Case in point, consumers respond better to brands that participate in causes they care about. Participation, both in social networking and external causes, meets our basic human needs: To find significance and recognition. What cause can we align with for a marketing relationship in order to gain positive brand value and competitive advantage? Is that serving the brand, marketing, consumers, our society? . Instead, I propose marketers trace their efforts back to those basic human needs and start trying to meet them. Martin. . The amount of each? MORE >>

I’ve read the many posts on the Komen/KFC cause marketing partnership , most of them bashing KFC for cause washing. The logic is that eating fried chicken causes weight gain, a pre-condition of breast cancer. Yet when causes choose a brand partner that hurts their mission, they rarely take ownership of their poor strategic management. wrote a long post on the topic a year ago, Brutal Truths About Cause Marketing when “social media for social good&# was the meme of the day. It tarnishes the Komen brand and causes more harm than good. MORE >>

Zoetica teamed with Network for Good to co-author Cause Marketing through Social Media, a free eGuide ( you can download it here ). Companies deploy matching grant contests that ask participants to rally the most donations for their favorite causes. As the CSR movement evolves, companies will continue to leverage cause marketing initiatives to meet new, triple bottom line demands and create a halo effect for brands. Cause Marketing is at its best when all the pieces – relevant cause, strong marketing proposition, and compelling call to action – come together. MORE >>

Results from our Network for Good/Zoetica cause marketing best practices survey yielded some interesting results. One hundred thirteen respondents from our general nonprofit and marketing communities on Twitter answered basic questions about the state of cause marketing in the United States. Of the respondents, 51 percent of them said their organization had participated in a cause marketing campaign in the past year. Only seven percent of respondents felt companies did a good job of reporting results from cause marketing efforts. MORE >>

How should marketers use social media for social good? We welcome Ken Herron, social marketing authority and CMO at social applications and solutions company SocialGrow Inc. who will author a regular new social marketing advice column, #DearKen , to provide our readers with answers to their questions about social marketing technologies, tools, and best practices. DearKen :  I see other companies doing “disaster marketing&# to raise money for victims of the tragedy in Japan. To submit a question, tweet it with the hashtag “#DearKen&#.  MORE >>