Social Media Marketing – If You Aren’t You Need to Be

What is it? By my definition, Social Media Marketing is the web as conversation. Available to all, accessible to everyone. The skill set you need to participate in the Social Web? The ability to type, point & click. The technical setup? A computer (or smart phone) and an internet connection. That’s it.

Here’s an analogy; if the ‘traditional’ web is Marcus Buckingham on stage addressing thousands of adoring fans then social media marketing with Web2.0 is the reception afterwards where you have an opportunity to interact not only with Marcus but with all the other attendees of the event. You can listen, you can contribute, you can connect, you can create opportunity.

It’s no longer just Marcus Buckingham (the one) pontificating to his audience (the many), it’s the many interacting with the many with opportunities commensurate to the connections & contribution you make to the conversation.

Social Media Marketing is an opportunity to translate your talents and passion into traffic and treasure.

NSA-MAC Intensive, Philadelphia, PA

Speaking of opportunity, I had a great opportunity this weekend to present to the National Speakers Association Mid-Atlantic Chapter for their annual ‘Intensive’. I led a morning session on Social Media Marketing and they brought in Philadelphia area topic experts for the afternoon:

Dr. Sally Witt of DrSallyWitt.com (and a popular contributor to BlogTalkRadio) on getting the most from social networking. Sally is just a dynamo; full of insight & enthusiasm…

Karyn Greenstreet from Passion for Business™ – what a great resource for Search Engine Optimization and Marketing including effective pay-per-click (PPC). What I appreciate about Karyn is that, as an expert, she’s not just interested in ‘fishing for you’ but she’ll teach you how to fish as well.

Rick Simmons – Dinkum Interactive – offered solid advice for getting the most from your blog, finding your voice and/or face via podcasting as well as great advice on the experts panel at the end of the day. (Visit Rick’s exceptional website to download his powerpoints on blogging and podcasting.) The thing that I noticed about Rick is that he doesn’t just offer advice or insight; he offers 3 points on this, or 5 ideas for that. Listening to him talk was like reading an informative blog post.

Finally, Steve Coscia of Coscia Communications shared with his audience the tips and techniques he used to bolster his online revenue from zero to 30% of his company’s gross revenue in less than 3 years. Steve’s a past president of NSA MAC and quite a hoot. I had the pleasure to have dinner with Steve and other chapter members and truly enjoyed watching this outsized personality as he made friends with everyone in the restaurant from wait staff to fellow patrons. Steve could teach Bill Clinton a thing or two about networking.

I’d link to thank the meeting organizer and the NSAer responsible for bringing me out to this great group, Marsha Egan, the LeverEdge Coach. Marsha is a leadership coach and an expert in detoxifying your email inbox. In fact Marsha’s new book, Inbox Detox And the Habit of Email Excellence, is being released today (1/12/2009). If your email is out of control, and whose isn’t, then Marsha Egan can definitely help you detox your inbox!

Of course I’d like to thank the 80 intent speakers, authors, and entreprenuers in the audience who are now eager to add their voices to the conversation that is social media marketing.