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After being in this field for over two years now, I am not just a "blogger" or an "interactive media specialist" or a "producer of online content" but all of those things and more. And this means my clients also need to understand that social media is more than just a blog, or podcast or video online, but it is the strategic use of these mediums for effective communication.
As long as Social Media and conferences continue to sub-divide the world by the "toy"- ie blog, podcast, etc. and not by the goal, effectively communicating your message to others, we'll continue to get the fishbowl effect at conferences.
Thanks for the input.
--Bryan Person
LiveWorld social media evangelist
Good post -- right on point. I think it also depends on who your blog is aimed at/who your audience is. Many of our colleagues are blogging to the social media crowd. So I assume they're making their living by serving that population.
So BlogWorld etc. is right on the money for them. Especially, if they have a book to sell or their blog is generating revenue with ads.
Let's face it -- we're ahead of the curve on this one. So the presentation we've give at BlogWorld to our peers is incredibly different from one you'd give the PRSA club or I'd give to a bunch of rural electric co-op presidents.
What I love about talking to non-social media "believers" is that there are truly some remarkable tools they just don't know about. We can have impact on how they do business. Which, I think, is the way to invite them into the realm of social media. Make it valuable to them.
Good discussion starter!
Drew
Keep on keepin' on, my man. We need more of you in the world.
I'm glad to hear you talk about this topic. Marketers in general are very good at pandering to the crowd, yet are lost at times when trying to get the same message heard in such unknown waters. Well said.
What's hard, as you know, is walking into a conference where people don't know you're smart and don't blow smoke up your butt. Those are the audiences we need to tackle.
Glad to see you. It's been a while.
Thanks again!
From an attendee perspective, nothing I learned would have held significant ground for me on its own: everything came together for me from all the different panels I attended. However, I can say quite confidently that the "glue" was seeing the synergy of social media pros such as yourself, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis and Lee Odden. To experience your excitement and passion for what you all do, and your positive support of each other, really made the conference complete for me, and I'd be willing to guess the same for many other attendees.
I know this didn't quite address your call to action, but I did just want to let you know that there is value to the bubble for those who aren't quite in it. I guess you can argue that I do "get it" by virtue of the fact that I knew I needed to be at BlogWorld, so this is all probably moot. Regardless, I agree wholeheartedly that too many people across multiple industries are suffering by not recognizing the need to implement a social media strategy.
And someone like you -- and it-getter enough to know to go to BWE and someone exploring the social space -- is still an important and valid audience for the social media thinkers. If we fail to serve folks like you, a void will happen that we don't want.
Thanks for chiming in.
For 3-4 years, we've been hearing that "the press release is dead." Meanwhile, the press release continues to be AMONG various good ways to fulfill disclosure obligations, increase web traffic, SEO, etc.
Part of my problem with the "social media echo chamber" is that a lot of the cheerleading has these sort of zero sum conclusions that current PR approaches are broken and social media is the cure-all. Really? The last time I worked at a company where we got a prominent story in a major business press publication or Slashdot the amount of traffic to the web site and the ensuing impact on sales was UNREAL. And sometimes a press release - and going through the steps of organizing the most effective way to tell a company's story - is a necessary exercise that precedes getting a major story.
If you work in marketing / PR it's sort of painful to repeatedly hear the social tech arguments described as replacements for existing approaches. Just because you can go on the web and find many more lame press releases than good ones, it doesn't stand to reason that press releases have zero value and that they should be buried in favor of social tools. What - are you saying that most people that do social media do it well? I can surface many more examples of useless social media arm waving than effective implementation. So I guess we can surmise that social is dead? Clearly this is a flawed argument.
How about - in addition to getting out of the echo chamber - advocates for social media w/in PR and marketing contexts get a little clearer about where the value add is, instead of so readily rallying for the death of existing PR / marketing approaches that still have their place. No, social media doesn't displace everything. It's something that can create new opportunities and enhance others. But frankly this cry of press releases being dead is not only trite, but suggests a lack of understanding that some tools (while archaic) do continue to serve a purpose.
Thanks for the perspective and feedback. I'm certainly aware of the "press release is dead" talk and what not, but I've never been one to say that social media is a replacement for anything. My approach, and I think that of many other social media thinkers - while not articulated well sometimes, is that social media is a new media compliment or supplement to traditional marketing that, when approached strategically, has far-reaching and powerful positive effects on a brand's business.
I agree with you that traditional media outreach still has more volume impact that most social media outreach, but using both effectively is the right strategic approach.
Thanks for the input.
Personally, I'm hoping to focus heavily on local events in industries that have need for better understanding of communication practices in general, and hope that social media becomes part of the conversation there. Teaching each other has value, but our real contribution to the business world needs to be in sharing our knowledge with those who don't have it.
Thanks for shaking the trees yet again, my friend.
To me, social media is just an extension of marketing / communications / PR / research / customer service from which business value can be derived. In short, I'm merely a business consultant that knows how to use social media as a tool.
Heh.
Well said, my man.
Keep up the great work, homie.
one question ... how do you get teaching/speaking/workshop type engagements with the groups outside the 'echo' chamber??
--
http://twitter.com/franswaa
I think this is important because social media marketing is looking a little too insular these days. I've always advised that when deciding on conferences to attend you should go where the customers are rather than where your peers are. Even if you're not selling, you'll gain a perspective on the end-user POV rather than trade war stories.
For example I went to WorldCom regional meeting because my customers are PR agencies. It gave me invaluable opportunities to talk about the business models agencies are building around social media, a subject everyone was eager to discuss.
BTW, you should really do an SM2 demo- I think you'd be surprised how we stack up against the (friendly) competition...
You've certainly got me thinking about how to widen my perspective and look for broader audiences to evangelize.
But I think you've set up a bit of a straw man here, haven't you? At least as far as BlogWorld 08 is concerned (and 07 for that matter).
Because from what I saw and folks I spoke to, there were a lot of people there who would not pretend to have your level of knowledge and expertise and for whom BlogWorld was a terrific learning experience as well as a great "new networks/new friends" experience. And I suspect lots of those people don't get the opportunity to go to the industry conferences you and other thought leaders get to.
It would be a shame if the newbies and the people like the guy I met from Montana with the nearest town 20 miles away came to BlogWorld and found that all the thought leaders were off talking to the electricity company execs. Or someone like the woman from a small town who is trying against great odds to find ways to persuade her employees to use new media and was looking for ideas and now knows there are people like you from whose work she can get ideas to test.
Or other people who are just starting out to use blogging in their business and were hungry for knowledge and excited about all the information and ideas being shared.
Did you see the furious note-taking that was going on in the sessions? Didn't look to me like everyone knowing it all.
What if we saw events like BWE08 as a way some of us could have an opportunity to help the people who have already done the hard slog of learning how to blog and keep blogging, learning how to cope with blogger's block, learning about how to connect with others and actually become part of one or more of the conversations, but might not even know yet (or, hopefully, ever) what all this echo chamber talk is about? Isn't it a good thing to be sharing what comes naturally for you with them and giving them encouragement to keep on keeping on, to cope with the disappointment of not having monster traffic to their sites, of coping with the spouse or "friends" who tell them they are wasting their time?
Can you tell I'm passionate about helping these people, mate? Well, I am, because I was one and still am in many ways.
Of course there was some gemutlichkeit with people who know one another and enjoy one another's company, but with all due respect to Christina I don't get the kumbaya bit (unless the Godbloggers were doing that while the rest of us weren't watching).
I know you are not telling your peers not to go to BlogWorld, SXSW etc, but - as I say - I believe there is a contribution element here that I am pretty sure you are not averse to.
I learnt from sitting in on your panel. People told me they learnt from panels I was on.
And I'm really pleased you are going to be at BWE next year. Maybe then we'll get to have a coffee and a chat :).
And yes, you're right. Hopefully, I haven't left the impression I think we should walk away from that middle ground of folks who get it but are thirsting for more. After all, those are my peeps - the folks that energize and encourage me and make me think I have some greater purpose in this big world, to coach, educate, enlighten and so on.
I did see the furious note-taking and had countless conversations that showed me how powerfun BWE and other similar conferences can be to the attendees. I'll never walk away from that crowd because they are the social media thinkers and do-ers who will lead us tomorrow.
Hopefully, I communicated well that we just should be mindful that growth won't happen if we don't look beyond the it-getters and enthusiasts. As consumers, we owe it to each other to push for social media understanding and thinking in every company and brand out there. As people, we owe it to each other to show relatives, friends and co-workers how powerful these tools are in connecting us with people we knew, know or want to.
I look at folks like Aaron Marshall (@CHURCHSMO) who just beams with enthusiasm about showing folks how to do simple things like filter email or set up a Google Alerts and think, "That's what we need to do more of. The world will be better for it."
I, too, learned a great deal at BWE. We all did. We can't walk away from each other. But we need to also ensure there's more of us to talk to by growing the footprint and circle. Hopefully that point made it across.
And it was a honor and pleasure to meet you, Mr. Walsh. I'm very much looking forward to our coffee and chat.
In pretty much all those cases, I'm writing to groups of people who will likely find me via the web.
So, to the challenge (and I intend to find my own ways to go along with your schemes, Falls), I add this: find ways to do it in the flesh in local areas, offline, and in face to face ways. Even if we're going to educate people on these new tools for collaboration and communication, we have to work a little extra to put them in the hands of people who can use them.
My first move: next Tuesday, I'm speaking to PR students at Boston University. I'm going to share what I know about PR from the future, so that they can marry that to their traditional learning.
Really great post, mister. And hey, I'm really glad I saw you there at the show, and that we got to go to our special place. Hope I see you again somewhere inside the fishbowl.
In the flesh - check. I accept your additional challenge, though I believe that was implied in my post. You're right - off-line discussions of these topics are much more powerful to those who don't understand them in the first place.
And I'll never leave the fishbowl because I'd miss the crap out of you.
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I warned off public relations professionals and communicators from becoming so entrenched in field associations that they forget to participate in industry associations representing their clients and employers. And I reminded them that as much as the "social media" experts sometimes believe they are driving the industry, I continually learn that we represent only a fraction of a fraction that makes up business employing social media.
Great observations and it was good to see you in Vegas.
Best,
Rich
I had a similar observation after returning from the New Media Expo last year. Seems like two things happen: we all get sucked into all the cool tools and lost sight of what they're supposed to do and, 2) we forget to let the rest of the world know why this is important. My post: http://blog.clearcastdigitalmedia.com/2008/10/e...
Well, I've recently reached out to several of the campus groups at my alma mater (UCLA) to talk to them about social media and how they might improve their communication and outreach efforts to the student population and their members. I didn't approach them on a "hire me" basis (though speaking to them and engaging them will help me out in my own endeavors). Frankly, I think that there's A LOT that they can do if they started to use some of these social media tools in their communication efforts.
Anyway, just sharing some of what I'm doing to evangelize social media for what I hope to be the greater good...
I really agree with you. Its one of the reasons I chose to not go to BlogWorld this year. I went to WOMM-u expecting more, but frankly the gap in knowledge between the snakes and, as they say in this election cycle "Main Street," makes it hard to do conferences that well. Though, like you, I very much enjoyed meeting and hanging out with people I don't get to see often.
This is exactly why I did the two 101 programs this month for the Colorado Business Marketing Association. I think that more needs to be done at a local level to share knowledge and ideas.