In other words, SocialEars is magic

So maybe the 10 trivia questions were too hard, but that really wasn't the point.

Neither was our 10th Anniversary Celebration (Get it? One question for each year?), although we're very proud of the fact that we were an early adapter of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and that we've helped hundreds of HR suppliers in the greater HR B2B space grow their businesses, while witnessing the amazing tech trends of social and mobile turn enterprise innovation and the world of work inside out.

Only a couple of you got 9 out of 10 of the trivia questions right, not counting the bonus question:

What is the name of HRmarketer’s new service, to be launched at HR Tech 2011, which captures the tweets, blogs, and online conversations from thousands of HR and B2B journalists, analysts and other “voices” and uses a proprietary algorithm to show what topics are trending and who is influencing those topics?

Many of you did get that one right at the end, which was the point, if you were paying attention.

What the heck am I talking about?

Well, I'm talking about our launch of SocialEars, our groundbreaking algorithm that captures real-time online content, and analyzes the tweets, blogs and online articles by thousands of HR journalists, media outlets, analysts and thought leaders, who we call social voices, to show which topics are trending and who is driving the conversations.

In other words, it's magic.

We launched it with a low-cost viral social marketing campaign that buzzed along softly until its crescendo at the 14th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition.

• We released our 10-4-10 HR tech marketplace trivia questions into the wild about one month before HR Tech, which then redirected folks to SocialEars.com after taking the quiz.
• Also, for almost one month prior to the show, we shared lots of fun tweets like, "At @HRmarketer, we’re all ears. Are you? #SocialEars coming soon," linking to SocialEars.com.
• From there we shared a little more info via SocialEars.com on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and more.
• Then there was a little blogging sprinkled in for good measure.
• Then there were a couple of search-optimized marketing press releases and a SocialEars plug on our Digital Storytelling webinar.
• Then there was our pitch to all the HR Tech vendors to come see our SocialEars demo and get an iPod Shuffle.

So for just a small monetary investment compared to what many vendors spend for a product launch prior to the HR Tech show, primarily for our trip, exhibiting at the show and the Shuffles (and iTunes gift cards when we ran out of Shuffles), our team canvased the floor and our founder Mark Willaman delivered dozens and dozens of demos to nearly 100 people in two days.

Nearly 100 people in two days. Beat that, baby.

Check out some of the post-demo buzz:

• Forget Elvis! The real must see show this past week was #SocialEars at the HRMarketer's booth!! Very Impressive! - Kevin Hautzinger, Director of Marketing at OneSource Virtual HR
• New #socialears tool is HOT. Very cool. Sam Higgins, Acquire, Inc.
• Impressive stuff with #SocialEars! smashfly, Chris Brablc
• Demo'd @socialears from @HRmarketer and it's cool! I wish they had it for every industry! - Maren Hogan - Head of US Marketing for BraveNewTalent.
• If you haven't, make sure to check out #socialears at HRmarketer.com's booth #950. Awesome social media tool! Ceridian_US Ceridian
• Dear HR PR folks, please please check out @hrmarketer's #socialears. Great stuff and will help you write better messages to me. - Lance Haun, Editor for ERE.net

Pay special attention to the last one in particular -- "SocialEars will help you write better messages to me."

And check out this nice plug from Felix Wetzel, Group Marketing Director, Jobsite:

The company that impressed me most was HRmarketer.com with their new product feature “socialears”. It analyses the social activities of journalists, analysts, bloggers, thought leaders, and identifies the topics, enriches the profiles with tag clouds and Klout scores and highlights the key influencers for by topic. The demo looked really good. It met my criteria of increased convenience and better experience. I will certainly be testing it in a real time environment. And somehow it’s not surprising that this company isn’t really an HR technology provider, right?

Right.

Our new HRmarketer.com platform along with SocialEars (beta) will launch at the end of October. Don't worry, we'll make sure you don't miss it. And if you don't have it, you're crippling your competitive edge.

And double don't worry -- if you're already an HRmarketer.com software subscriber, you're golden.

By the way, if you did miss our demo and shuffle combo at the show and you'd still like to see SocialEars, contact us for a demo and we'll give you an iTunes gift card for your time.

Like I said, it's magic.