Julia Rosien
Julia Rosien, Communications Director for Natura World Inc., announced that she is leaving the company to embark on a consulting career in the home and furnishings industries as a Social Media Optimization consultant with her newly formed company, SocialNorth.com (www.socialnorth.com). During her two-year tenure with Natura, Rosien pioneered the social networking landscape and launched three websites that saw unprecedented traffic growth and brand awareness for the company.
Rosien was an early adapter, putting Natura on facebook and twitter. She also leveraged an extensive network of Indi and mom bloggers who were happy to share their experiences with the company on their blogs – and all their individual social networks.
She noted that SocialNorth.com will offer a full suite of services including:
- Showing companies where they’re losing traffic to competitors and point them to the biggest wins right out of the gate.
- Launching social media platforms based on keyword research and search engine optimization best practices.
- Offering training sessions to bring expertise in-house so social media and SEO wins continue into the future.
- Sharing linking strategies, content generation and keyword research that optimize findability online – now and in the future.
Rosien has been named one of the most influential women in social media in various blogs and has a following in the tens of thousands. She believes success for companies happens when they invest in developing content, smart web strategies and growing online communities.
“Yamaha said it best in an online conversation with someone from their community – If you’re going to get naked, you better be buff,” says Rosien. “There are so many people claiming to be social media experts because they’ve mastered facebook or twitter, but they really don’t have the experience or track record of success. Sitting at home in your pj’s twittering does not always translate into a strategic, workable plan.”
Rosien’s Safe Sleep Campaign with Natura hurled Natura into the world on viral marketing. During the campaign, online traffic to Natura increased by 75%, page views by 180% and traffic from facebook alone swelled by 1000%.
Companies big and small are flocking to social media to reduce their marketing budgets. The beauty of the medium is the ability to get involved at a grassroots level and growing a community of believers that will take your brand and share it. “Creating an online community is like going to a gym – you aren’t going to see results if you only visit once a month but if you’re there every day, things start to happen,” says Rosien. “And going every day takes strategy, discipline and the right person leading the charge.”
Prior to joining Natura, Rosien began her career as a freelance journalist, contributing to national publications such as The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun and Women’s Health Magazine. She served as the senior editor (and managed a stable of 75 freelancers) for the second largest pregnancy magazine in the US before it closed its doors in 2006. From there she took on a team of travel writers and pioneered the online space for social networking opportunities. She quickly saw quantifiable results that can be difficult to collect in the traditional marketing world.
Julia managed a community that saw more than 2 million visitors monthly. She saw all manners of behavior online – some of it not very attractive – and learned the how to navigate through the social networking landscape long before the rest of the world realized its existence.
Rosien gives Natura full kudos for pioneering social media for the bedding industry. “When I was hired, no one else in the industry was doing it and Ralph Rossdeutscher created the position for me,” says Rosien. “Ralph took a big risk that social media was going to take off and they reaped the rewards of being the first – and I believe, most powerful – out of the gate.”
Rosien is a regular speaker at industry events, a member of the Better Sleep Council as well as a Vice President for WithIt. Upcoming speaking engagements include Furniture Today’s Tech Conference in Chicago, Blissdom in Toronto and Vegas Furniture Market in February.
To reach Julia Rosien online, visit SocialNorth.com online: www.socialnorth.com