I think an important part of any social media marketing strategy should involve taking things offline and meeting people face-to-face. That’s true not only for personal networking but for business too, because both social media and business are first and foremost about people.

Speaking at the Downtown Business Association

Speaking Gigs

One of the ways I take things offline in my business is by speaking to different business groups about social media. Turns out I’m pretty good at running my mouth.

And I always seem to make a new connection or two when I do.

Last week I spoke at the Savannah Downtown Business Association. I co-presented with April Groves. April’s a connection that went the other direction. I met her before she had much of an online presence. Since then she’s very successfully implemented social media marketing in her real estate business.

It’s About Networking

During the networking time I had a conversation with Cathy Rogers. I met Cathy on Twitter a while back. In fact I remember being embarrassed the first time I met her in person because my little pea brain didn’t connect the face-to-face conversation we were having to those earlier Twitter conversations.

In our conversation last week Cathy asked me how I knew Cheryl Smith.

It turns out I first met Cheryl on Twitter too. When I first followed her I saw that she lives in the same town as my parents. I mentioned it to her in a Twitter reply. A conversation ensued that quickly moved through Twitter DM’s to email.

When Gorgeous & I went home to see my folks this past Christmas time we spent an evening with Cheryl and her husband. I also connected Cheryl with HighCallingBlogs. Or more accurately, I recruited her to take some of my responsibilities there as my role with them shifted.

And now I find out two people that I’m connected with online are also know one another. The web’s a small world.

Business Impact

How does all this affect your business?

Well, most likely the people you actually meet face to face will end up being stronger connections than even your strongest online connections. There’s value in moving connections offline.

I can point to several profitable business connections that started on social media. But it wasn’t until they moved off line, either to the phone or in person, that the most profitable connections actually got to the money making point.

Social media is a great way to meet people. But don’t loose site of face to face interactions.

And as a note, this post was inspired by HighCallingBlogs’ new We are Real feature. I hope they’ll make that into an ongoing series!

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Matt Damon was interviewed by the Associated Press recently and made some comments about the upcoming Presidential election here in the US that made some headlines.

Now I am a fan of Damon’s work. If you ever get a chance to hear him talk about what he put himself through to get ready for his break through role in Courage Under Fire it’s hard to deny the guy is seriously committed to excellence in his profession. And there is no doubt Damon is one of the most bankable actors around.

I like watching his movies.

Fear of the Unknown

In the interview Damon expresses concern about Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin because he “doesn’t know anything about her.” And it kind of freaks him out.

Were that really the case (the lack of knowledge, not the freaking out) I suppose I could see where he’s coming from. But with the intense media scrutiny that Palin (and her whole family) has been under these last couple of weeks it seems a little strange for him to say he doesn’t know anything about her.

I suspect he really means something more along the lines of “I don’t know anyone like her or who values the things she does.”

Take a look for yourself.

People Different From Us

Now I’ll be the first to admit that there’s no one quite like Matt Damon in my current circle. Sure I’m taking some acting lessons. I even auditioned for a very tiny part in a movie staring Dean Cain that is going to be filming this fall. (No telling at this point whether I earned the part or not.)

But actors at Damon’s level aren’t folks I associate with right now. Nor do I really know what types of people Damon hangs out with.

That being said, I have a hunch that Damon doesn’t associate with many people who think like me. If he did he wouldn’t be quite so freaked out by the whole Palin thing.

Think about it. With my personal history of going to a state school, six years in Naval Aviation, a decade and a half working on the docks in the maritime industry, and a business owner, which of the two sets of candidates do you think I’m more like and might relate to better?

Expanding Our Horizons

There was a time when I only knew people who were pretty much like me. I joke that my own personal views are slightly right of Attila the Hun. Most everyone in my circle of friends were folks I worked with or went to chruch with. Back then I’d rather be right (as in correct) than have friends.

All that’s changed. Being in the tech field, most of the people I associate with see the world very differently than I do. I’m OK with that.

And now I’m dabbling with the whole acting thing. That’s another demographic that doesn’t see the world through the same lens that’s in front of my vision.

Actually I think it’s been very good for me. I’ve come to realize that there are merits to other points of view. I can disagree with people without thinking they are stupid or ignorant.

Associating with people who are vastly different than me has helped me gain respect for those I disagree with.

Bottom line is, when I only hung out with people who were like me I was a little weird. Well, really I was kind of a jerk to people who were different. I tended to be condescending and talked like everyone with a different view was unworthy of consideration.

Because I’ve been there I think I can give Matt Damon some advice. Expand your horizons a bit. Then you won’t find folks those folks who are so different to be so terrifying.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

One of the people that Gorgeous and I connected with in Chicago this past weekend was Christine Kane. It probably didn’t hurt that the three of us were all seated in close proximity to a very wild and obnoxious three year old on the same flight into Chicago. That got diverted to Columbus for more fuel after holding too long for bad weather.

But that’s a story for another time.

I also had the pleasure of sitting at the same table as Christine at the conference. As speakers like Chris Brogan, Liz Strauss, and Terry Starbucker were talking about the people in the room who were using Twitter to communicate with one another (and with folks half a world away) during the conference, Christine would ask the rest of us questions on the side.

They ranged from the basic to the technical, for example…

• What’s the point? to interact with others
• Why would you bother? because I like people
• Can everyone see what I tweet @ someone? Oh, yeah
• How does the direct message thing work? “d your_friends_twittername” and they’ll get a private message

Prosteletizing

Now I’m a big fan of Twitter. But I don’t try “convince” people that they “have” to use it. Though I do confess to most folks that I was a Twitter skeptic for months. I only started using it after a heavy bout of peer pressure brought to a head by Jim Turner.

You know the kind I’m talking about. “All the cool kids are using it. There’s so much going on there. You’re missing out if you don’t join in.”

I caved over a year ago. It was as much to prove to myself that Jim and the others were wrong about Twitter as anything. Since then Twitter’s grown on me. I’m glad Jim persuaded me.

Pluses to Twitter

Yesterday Christine asked the question How do you use Twitter? It’s a good question which begs the follow on question, Is Twitter even useful?

One of the things I did this past weekend while I had some one on one time with so many prominent social media folks was ask them which social media sites they preferred. Twitter was one site that was mentioned every time.

Here are some of the advantages mentioned.

• Light Weight – works right in your web browser with a (most times) fast loading page
• Portable – Easy to use from your cell phone
• Broad Reach – With so many folks using Twitter you can reach a lot of people with it
• Diverse User Base – People with incredibly different backgrounds Twitter from all over the world
• Focused – With its 140 character limit Twitter forces people to get to the point
• Fast Response Time – People can get real time responses on Twitter

But is Twitter Useful?

Those are all good attributes, for sure. But do they translate into usefulness?

Or is Twitter just a colossal distraction and time waster?

I think the answer to these questions is different for everyone. Here are a few examples of how Twitter can be useful to individuals and businesses alike

Network Expansion

Twitter is an easy way to connect with a very large pool of people very quickly, many of whom would be unreachable through other means. For example I first met Joanna Young on Twitter and had the opportunity to meet her in person this past weekend when she flew to Chicago from Scottland.

Get Quick Answers

Some folks throw questions out on Twitter to get instant feedback. Sure the big names get tons of responses to their queries. But even those of us with more modest Twitter followings can get some light shed on a subject if they are willing to engage the community.

Insight Into Trends

There are so many thought leaders and influencers using Twitter that you can gain an insight into where various communities and technologies are heading just by following them on Twitter.

Increased Profile

With a steadily growing friends list on Twitter you can raise your own “brand awareness” by connecting with more people. The increased interaction can ead to increased visibility over time.

But What About Businesses?

Is there an possibility of a business seeing any value from a presence on Twitter? Absolutely!

Zappos

Just ask Zappos. Their CEO has a Twitter account where he’s actively engaging the Twitter community. But they’ve taken their community involvement a step further. They set up a Zappos Twitter page on their web site with it’s own RSS feed so anyone can track any mention of the name Zappos on Twitter. (Talk about your finger on the pulse of the conversation!)

But Twitter interaction isn’t just a top down thing with Zappos. They obviously encourage their employees to engage the Twitter community. There’s even a page on their site where they list every one of their 286 employees who have Twitter accounts. Note that only 20 of those accounts have more than 200 followers so we’re talking about many smaller circles of influence rather than a few massive ones. Seems like a sound strategy to me

JetBlue

Another corporate example is @JetBlue. JetBlue is an airline that has had customer service egg on its face in the past and has decided to address their issues head on in the effort to put those struggles behind them. Jonathan Fields has a great example of JetBlue’s Twitter Interaction that he posted the other day.

Suffice it to say the story Jonathan shares with us is a tremendous example of how a large corporation like Jet Blue can successfully engage the social media environment. Read his whole post and let us know what you think.

Bottom Line

In the end I have to say, “Yes, Christine. Twitter can be immensely useful, especially to businesses.”

Are their potential pitfalls? Of course.

But a sound social media strategy incorporating Twitter and executed well can be a very powerful force working in the favor of a business, regardless of size.

What are your thoughts on Twitter?

And if you want, go ahead and follow me while you’re at it.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Thank you.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Had to be Right

There was a time in my life when I just had to be right about everything. It was important and I’d argue tooth and nail to get my point across.

When someone chose to disagree with me I’d try to back them into a corner or shut them down.

Not that I couldn’t be convinced that I was wrong, mind you. Unfortunately if I did see that I’d been wrong, I would jump to the “correct” viewpoint and hold that one just as doggedly.

Crazy, I know.

Stopped In My Tracks

Then one day I was stopped in my tracks. A close friend of mine said something that changed my whole view of the “being right” business. Here’s what he asked me.

Would you rather be right, or have friends?

I’d never even considered that those two things could possibly be opposed to one another.

But it makes sense.

It only took me a couple moments of thinking about it to realize that most people don’t want to be wrong. By holding so strongly to my desire to be right I was basically saying that everyone else was wrong.

Would I want to hang out with someone who thought I was wrong all the time? Nope. Not a chance!

Why then would anyone want to be around me then if I treated them the same way? Hmmm….

OK to be Wrong

Since then I’ve taken a different approach. I let myself be wrong now.

Nowadays I don’t sweat so much whether someone else thinks I’m right or I’m wrong. If they think I’m a all messed up, that’s their right.

I don’t make it my place to change their mind.

Does that mean I still don’t care about aligning myself with what is true? Of course not. And it doesn’t mean that I completely refrain from expressing my views either.

What it does mean is that I present my thoughts in such a way that I acknowledge the potential that conflicting views may have merit.

And I am finding that I have many more friends than I used to. It’s less stressful to boot, so I count it a win all around.

Now you know why I reserve the right to be wrong.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Connecting with other people is easier than you may think. If you keep a sharp eye out for potential bridges, that is.

The clues are there for you all the time, right in plain sight. Train yourself to see them and you’ll find all sorts of people that you have a some small thing in common with.

And sometimes all it takes is a small connection to build on for the creation of a relationship that is mutually beneficial.

Teach Yourself to Listen

It starts by attention to what people are saying. Learn to become an active listener.

Historically this has been a challenging area for me. I had the habit of thinking while other people were talking. I so wanted to have a response ready as soon as they took a breath that often I didn’t hear what they were really saying because my mind was already thinking about crafting that perfect response.

Dumb.

Instead listen to what the other person is saying. Hear it. Then make your response.

It may not come over night. I’ve been working on it for years. Think how long your brain has been working with your current listening habits. Don’t expect to completely change the way it works over night.

But don’t give up improving, either.

Seeing That First Connection

Here’s a recent example. On Twitter one of the folks I follow mentioned that they’d got something done that made them feel “all shiny inside.”

Now the only people I’ve ever seen use “shiny” along those lines are fans of the short run sci-fi series Firefly.

And when I say “short run” I mean only a few episodes were ever made. I think only about 10 were ever aired. I was loaned the DVD set once so I’ve seen them. Loved the movie Serenity that built on the “universe” created for the TV show.

It was kind of an obscure reference that you’d have to be listening to catch. One word. Notice it and interact. Or miss it and move on.

Fortunately I’d had enough coffee that morning to pick up on it.

Offer Something of Value

When you do notice a connection, which you will as you start looking for them, you have a choice. Will you interact with the person? If so, how will you interact?

I usually try to offer up something of value.

Even if it is only the tiniest thing, brought forward with the other person in mind, it will help strengthen that connection.

In this particular case I Twittered back

We like shiny. How about some shiny fun?

And I added a link to a silly YouTube video draws some parallels between the Firefly/Serenity world and the TV show Lost. Silly. Fun. Quick. Easy to do.

In the process I strengthened that connection with someone I scarcely know just a tiny bit more than it had been before that interaction.

Oh. Not only that. But I also figured out the real reason those folks on Lost got stranded on that island in the first place.

You curious?

Then check out the video for yourselves. (Here’s a link to the video page for you feed folks.)

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Today’s the day.

It’s the day I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Especially over the last several weeks, as things have been more and more dramatic around me I’ve been longing for this day to get here.

Today Gorgeous and I get on a plane for Chicago for SOBCon ’07.

Well be getting together with great relationship bloggers from all over at the Sofitel Chicago O’Hare tomorrow and Saturday. We’ll finally be able to put faces with all those wonderful bloggers out there.

This is one conference you won’t want to miss!

I will most likely be in the back of the room or running around helping out with the gillion and a half last minute trivial details that always come up at an event like this. So if you are in the room, make it a point to stop me, introduce yourself and say hey.

I really do want to meet you.

If you are heading out, I’ll see you there.

And if you can’t make it this year but really wanted to be there, let your voice be heard. Who knows, we might even do this again sometime.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Last week we had my father-in-law’s funeral. It was heartening to my wife and I how many people made it out on a Friday evening to pay their respects and express their condolences.

For most of the pre-funeral receiving time I stood at the head of the receiving line next to my wife. The line of people snaked around the church and out the door. Some folks commented to us that it took upwards of 45 minutes for them to make it through the line.

We had people who knew Dad in all sorts of ways there.

“I worked with your father at the plant.” – He worked there 30 years but had been retired 7 or 8 years.

“Your father bought half a side of beef from me every year.” – He hadn’t done that in about 20 years.

“We lived next door to your father on the farm.” – He moved off the farm over 40 years ago.

Where Were They Before?

It made me wonder. Where were all these folks the last 7 years when Dad had been basically anchored to the house taking care of Mom?

I’m guessing of the church full of folks at his funeral fewer than 20 or so visited him more that a couple times a year towards the end.

Now I’m certainly not knocking attending funerals of folks we know. I’m just saying why wait?

Why are we so prone to wait for a tragic event like a funeral to let people know we care?

I know I’m just as guilty of this as the next guy.

Blog Like Life

Take my blogging as just one example. There was a time when I was all over visiting all sorts of blogs.

My MyBlogLog image showed up in widgets far and wide. I was an active commenter.

Lately I’ve let myself get distracted – “busy”.

When I do read other blogs I mostly stick to my feed reader. And I rarely make the effort comment.

Granted I do have a lot on my plate. But don’t we all?

I have a saying

When you are looking for an excuse, any excuse will do.

We try to polish our excuses so that they seem entirely reasonable. In fact we might even call them “reasons”. If we are really good at our excuse making, other folks will probably accept them as valid.

But, in those moments when we are really honest with ourselves, instead of pointing out how busy we are we could say something like, “The moon is orange tonight.”

It might even be true. (With the smoke haze from the fires in the Okefenokee it happens to be true here in Savannah these days.)

But just because it is true doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the subject at hand.

Let’s Be Honest

Instead of pointing to how busy we are as the reason we aren’t active in visiting other blogs and participating in the discussion, let’s admit that we have taken on other priorities.

We see other uses of our time as more important.

That’s why I suspect there is so much interest in using some of these social media web sites to boost web traffic.

Many of us are looking for some quick fix to build traffic so we can skip the effort of visiting other blogs, reading what they have to say, and participating in conversations with them.

We want the benefits without the effort.

Do we want to be like those funeral goers? Good people, every one. But too distracted to show we care until tragedy happens.

Or would we rather build lasting friendships with fellow bloggers and be there through the good times and the bad? And have those friends be there for us too?
The choice is out there. It is ours to make.

Me, I’m taking a look at my priorities over the next few weeks. I don’t want to become known as a funeral friend.

How about you?

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

As we work through the current series on Promoting Your Blog with Social Networking Sites, it is important that we pause for a moment and remember that ultimately business is about people and not about stats.

Business blogging is no different.

Show Me The Money

I’ve had discussions in the past with folks who subscribe to the conventional wisdom that Business is about money. That thinking misses the mark.

People ultimately control the money.

You build relationships with clients and customers, who are ultimately real people – even when the clients are businesses – and the money will follow in a solid stream.

You try to short circuit that reality and your income flow will be less certain and less steady.

Symptoms or Problem

Our culture is one that elevates things we can quantify and measure. It makes sense to focus on things like cash flow, return on investment, page views and number of comments.

These things are all easily measurable and therefore are easier to analyze, make adjustments for and improve.

But ultimately we end up with the same problem we see in modern medicine. We approach our businesses like doctors approach patients by treating the symptoms instead of the underlying problems.

Doctors often prescribe medication based on the symptoms of the patient but usually don’t ever address the problems that initially caused the symptoms in the first place.

The problem with applying this approach to our businesses (and our business blogging) is that it is short sighted. I believe it misses the mark.

The Challenge

The challenge is that relationships with people are often difficult and messy. It is much more appealing to us to break things down into formulas and procedures.

That way we can measure our progress accurately and feel a sense of accomplishment as the numbers grown in a positive direction.

People on the other hand are fickle. Quite frankly dealing with folks can be a bit of a pain.

But just because something is more difficult shouldn’t mean that we set it aside, especially if it will ultimately produce better results.

Strive for Balance

The ideal place to be is where we have a balance between our quantifiable measurables and our emphasis on the value of people and our relationships with them.

Those things we can measure are indicators of the health of our business. The amount of traffic we see on our blog is an indicator of how successful our blog is.

Should we measure the measurables? Absolutely.

But let’s not loose sight of the fact that it is the people behind the traffic which will ultimately make or break our success. If we don’t value them they won’t value us in the end.

No matter what we do to drive traffic to our sites, what social networking tools we plug into, if we leave out the personal component we will have missed the mark and lost out on our greatest potential for success.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Unless you’ve been shipwrecked on some remote island lately you’ve probably heard all the buzz going around about the hottest new thing since YouTube came down the pike.

Positioned precisely at the intersection of where narcissism meets voyeurism, Twitter has become the latest web rage. Their self proclaimed mission is to be A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?

The idea is that folks type in a little blurb of 140 characters or less telling the world what they are doing at the moment. Oh. And it is expected that other people will read those blurbs.

If you are anything like me, when you hear that for the first time you thought, “Well that’s just stupid. I’ve got too much to do already without managing chronic world wide updates about on the subject.”

I remember reading an interesting Twitter write up by Kathy Sierra right after Thanksgiving last year and being thoroughly underwhelmed at the whole idea.

So I resisted jumping on the Twitter bandwagon.

Resistance is Useless

But much like Arthur Dent facing the overwhelming Vogon bureaucracy my resistance was doomed to fail from before it even began.

It shames me even more to admit it, but ultimately I succumbed to peer pressure. (Thank you very much Jim.) I think it was on a Skype chat that I was told that I just had to get on Twitter.

I can’t remember if it was because all the cool people were doing it, or if I would get cooties for not doing it myself.

Or maybe it was just that he’d mentioned it to me for something like the 17th time in a day and a half and I thought I’d just check it out, prove to myself how dumb it was and then get on with my life.

Twitter’s Tipping Point

So a week ago this past Thursday I took nearly 2 whole minutes to open my own Twitter account and at 10:59 PM posted my first “Tweet”.

The opening of my account was very nearly right at the tipping point for Twitter, I think. Alas it had nothing to do with me directly. But this past weekend Twitter was all the rage at South by Southwest where they were a web award winner, taking the blog category. Personally I think that is an interesting category choice for them. Probably not where I would have expected a service like Twitter to compete, but hey.

Anyway the Twitter line was all ablaze with folk like Robet Scoble at SXSW awash in manic Twitterizing.

The Addiction Takes Hold

In spite of all the action and gobs of tweets heading my way I still wasn’t too enthused about the whole deal. Going to the site and hitting the refresh button just doesn’t work so good for me when I’m so used to getting blog feeds in my reader.

Then I blundered into their IM integration. Oh, that’s bad news. Imagine a free flowing river of petty strangeness flowing right into my GoogleTalk account. I can tweet to my heart’s content right from the same place.

I can have the IM going at my desk at work.

Thank God there’s the option to send in the word “OFF” to stop the madness every once in a while. Otherwise I suspect the entire Western Civilization might be in danger of coming to a complete halt.

Imagine a Tuesday Night Open Comment Night over at Successful-Blog. That never ends.

And I see you can even get your twitter feed sent to your cell phone. I can’t even wrap my head around that kind of craziness.

But I won’t discount that it might be very hard on a guy’s text messaging account.

Twitter is, after all, the new internet crack flavor of the day.

Will It Last?

The question is whether Twitter is here to stay or just a passing fad. My initial impression was the buzz will die down soon enough and Twitter will fade into a small core of die hard users.

But after an entire week plus a couple days I’m not so sure that it won’t last.

I’ve seen some folks I highly respect drink the Twitter Kool-Aid in the last few days. So we’ll see.

As with anything, only time will actually tell us if Twitter is the next YouTube or the next dot-bomb.

The John Edwards campaign is Twittering. So do you think it will influence the campaign?

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.