Larry Mathis offers independent financial planning and investment management throughout the U.S. through his affiliation with United Planners Financial Services of America.

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In one week in January, 97 million Americans viewed a streaming clip online — as many as are tuning into any major broadcast network — according to a recent survey of 1,000 U.S. active Web users ages 16-65.

What’s more, with 72% of U.S. Web users watching clips online, Web video outstrips both blogging and social networking, and is now the leading “social-media platform.” MediaPost.com

For more read MediaPost.com.

Communicating via  Social Media or blogs allows people another level of connectedness (is that a word?) that email does not. You can interact better with multiple participants on one topic. In the email world, all the FWD: and RE: in your mailbox are messy and are not organized well without your purposeful effort to do so.

Social Media and Blogs fixes the problem of clutter in your in box.  Each topic has its own dedicated page where people leave their comments. Unlike email, they typically don’t have to quote the parts of the email deserving a response. Social Media and blogs use @username nomenclature to address what was said before or to provide feedback. Much shorter and typically not requiring a quote because what @username said is just listed a few inches above.

Of course there are exceptions of the posts with tons of comments and then you need to weave through it similar to the email world, however it is still better because all the replies are organized under one topic, typically on one page.

Social Media also provides an excellent way to discuss pictures, video, links, and other digital assets people are sharing, whereas email often chokes with a size limit problem.

Connect with us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and join the conversation!

The project in short was a highly interactive online experience of people letting their worries go by selecting one of four ways: hot air balloon, submarine, rocket or my favorite a medieval catapult. By selecting worries people were casting votes for their “favorite” worry which was associated with a real world charity.

Yesterday Northwestern Mutual announced the result of the voting and distribution of $1,000,000 which was associated with this campaign:

Receiving more than 42,000 votes, the Northwestern Mutual Foundation will contribute $400,000 to the YMCA to support Healthy Kids Day programming across the country.

Additionally, Habitat for Humanity – New Orleans is receiving $250,000, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is receiving $200,000 and Feeding America is receiving $150,000. (source)

It was fun to be a part of this campaign project for Northwestern Mutual. I took part of it as an interactive manager while I was employed by Northwestern Mutual at that time.

A big part of this campaign was also a Facebook application which was developed. It was a “mini” version of the full version online experience.

We learned many valueable lessons during this campaing in viral online marketing. One of them was that a great interactive content will make to #1 of The Favourite Website Awards. We did get the highly desired S.O.T.D. ribbon from the FWA. Another top featured spot on the Reader’s Digest website. Tons of bloggers featured our interactive website and gave tons of positive reviews.

From time to time we will feature on this blog projects worth mentioning. We started with this one since I had a first hand experience with it.

Stay tuned for more. Subscribe to our RSS feed or email alerts with new content.

SDG

It started a few years ago when friends requested if I would be interested in doing  some work for them “on the side.” I did. A few successful (side) projects later, we started to dream about how great it would be to do this full time on our own.

My “day job” was a dream job for me. I worked for 8 years for one of the best companies in the world – Northwestern Mutual. This was “a problem” as I was not being motivated enough to break the ties of working for this Fortune 116 company. I worked with great people (mostly), fun projects (such as Let Your Worries Go, Social Media programs, Facebook apps, SEO, SEM, Lead Generation, hundreds of micro websites, thousands of agent websites, and much more), great benefits, and most important – FREE lunch every day in one of the 4 on-site cafeterias loaded to the fullest.  How could I break this off? I could not.

In July of 2008 we decided to make a move across the country from Milwaukee WI to Phoenix AZ in search of sunshine. I gave my Northwestern Mutual boss 2 months notice and they decided to keep me on, working from my new home in Phoenix AZ, as a consultant. I thought great, I still can not break the ties. But I was grateful for ongoing work, but without the FREE lunches.

In December of 2008, due to budgetary reasons, Northwestern Mutual called to give me two weeks notice, and that was it. At first we had some mixed emotions, but then after 5 minutes we thought, wow, this is great, now we could possibly start our own gig and see where it takes us. So, Interactive Web Works, LLC was born.

Today, almost two and a half months later, we are keeping busy more than full time, and are blessed with 11 great clients and a couple dozen good prospects. Business has taken off and we are thankful.

This blog will feature various aspects of our business and many interesting industry related topics.

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Soli Deo Gloria