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Catchfire Media LLC, a West Des Moines-based social media strategy and consulting firm, will officially launch operations on Nov. 11.

And its partners and employees say their years of immersion in the medium, personally and professionally, give them the know-how to help their clients usher in a new era of communicating with customers.

“We see social media as a new, very, very important tool for companies,” said Managing Partner Jon Troen, adding that a lot of businesses are just beginning to understand its importance in the marketplace.

Troen and his business partner, Nathan Kring, began discussing in April the start-up business’s core components: building long-term relationships, tailoring its services to meet clients’ needs and gauging results.

Catchfire “focuses on nothing but developing the strategy, executing the strategy and measuring the results of organizations’ social media efforts,” Troen said.

The firm also helps clients answer questions, such as: “Is it worth our investment? Is it worth our time and resources? And is it matching our value system?” Kring said.

“We are really trying to establish ourselves as the professional service for social media, not only here in Des Moines, but regionally,” Kring said. Catchfire has already landed a large regional retailer as a client, as well as several smaller projects. Catchfire isn’t interested in merely getting companies started and then walking away, said Director Katie Miller-Smith. Instead, following an initial consultation, it educates clients’ staff members and partners with them on specific campaigns.

“Regardless of whether we’re managing 90 percent of that or 5 percent of that,” Troen said, what’s important is determining which portion of a client’s social media initiatives should be handled internally and which should be outsourced.

“There are certain things in this space that it just makes sense that economies of scale allow us to do more effectively” and efficiently, he said. “It’s not about the application or the program,” Miller-Smith said. “It’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. We’re helping businesses understand where communication is transitioning and harnessing it.”