Latest Episode of Social Media coach is up
The latest episode of Social Media Coach is up. In it I discuss the thorny issue of Return on Investment and social media and field several questions from a caller.
Next week’s show will air at 3pm PST and will focus on Facebook and what kind of profile you may need.
Imagine Your Reality Radio is returning next week with an interview with Overmortal Technology’s President Michael Szul on Thursday at 4:30 Pm. If you own a business and would like to be intervied, please contact me.
Have any questions about social media for your business or how to develop a killer business/marketing plan? Contact me for a free consultation.
Are you networking effectively? How to turn your natural network into your referral system
The stereotype of the networker is a person who has a drink in one hand, business cards in the other, and an elevator speech at the ready, and ready to move on once s/he has gotten your card. But is that what networking really is?
Networking is creating meaningful, and helpful relationships where everyone wins. Forget all the hype about social networking or chambers of commerce or the stereotypical networker. Networking isn’t just about online social networking sites such as twitter and linkedin. And it doesn’t just involve going to a chamber meeting or other type of in-person networking event. Networking involves learning how to create relationships with all the people you know, so that you can help all of them, even as they help you!
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to make networking fun, my process for organizing and matching your connections in your network, and learn to shift your thinking from what you can get for yourself to how you can give and help others and be very successful as a result!
In this class you will learn:
- What networking really is and what it means to give.
- How to recognize a networking opportunity in any conversation.
- to mesh your natural network with your business network and have everyone benefiting from it.
- How to listen and make connections between the people who need something, and the people who can help them.
- How to shift your think from me to we.
- Fun techniques you can use to liven up your networking groups
Date: Friday, September 11 2009
Time: Noon to 2pm
Price: $35, LUNCH included
Location: Bravo! Publications 630 B Avenue Lake Oswego OR 97034
To register please rsvp with Taylor Ellwood at Imagineyourreality or register at the Imagine Your Reality Website.
What does inviting the conversation in really mean for social media?
Michael Szul, owner of Overmortal Technologies and I chatted for a while last night about social media. Today he sent me a blog post he wrote about our conversation and what he got out of it.
There’s a couple of interesting blog posts about social media out there today:
What about the in of social media
and Jeremiah Owyang’s commentary on how media brands are building their own social networks.
Social media is about an exchange of information, on one level, and on another level is a relationship building activity. Both of the above mentioned blog entries focus on this subject from different angles.
The first blog post discusses the need to invite the conversation to come in. Reach out and communicate, but also be prepared for feedback, and for letting the people you connect with into your circle. It’s quite true and important to let people into your circle, as well as reaching out. In fact if you only ever focus on trying to reach as many people as possible, but don’t necessarily invite them to really get to know you, it can be very hard to really connect in a meaningful way. It instead becomes a superficial method of touching people.
The other blog post is discussing how some companies are starting to create specialized social media sites as ways of further branding what they do, while also reaching out to the online community overall. It’s a novel idea, but also a further commercialization of social media for corporate purposes. At the same time, having specialized branded social media sites could in fact invite the depth of conversation I mentioned above, though not necessarily in as open a forum as regular social media sites offer.
My take on all of this is that what we’re seeing is the continued evolution of social media. It’s not just about reaching out, but also creating relationships where we get to know each other, so it’s not just selling the brand, but also dealing with the criticisms of that brand. And branded social media sites are essentially inviting that kind of depth of conversation in, while also continuing to advertise the brand, in an effort to sell it. What social media users need to decide is if that will create a genuine relationship, or just be more of trying to reach out, without actually engaging the social media users.
