologies used to monitor, track, manage and improve customer interactions
• A review of successful inbound marketing strategies and tactics

For more information about Steve visit: Steve Rubel’s Bio
For more information about our sponsor visit: Cymfony’s Website

The PMN was recently launched to help marketers navigate change as consumers increasingly turn to each other for insight and information rather than brands. The Participatory Marketing Network will help marketers make the transition from push and permission marketing to participatory marketing – which is all about taking advantage of the social Web. The Network’s mission is to help educate marketers about how to market WITH customers rather than AT them. Its will focus on the strategies and tactics that exemplify this kind of thinking and, most important, it will demonstrate why participatory marketing is so powerful by spotlighting brands that are already “doing it right.”

For more information about the Participatory Marketing Network or to inquire about membership, please go to http://www.thepmn.org.

###