Mark Schaefer
Mark W. Schaefer (born June 7, 1960) is an American author, consultant, and speaker with a focus on social media marketing.
Early life
Schaefer was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and graduated from West Virginia University in 1982 with a BSJ in Journalism. He earned an MBA from Claremont Graduate University at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management in 1992. In 1997, Schaefer earned an MA in Applied Behavioral Sciences from Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington.
Early career
Schaefer spent his early career in journalism, video production, public relations, and sales account management. In the mid-1990s he became a marketing director for Alcoa where he worked with global brands such as Coca-Cola and Anheuser-Busch. In 2001, Schaefer accepted a job to lead Alcoa's international eBusiness team and was responsible for CRM, eCommerce, and digital marketing implementations.
Career
In 2008 Schaefer formed the U.S.-based consulting company Schaefer Marketing Solutions LLC. In 2009, Schaefer founded his blog {grow}, which examines The Intersection of marketing, technology, and humanity. In 2010 Schaefer became a faculty member at Rutgers University. Schaefer is founder and Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, LLC. He authored four books on social media marketing including Return on Influence and The Tao of Twitter, which describe social media practices and how content creation influences personal and business success.
Teaching
Schaefer began teaching at the college level in 2009 with courses at Tusculum College in Tennessee, and created one of the first social media marketing curriculums in the country later that year. He developed a similar curriculum for Rutgers University in New Jersey in 2010. Schaefer now serves as an adjunct faculty member at the Rutgers University School of Business.
Speaking and consulting
Schaefer has appeared on national television shows and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The New York Times, National Public Radio, and CBS News. His keynote appearances include The Institute for International and European Affairs, National Economic Development Conference, National Association of State CIOs, Word of Mouth Marketing Summit Tokyo, Content Strategy Conference Amsterdam, Online Influence Conference (Wales), Social Media Success Summit, Blog World New Media Expo, PR News Measurement Summit and Social Media Week London. Schaefer actively lectures on the university circuit and his appearances include Oxford University (UK), Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania, Princeton University in New Jersey, Indiana University, New York University, and many other institutions. He also consults on marketing strategy, business development, and social media marketing. In 2010 Schaefer founded an annual national social media conference in Knoxville, Tennessee which is called Social Slam.
As the founder of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, Mark Schaefer has led consulting assignments with many companies including IBM, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Bank of Ireland, Dell, and The U.S. Air Force.
Publications
Schaefer has written four best-selling business books.
Return on Influence: The revolutionary power of Klout, social scoring, and influence marketing (ISBN 978-0071791090) was published in 2012 by McGrawHill. It is his most widely held book; WorldCat shows it in 587 libraries It was the first book to examine the field of Social Influence Marketing and "social scoring," where companies like Klout assign influence values to individuals based on the content they share on social media platforms. The American Library Association named Return On Influence as one its Outstanding Academic Titles of 2012. According to the Association, the book is a "path-finding contribution" and "an essential work for marketing professionals."
The Tao of Twitter - Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time (ISBN 978-0071802192) was self-published by Schaefer in 2010 and was re-launched in an updated EDition in 2012 by McGraw. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 233 libraries
Born to Blog: Building your blog for personal and business success one post at a time written jointly with Stanford A. Smith. It was published in 2013 by McGraw Hill. According to WorldCat, the book is held in 139 libraries
In 2014, Schaefer self-published Social Media Explained, a tutorial on social media marketing strategy for executives based on his graduate school lectures.
An expanded and revised second edition of "The Tao of Twitter" was published by McGraw-Hill in 2014.
Mark Schaefer is also the publisher of the business blog {grow}. He coined the marketing terms "social scoring" in 2010, "citizen influencer" in 2012 and "content shock" in 2014.
In 2013, he began a marketing-oriented podcast called The Marketing Companion. His podcast co-host is Tom Webster, an executive with Edison Research.
Awards
- Elected to East Tennessee Writer's Hall of Fame, 2013
- Schaefer has received seven patents for new product innovations during his career at Alcoa.
- "Return On Influence" named one of top business books of 2012 by American Library Association.
- AdAge Power 150 marketing blogs of the world out of the 1121 tracked daily.
- Top 30 Social Selling Experts (Forbes 2014)
- Top 50 people most mentioned by digital marketers
- Named one of the top 50 social media "Power Influencers" of the world by Forbes.
- TweetSmarter Twitter User of the Year - 2011
- B2B Twitter Personality of the Year - 2011