Well, two possibly new clients and two new speaking invites later, I made it home from the Executing Social Media conference in lovely Pasadena. (I could so totally live there!)
We all had a great time, and what was most important to me, I think, was that all the attendees finally realized that they’re not “losers” for not being fully engaged with social media. There are multibillion-dollar brands that can’t yet use social media effectively, so no one should feel bad.
Social media has such a “keep up with the Joneses” element to it that companies with perfectly good marketing strategies and strong brands sometimes feel like they’re doing a horrible job.
Take that energy and put it into getting started. If you don’t have the resources or interest (or are just too leery) to launch your own social media initiative, use what I call O.P.S. (Other People’s Social) to dip your toe in the water . . . comment on other blogs and connect with people through offering advice and guidance in online communities. Never forget that you have to give to get.
And if you don’t want to be that active, just listen. Set up a Google Alert for your name, the name of your company, products, services and other phrases or unique words associated with your brand. You might even set up a Google Alert for the name of your industry–commercial construction, for example–to find out what’s being said about your industry overall.
The point is to start.
P.S. I’m still trying to get my hands on the social media resistance survey results from the Executing Social Media conference. When they’re uploaded, I’ll link to them. Thanks for your patience.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Events, Social Media, Conferences, Speaking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.2 Responses to “POST-CON BLOG: Executing Social Media”
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May 24th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Lena–You are the reason I’ve put my toe in, thank you very much! I’ll be most interested in receiving the results of the social media resistance survey. I’m trying to get my e-newsletter subscribers converted to reading my blog with only limited success. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
@Jane:
Thanks for the kind words.
I believe I have access to the survey results and I’ll be posting them soon.
Let’s have a talk offline about how to “convert” your newsletter readers. I have some strategies I can share with you. The first of which is knowing that this takes T-I-M-E.
-Lena