Julie Tyios - Cocktails After 6

In an increasingly crowded marketspace, you must do more to stand out and earn the mindshare of your customers.

This is a lesson the Jugnoo team learned from our recent adventures at SXSW Interactive, and based on what we saw we thought we'd share with you some ways that businesses of all sizes can get a competitive marketing advantage--online and off.

Know your customers

SXSW may be growing by leaps and bounds every year, but one of the ubiquitous aspects of the conference is swag--it's everywhere.

People hand it out on the streets, at events, at conference sessions, in lounges. In fact, it practically rains swag in Austin during SXSW.

The following is a guest post from Jugnoo blogger Joey Strawn, which originally appeared on the Jugnoo Social CRM Insider blog.

On Monday we started a deeper conversation about Social Business and how it relates to the Social Customer we've talked about before. We'll be talking more about Social Business as we go on, but today I wanted to point out a very important point: social business and a business using social media are not the same thing.

A Social CRM will only thrive in a company willing to look deeper than simply the tools they use to interact with customers. By limiting how brands and companies approach the idea of Social CRM and where that idea will live within the organization, most companies effectively negate any positive aspects of bringing aboard a Social CRM in the first place. It's like putting a frame around only one-third of a great painting.

I know I haven't blogged in a while--I confess, I've been busy--but I have some very big news: Next week, I'll be joining the team at Jugnoo as their Senior Manager of Retention and Social Media; a huge step forward for my career.

Over the past three-and-a-half years I've focused on building my business, Red Juice Media, which has been an amazing experience filled with great people, great clients and, above all, lots of work that has helped me learn and grow with social media. It is on this foundation that I'm stepping up into my new role at Jugnoo, a fantastic startup that's looking to change the way small businesses approach social media.