Tara Hunt

2007 – 2010 (3 years)

Released April 2009, The Whuffie Factor caught the crest of Web 2.0 and showed how any business can harness its power by increasing their Whuffie, the store of social capital that is the currency of the digital world.

It is published in 8 languages and is a best seller. It is considered one of the original books on how the social web changed the way we do business.

Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; INTU; Computer Software industry

January 2009 – June 2009 (6 months) Mountain View, CA

I was the marketing lead on IPP alongside Alex Barnett, the developer relations lead. We helped shape and promote the partner platform for the developer network at Intuit - a small business accounting software company.

June 2006 – January 2009 (2 years 8 months) San Francisco, CA

I co-founded Citizen Agency in 2006 with Chris Messina following on the incredible success of my Riya.com launch. Many other startups were asking me to help them achieve similar results.

Citizen Agency was focused on maximizing social integration to build customer communities. We worked with over 30 startups over the years including TripIt, SocialText, Magnolia, Slideshare, Flock and Songbird. We also consulted on the original Facebook (F8) platform.

Our core concept was that social isn't an addition to a marketing plan, it would become core to all business.

Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry

August 2005 – June 2006 (11 months) Redwood City, CA

I was the entire marketing team for Riya.com's launch in 2005/06. I was hired because of my experimental ideas in online marketing. It was a thing I called 'community marketing'. Riya.com had a cool concept but a small budget for marketing and my blog focused on growing a customer community rather than mass marketing for startups.

Within 8 months of being hired, I launched Riya.com with a community strategy that brought in over 20,000 registered users who uploaded over 1 million photos overnight (24 hours of the company going live). This size of a launch has yet to be duplicated, but the technique is now called Social Media Marketing.

Riya.com went on to pivot into Like.com and was acquired by Google in 2010. It is now part of the engine behind Boutiques.com.

Nonprofit; 11-50 employees; Nonprofit Organization Management industry

June 2003 – August 2005 (2 years 3 months)

SKILLS USED: Online marketing, new media management, digital marketing, brand development, strategic planning, budgeting, project management, search engine marketing, customer relationship management, market research, trend analysis, copywriting/editing, presentation development & delivery, web design, etc.

April 2002 – August 2005 (3 years 5 months)

SKILLS USED: Public relations, event planning/design/management, promotions, event marketing, new media management, media planning, media relations, web design, copywriting/editing, strategic planning, client services, project management, customer relationship management, business development, market research, presentation development and delivery, digital marketing, budgeting, small business management

Freedom of working from ground up on creative organic campaigns with clients Rogue to win many awards for our work. I worked simultaneously on business development, client & project management, strategic planning, media planning, implementation, production, creative directing and more.

Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry

April 2001 – April 2002 (1 year 1 month)

SKILLS USED: Online marketing, new media management, digital marketing, brand development, strategic planning, budgeting, project management, search engine marketing, customer relationship management, market research, trend analysis, copywriting/editing, presentation development & delivery, web design.

August 1999 – April 2001 (1 year 9 months)

SKILLS USED: Public relations, investor relations, online marketing, new media management, digital marketing, brand development, strategic planning, budgeting, project management, search engine marketing, market research, trend analysis, copywriting/editing, presentation development & delivery, web design.