We’re excited that we’re finally launching a project we’ve had in the works for a while: a podcast! The Engaged Brand is focused on sharing stories, case studies, and best practices from brands who are embracing the potential of social media to connect with and engage their customers online.

We’re just getting ramped up so you’ll see more episodes coming down the pike in the near future, but what better way to kick off the series than with one of the brands leading the charge: Comcast.

Frank Eliason has demonstrated the power of Twitter as a customer service channel, and he’s sharing their successes and learnings at his speaking engagements across the country. His team has grown, their approach and strategy has evolved, and in this interview he shares with us some of the ways that Comcast has tapped social media to create a better, stronger customer experience.

So download the podcast and sit back and take a listen to The Engaged Brand: Comcast’s Frank Eliason, and share your thoughts!

zig, a creative communications agency with offices in Chicago and Toronto, is keeping up with social media thanks in part to monitoring with Radian6.

zig’s Executive Creative Director, Digital, Cam Wykes, says that social media is a moving target, and it can be a challenge for agencies to keep up with the pace.

“Today it’s Facebook and Twitter, tomorrow it’s something entirely new,” he says. “It’s a matter of taking it one site or platform at a time to find a project where you can invest a small amount and carefully track the results. The more you know about how messages and dialogue migrates from network to network and how it manifests itself through that dialogue, the better you’ll be able to harness it and have a greater impact on your campaign.”

With it’s broad coverage of blogs, mainstream news, multimedia like photo and video, Twitter, forums, and other online social networks, Radian6 helps provide agencies like zig with a comprehensive way to track what’s being said online about their clients’ brands.

As Wykes can attest, the word of mouth and networking behaviors of consumers are essential to understanding how products are being received, what’s being shared and why, and what messages are being spread and shared throughout the community.

Armed with information gathered from the social web about buying preferences, brand impressions, and company reputations, agencies like zig don’t have to make assumptions about how consumers are responding to their communications. Beyond just web analytics that can only provide linear and sometimes transactional perspective, social media provides anecdotal and influencer-driven intelligence about what’s driving attention, awareness, and engagement.

“Online audiences are fast moving and savvy, and as an agency, we need to be smart about how we allocate budgets to provide the results our clients are looking for,” says Wykes. “Tapping into social networks and key influencers helps us get right to the people who can make a big difference as to how our message is absorbed and shared.”

If you think your agency might benefit from Radian6′s monitoring capabilities, sign up here for a free online demo of the platform. Have a story about how Radian6 has helped you better serve your agency clients? We’d love to hear from you! Drop us an email here and let’s tell your story.

As we’ve done for the past couple of events, Radian6 will be a sponsor of BlogWell NYC coming up on April 29th.

What is BlogWell?

It’s a half day packed full of case studies and stories presented by some of the biggest brands and companies you can imagine – brands like CocaCola, Microsoft, GE and Nokia -  all talking about how their corporate social media participation has positively impacted their business.

If you’re wondering about things like:
* selling social media to your boss
* how big brands define social media ROI
* the ramifications of legal and human resource issues in social media
* disclosure, transparency, and ethics

….you’ll hear all that and more at BlogWell.

We’re involved with this event because we believe very much that illustrations and practical ideas about how businesses are using social media day to day – not just theory – are critical to more companies understanding the power of social communication.

We want to spread the word about how engaging with your customers online can improve every aspect of your business, from customer service to product innovation to communications and yes, even sales.

And we want YOU to experience BlogWell with us so you can get a taste of what the big kids are doing.

We’ve got a free pass to give away (that’s worth $250 if you had to buy it), and all you have to do to qualify for it is leave a comment here on the blog telling us what you need and want to learn from these brands about using social media.

We’ll draw one winner at random on Friday of this week to receive the pass and get you all set up. And when you get there, don’t forget to say hi to our Radian6 guys, Rich and Chris. Oh, and if you don’t manage to snag the free pass, you can still register as our guest with the discount code “thanksradian6″ and knock 10% off the registration.

So what are you waiting for? Tell us what you need to learn, and we’ll ship you off to learn from people actually doing this stuff. Deal? We’re listening…