Use Microsoft Outlook? Have a solid, functional LinkedIn network? Bring those worlds together, starting today.

Elliot Schmukler has offered up 3 easy steps to get you started:

1. Download the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector from Microsoft (Outlook 2003, 2007 or 2010 is required)
2. Once that is installed, download the LinkedIn Outlook Connector
3. Restart your Outlook and follow the instructions to connect your LinkedIn account to Outlook

Here’s a video to if you’d like a visual introduction to the process. (Click here if the video is not appearing below in your feed reader.)

There you have it. Now go sync up and leverage your contacts and connections!

Oh, wait…hold on, before you go…just one back-to-basics suggestion from little old me on LinkedIn etiquette. (Make that two suggestions…)

1. CUSTOMIZE YOUR LINKEDIN INVITATIONS: Please do NOT use the default “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” unless you literally just got off the phone with that person. Say hello, tell people (especially if you don’t know them well) WHY you thought it would be good to connect. And if you’re connecting to someone you haven’t seen in 100 years or only met once 5 years ago, remind them of how you know them. Remember this is a professional network — so be professional and personable.
2. CHECK YOUR PROFILE, PEOPLE: By all means, please fill in your LinkedIn profile to as close to 100% completion as you can get it BEFORE you start sending out invitations to connect. It sounds obvious, but I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t see a need/reason to say it. Tips for your profile? Be succinct. Address the “here’s-what-I-can-do-for-you,-Mr./Mrs.-Visitor-To-My-Profile” benefit quickly and right up front in your summary. Use keywords relevant to your business/job/industry. Post a logo or image of some kind if you don’t want to use your own portrait, but DO NOT leave the image blank so that default human outline pops up.

That’s it. Link up and link on, my friends.

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Feeling resistant to all of this online sharing that’s going on? Don’t understand why people are posting information for the masses to read on Twitter? Don’t see why your “status update” would be of any interest to 150 of your closest friends, old friends, lost-and-found friends, sort-of-friends, co-workers, ex-co-workers, clients, cousins and loosely-held business acquaintances on Facebook?

I hear ya.

Your sense of personal privacy is being tested. Your understanding of work-life boundaries is being challenged. And you would simply prefer to remain virtually underexposed. You would prefer the security and familiarity of “controlled,” offline socializing in the “real” world.

I’ve been there. So how did I get here?

The answer? One connection at a time.

With every connection I have made on any of the social platforms — and I mean “real” connections…the kind where a real dialogue happens and you find yourself typing your reply with a smile or even scheduling a coffee meetup to further the conversation — I have become more and more comfortable with all of this information that “belongs” to me being released. Out there. To the world. To whomever may find it interesting.

And despite what you may be thinking…it doesn’t feel like a waste of my time or theirs.

I’m writing about this because people keep asking me about this. Here’s the deal: It’s fine with me if people don’t read what I write and it’s fine with me if they do. Throughout all of this “exposure,” my respect for personal privacy remains fully in tact. Believe it or not, I’m actually a very private person. I’ve set my own personal boundaries in these online spaces that preserve my sense of privacy. I also take personal security and identity theft rather seriously, so I’m not blind to the perceived risks. (Standby for “Online Privacy: Part 2 of 2.”) But, at the end of the day, what I’ve learned from social media is that the group exposure you allow yourself to engage in leads to one-on-one connections (nurtured old ones, interesting new ones) that are as tangible to me online as they would be if I were chatting with or introducing myself to you at a party or professional gathering. The risks can be managed and the rewards can be meaningful.

It’s not just staying in touch with people you know, but opening yourself up to meeting NEW people.

And once those online connections are made, it doesn’t feel so strange to “tweet” to the world that your basement flooded, or that you just got back from Jamaica, or that your fish just died or that you need another cup of coffee. While “personal” posts like those do not represent the bulk of what I post on Facebook or Twitter or anywhere else…the life-stuff just slips in there every now and again. And whether it’s a great business link or a personal side note, what I post is of value to me FIRST…then I share it via these handy little (free) social tools to (perhaps) provide some value (or a little piece of humanity) to whomever might find it…um…interesting. These things I say online are the same things I’d be telling you in person because they matter to me. They represent part of my experiences. They may even resonate with yours and they may even ignite a new conversation.

“Silly” is in the eye of the beholder.

If it’s not privacy concerns, again and again and again I hear people who are not online talk about why they’re not online — because of how ridiculous some people’s status updates are and how they don’t care about what Sally had for breakfast, and they don’t have time for all of that nonsense…yada, yada, yada. Well that’s fine. But chances are that someone cares what Sally had for breakfast, so get over it. If it feels like noise to you, it’s pretty darn easy to scroll right on by to something else that may be of great interest to you. We all lead busy, busy lives these days, and I’m THRILLED that social media tools enable me to remain connected to people I do care about but aren’t able to see quite as often as life once allowed. If the choice were between never getting to see those people or getting to see one of their so-called “meaningless” status updates, I choose the meaningless status update — and when it’s a good one, I’ll likely retweet it or give it a “like” when I can.

Does telling “the world” that I have a dog (or three), that I have a life outside my business, that I like sailing, that I love Nanci Griffith, that I went on vacation or that I love a particular song make me somehow more vulnerable or less productive than people who aren’t publishing online content? Does it make me feel like my privacy is compromised? Does it make me feel a tad bit silly?

The truth is, it just makes me feel…good.

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Dave and Ilana Bittner, co-owners of Columbia, Maryland-based Pixel Workshop, shoot, edit and develop independent multi-media projects for television, DVD, CD-ROM and the web. In this “Social Gets Local” post, they tell us how they apply social business as part of their own company’s marketing strategy and how they’re also using social tools to connect and inform their Howard County community through HoCoMoJo.com. (Dave is on Twitter @bittner, Ilana is @ilanabit and, if you’re local, check out their @hocomojo.)

Q: How has social media impacted the way you market your business?
A: It works toward awareness and as a reminder. It’s a vehicle in which we can share project info without hard selling and it reminds people that we’re here, busy and it tells them what we’re doing, but not in an interruptive or “sales-ey” way.

Q: What social media tool(s) do you use the most?
A: Twitter and Facebook.

Q: How much time each day do you spend using social media?
A: About 2 hours per day.

Q: Do you consider your time on social sites “time well spent”?
A: Yes, absolutely. Our business has been built by WOM (15 years). Social media is an extension of our existing WOM efforts and has expanded our web of influence and contacts. Social media makes it easier to find local resources and it puts us in touch with so many more people every day. Our reach is based on people who choose to hear what we have to say. They have opted in. When we go to social events offline people come up and say, “I love reading your twitter posts or Facebook posts.” We’re on their radar.

Q: What percentage of your new clients comes from social media?
A: Because of our engagement, we’re getting business that might otherwise go to an ad agency. They’re shopping and come to us because they see what we’re doing. Many times, we’re providing traditional media services and then integrating Social Media into the project/campaign where it makes sense.

Q: How are you gauging “ROI”?
A: We know when we’re getting business and buzz because people tell us. We have also positioned ourselves locally as leaders in this media and the reputation we are building makes the time-cost worth it.

Q: Can you describe your “social media successes” at the local, regional and national levels?

A:

Local: We’ve started HoCoMoJo, a hyperlocal news and community resource for Howard County, Maryland. (It’s MObile JOurnalism showcasing the “mojo” of HOward COunty.) Print media is in serious trouble and HoCoMoJo is our attempt to fill the local gap for news, information and community engagement. We seem to have struck a chord and the response has been encouraging. Since we’re already set up with production and editing equipment, HoCoMoJo didn’t require any additional investment. We’re still in public beta, working out some kinks, but new users are signing on every day, posting new content and becoming part of the conversation.

National: Our national connections have become part of our supplemental network. We get tapped when people come to town because we’ve connected on twitter. Our engagement increases the likelihood of our being tapped as a resource for out-of-towners.

Q: What would you say to other local business owners about social media?
A: Get past your natural fears and get in on the conversations. It’s happening – and it’s up to you to be part of it. It’s like attending a giant virtual cocktail party. It can be very interesting and you can do it without leaving the house/office.

Q: What question do you have about social media that you’d like to ask your local business community?
A: The ones who are successful at social media are fearless. The minute a large company tries to do “social business” without authenticity, they’re dead. A lot of companies are adopting a “wait & see” approach. But we look at social media more like it’s the “wild west.” People are experts in social media in the same way that Louis and Clarke were experts on the western frontier. They were only experts because they explored – that’s where we are. We’re exploring. So our question is, “If you can’t quite make sense of the ROI, do you see any value in exploring the potential of this new frontier?”

Click here if you’d like to be a part of Social Gets Local, a FREE local directory supporting businesses located or based in Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Annapolis that are using social media effectively.

The pressure to post an all-encompassing review/recap of 2009 or a big social media prediction/pronouncement for 2010 was not lost on me.

However I opted to step aside and let it pass me by. (Traffic schmaffic.)

When I look back and consider my time in social media in 2009, it’s not the cool marketing tools I’ve experimented with, the great content that I’ve consumed or even the new business opportunities it has created — it’s with complete humility that this anti-social curmudgeon confesses (with uncharacteristic optimism and utter embarrassment at my public display of “joie de vivre”) it’s the people I’ve met and reconnected with that made my 2009 brighter, more interactive, more professionally rewarding and, even, more entertaining.

So as I look at 2010, I hope to continue to experience all of the spectacular and unexpected side effects social media, social business and social networking put before me each and every day.

We are all of us so much more than the sum of our work and it is the people with whom we work that make the work itself more pleasant…or unpleasant.

Social business provides more consistent, personal and direct access to people we like — people we want to be around and work with — which can bring greater value and meaning to how we spend our workdays.

If you’ve interacted with me here on this blog, on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, meetup.com, blip.fm, slideshare.net, at a local Panera, at a conference, at a seminar or event, through email, on google wave, by phone, at one of my presentations, on a sailboat or through Social Gets Local… I just want to say thank you.

You have enriched my life — online and off.

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I am thrilled to announce that a gift of one heifer has been purchased through the generosity of GrayMatter Minute’s social media community.

Thank you all so very much for supporting our holiday heifer campaign for Heifer International.

We raised $415 toward our $500 goal.

I feel VERY confident that we would have actually hit the $500 mark this past Friday had it not been for a “user error” committed by yours truly when setting up the “end time” on my ChipIn fundraising widget. (I accidentally set it to end at 12 noon instead of 12 midnight. Woops.)

Live, learn, mooooove on, right?

I look forward to sharing what I learned about social fundraising with you in a forthcoming post. Until then, congratulations and thank you for your kindness in passing on the gift.

Click here to view my official Heifer Thank You card to all of you who supported this effort — from donations to retweets to facebook posts and emails. I know you’ll miss my #heifer-inspired “Cow Tips” and action-packed cow videos as much as I will.

Friday, December 18th is the last day of our “holiday heifer” campaign for Heifer International. Your last chance to own a $5 share of our very social cow. This cow will go to a community in need and provide a gift that keeps on mooing for years to come. If you haven’t pitched in, please consider our request for help: just $5 toward our $500 goal. We even made a quick little moovie (get it?) to inspire you…

If it doesn’t appear above, you can view the video on YouTube: Holiday Heifer.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to our community cow thus far. This has been a wonderful opportunity to experience the generosity of friends — and strangers!

I’ll write a post-holiday heifer recap of the campaign as a mini-social fundraising case study. I learned a lot about social fundraising tactics and tools (and cows, for that matter) and have a lot of ideas about what I might have done differently which I hope will be of value to both individuals and nonprofits.

Heifer International: Passing on the Gift

Thanks again. And we wish you very happy holidays.

Why a Heifer?

Here’s information direct from Heifer International:

Heifer
Heifers Equal Hope

When a family has a cow, every morning there’s a glass of rich milk for the children to drink before heading off to school. Classes are paid with the income from the sale of milk, and there’s even enough to share with the neighbors.

A good dairy cow can produce four gallons of milk a day – enough for a family to drink and share with neighbors. Milk protein transforms sick, malnourished children into healthy boys and girls. The sale of surplus milk earns money for school fees, medicine, clothing and home improvements.

Better still, every gift multiplies, as the animal’s first offspring is passed on to another family-then they also agree to pass on an animal, and so on.

And because a healthy cow can produce a calf every year, every gift will be passed on and eventually help an entire community move from poverty to self reliance. Now that’s a gift worth giving!

I’m reaching out to you this holiday season with a humble request.

Please help me gift a cow to a community in need by donating $5.

You may already be familiar with the work of Heifer International — I have in the past gifted smaller mammals (chickens, rabbits, etc), but was inspired at this year’s TEDxMidAtlantic to aim higher and reach for the cow.

Photo by Ryan McFarland via Flickr. (zieak.com)

Here’s my outreach goal:

100 People + $5 Each = 1 Happy Cow

This is GrayMatter Minute’s very first social media-based fundraising effort. So, please, help a sister out. The faster we hit the $500 cow-mark, the bigger the hurrah for the power of social media.

Why Heifer International?

Because I like their philosophy of sustainable support. That is, Heifer programs foster self-reliance through livestock and training until entire communities are transformed. They are very busy working to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth at the same time. This, to me, seems like a jolly good idea all around. Even for the cow. You can find out more at the official Heifer International web site.

What does this have to do with social media?

Well, on the social tools front I’m using ChipIn to coordinate contributions. If you cannot see the nifty ChipIn donation box above, it is viewable on the GrayMatter Minute blog sidebar or on ChipIn’s handy custom web page.

To help spread the word, I invite you to add a little cow to your profile pic on Twitter or Facebook through Twibbon if you really want to rally for this cause or if you just really like cows.

Hope you, too, willl be mooved to help.

Socialnomics, By Erik Qualman

I had social media ROI on the brain today and as good fortune would have it, up popped this little YouTube gem about socialnomics in my RSS feed reader. I follow Rax Lakhani via his very awesome RSS feed at raxraxrax.com and his post about Erik Qualman’s new book, Socialnomics, was as timely as could be. (Being impatient, generally speaking, I just love it when this kind of serendipitous synchronicity happens so quickly.)

You can check out the Socialnomics blog or learn more about the book, of course, but this video should provide a nice little teaser. It certainly was the healthy dose of social business I was looking for today.

If the image does not appear above, click here to view Social Media ROI: Socialnomics on YouTube.

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Been waiting for the post where I summarize my experience at TEDx MidAtlantic? The wait is over. You’ll be most impressed, I hope, with how uncharacteristically brief I am in my recap.

TEDx was an inspirational “conference – concert – workshop – performance – therapy.”

That’s it. That’s my recap.

It was simply great to be in a room with so much positive energy floating around in it. I’ll leave the lengthier, more in-depth TEDx reviews to others. If that’s all you’d like to know about TEDx, that’s my very best summation. If you want to see what you missed, click here to view the TEDx MidAtlantic videos. Now I’d like to seamlessly segue into a question:

What inspires you?

After listening to the speakers cover a vast array of topics at TEDx, I felt as though there was absolutely something there for everyone to walk away with…the odds were highly in your favor that someone there said something inspirational at some point in the day with enough gusto to inspire you for weeks to come, so no one had to leave empty-headed…er, handed.

What inspired me?

Simply put, bones and eggs inspired me to get a cow.

My TEDx takeaway turned out to be a fusion of two ideas from two different speakers.

1. Naomi Natale, a TED Fellow, is the founder of a new project titled “One Million Bones.” To me, what was most striking about Ms. Natale’s TEDx talk was that she saw a problem and did something about it. What she’s doing is amazing, and you can read about it here and follow the project on Facebook and Twitter. The connection she created in my mind was instant. She reminded me of how I felt after I read The Translator by Daoud Hari this past summer (I even wrote about its impact on me in a blog post). After reading the book, I felt impotent because I now have all of Hari’s stories in my head (TEDx MidAtlantic was about “The Power of Stories”) and I didn’t see where in my world I would be able to do anything about it. Naomi, however, has found ways to do something about the problems she sees or hears about.  I’m pretty sure that’s what TED — and life — is all about. Doing.
2. Joel Salatin is an organic farmer. Many will remember Mr. Salatin’s TEDx talk for how he described how he helped his chickens achieve their complete “chicken-ness” which then turned into a highly successful agri-business. As it turns out, I raise backyard chickens — Polish crested hens. (Didn’t know that about me, did you?) So I thoroughly enjoyed and understood what he meant when he described the “essence of an egg.” But what I will remember most from his talk is one very simple thing he said that should be on a bumper sticker or T-shirt or something, “If it’s gonna be, it’s up to me.” I like that. It’s a personal call to action and I dig it.

Voila! Together, those ideas gave shape to my TEDx takeaway.

You may not think you can change the world, but I think what matters is that you think you can change your world. Your day to day. Your life experience.

I’m on it. You see, it occurred to me that there are a lot of people who speak at all of the TED events who are busy about changing the world. And thank goodness for them! But that is a tall order: change the world. I mean some days I’m lucky to remember to change the sheets, let alone the world. Now as a rule, I generally like to set “achievable goals” for myself. So here’s what I’m doing with all that TEDx inspiration I soaked up.

I want to buy a cow.

More precisely, I want to facilitate the purchase of a heifer through Heifer International leveraging the power of social media and the inspiration I drew from TEDx MidAtlantic.

I’ll post about this in more detail in a few days as I suspect few people have read this far down into my thought-thread. But here’s the general idea:

100 People, $5 Each, 1 Happy Cow

I plan to use Twitter and Twibbon.com, my blogs, ChipIn and Facebook to spread the word and mooooove (sorry) my little social network community toward a collaborative gift for another little community in the world.

So, thanks Naomi. Thanks Joel. Thanks TEDx MidAtlantic speakers all.

Inspiration is a happy little thing — regardless of whether you’re giving or receiving.

And it need not begin — or end — with a cow. There are people you meet and stories you hear every day that can serve as inspiration — to influence your ideas about your job or your personal life or a goal that you might finally see a path to achieve. Might be a big thing, or it might be a tiny, itty-bitty step in a different direction. What inspires you and what you do with all that inspiration is uniquely yours. With all of the new ways we have of connecting with people these days, it seems one could never run out of inspirational resources.

I say, we milk them for all they’re worth.

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Written by Cameron Barry, senior communications specialist at Strategic Conversations.

The fourth and last Blog Potomac, a social media marketing event organized by Geoff Livingston and Debbie Weil, was held on Friday, October 23. From the time this event was first announced, Livingston had made it clear that it would be his last. Livingston has since announced the sale of his company Livingston Communications to CRT/tanaka and his subsequent plans to take time off before launching a new venture (as yet to be disclosed) later next year.

Geoff Livingston (Flickr photo by: lunaweb)

Livingston further explained in his opening remarks that since the first Blog Potomac was held, the social media community in the D.C. area had become well established and that there were lots of other events to attend. The title of this post, by the way, is taken from the “primer on new media” that Livingston wrote with Brian Solis. Published in 2007, the book is still worth reading.

More of a taste of what was to come was evident from the agenda, which divided the day into two parts:

1. Traditional Social Media Keynotes
2. The Future of Online Media Sessions

Greeting the attendees, Livingston said we were not a “101 crowd,” but for anyone who’s just starting to get their feet wet in social media (and that’s way more than the 100 or so people at BlogPotomac), the idea that we can already consider some of it “traditional” may come as a surprise.

I agree with conference co-organizer Debbie Weil: Social media is not yet widely adopted, but it is widely discussed.

To further this discussion, I’ve organized my review of the conference into seven key takeaways:

1.) Pass the Rhizomes, Please

The day’s first speaker was Beth Kanter, a consultant to non-profits in the area of effective technology use and scholar in residence at the Packard Foundation.

While Kanter’s focus is on non-profits and “movement building,” her approach – working in a networked way, network weaving, creating social cultures within organizations, and transparency – is equally relevant for the private sector.

KEY TAKEAWAY: While for-profit businesses may not be focused on movement building per se, they are (or should be) creating a culture around their brands and fostering connections with and among internal and external communities with shared interests.

Think beyond a blog and the blogging community, Kanter urged, think beyond what technology can do, think beyond what you as an individual can do. Focus instead on “network weaving” to make a culture of creating connections and spreading ideas.

Within an organizational setting, however, this can only be done within a “social” culture where the spread of ideas is supported by open leadership (like rhizomes, which are underground, horizontal stems that send out roots and shoots from their nodes). Transparency doesn’t mean a lack of respect for what’s confidential or violating privacy; it does mean being open to comment or criticism – “being comfortable with discomfort,” as Kanter said. She urged organizations not to view a social culture as one where employees are “wasting time on Facebook,” but rather where the sharing of ideas is seen as beneficial to the cause or brand.

2.) Tools Change, People Remain the Same

Flickr photo by: elstudio (www.elstudio.us)

Shel Israel, author of the newly published Twitterville, was next on the agenda. He says he first realized the power of Twitter in 2008, when he heard about James Buck, a photojournalism student who was arrested in Egypt and subsequently released, largely owing to the efforts of his Twitter network. Shel’s book is about “how businesses can thrive in the new global neighborhoods,” but he gave examples of social media success that went well beyond traditional business, from San Francisco’s BART public transportation system to a village in England that uses Twitter to update residents on weather conditions and school closings far faster than the BBC.

KEY TAKEAWAY: Asked for some ideas about the future, Shel said he thinks we are at the end of the “beginning era” of social media, a period of enormous innovation and disruption that has forced people to do things differently. As the best practices of social media become the norm, we will enter a long steady period of slower growth that may lack the excitement of the early days.

Where will Twitter’s next million users come from? Will Twitter still be around in another year? While these are reasonable questions to ask, the point is more about listening, responding and connecting. The rise of social media has shown us that these are things we all long for because, as Shel said, “the tools change, but people remain the same.”

3. ) Social Gets Mobile

Two very different speakers, Natalia Luckyanova from Imangi Studios and NPR’s Andy Carvin were up next.

Luckyanova’s company develops iPhone games and applications. In such a competitive market, she has to think of ways to get her message out quickly and effectively. Pre-launch publicity is crucial, because after the actual launch, Imangi has just a few hours before the market turns its attention to something else. Not surprisingly, she uses the full range of social media tools to promote her products, from YouTube videos to gaming forums, to encourage connections among players.

KEY TAKEAWAY: According to just about every BlogPotomac speaker, mobile is major, with gaming just one of many uses — some potentially groundbreaking — of this rapidly evolving technology.

4.) It’s Still About Who You Know

Andy Carvin, who describes himself as “NPR’s social media guy,” is also an activist working to bridge the digital divide.

Stephen Ambrose (Flickr photo by: bgrax)

The public can play a role in reporting news, using tools like Twitter that allow people to share information. Stories and details that fall through the cracks are often kept alive using social media channels. However, just as genuine dialogue has become harder to find on increasingly crowded social networks, so too has separating truth from fiction.

The same can certainly be said for traditional media, especially broadcast, which increasingly reports on rumors and then is forced to make corrections. Twitter, Carvin said, can easily start rumors, but it is also a place where rumors go to die.

KEY TAKEAWAY: The issue, as Beth Kanter noted, is knowing whom to trust and that brings us back to the most time-honored connection of all – human relationships.

5.) Social Gets Local

The afternoon’s first speaker, Crayon’s Jane Quigley, turned the discussion to the future in a presentation that focused mostly on the localization of the web.

Ironically, as the “world wide” web continues to grow and change, the excitement most of us felt at having greater access to a larger world is now becoming highly localized. Local, however, can mean anything from using foursquare to explore our neighborhoods, building communities of interest on Ning or using Groupon to drive customers to local businesses.

KEY TAKEAWAY: According to Quigley, social media is dead from an innovator’s standpoint. It’s becoming widely adopted, and in her view tech tools tend to foster shallow relationships. Verticalization and specialization are two trends to keep your eyes on, she said, suggesting, “instead of having more relationships, focus on the depth of those relationships.”

Now, doesn’t @usegraymatter always tell us to get off our duffs and meet each other IRL? (Also see how GrayMatter Minute is working to make sure Social Gets Local in Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis.)

6.) Map It!

Fortius One

Maps, said FortiusOne CEO Sean Gorman, personalize data. As technology and location become more tightly linked, there seems to be no limit to the meaningful things that can happen in the real world. This is especially true of developing countries, where the powerful combination of social media and geo-location has led to improvements in education, agriculture and housing.

KEY TAKEAWAY: In the developed world, where monetizing opportunities abound, the challenge for consumers will be getting smart about privacy versus convenience. As businesses engage in more efficient and effective targeting, at least some of us are going to want tools that help limit constant access to where we are.

I’m directionally illiterate, but I love maps. If you do too, check out FortiusOne’s blog, Off the Map.

7) Local Is Wherever You Are

According to Ning’s Peter Slutsky, the last speaker of the day, the next generation of social media will be social platforms that bring context to people and their interests and passions.

KEY TAKEAWAY: If Facebook connects you to people you know, LinkedIn connects you to professional colleagues and Twitter connects you to real-time news and events, the next generation of media (remember, it’s not “new” media any more) will offer platforms for creating community.

Ning’s research indicates that there is a less than 50 percent overlap between people you know or work with and your interests and passions. In my view, that’s why local can mean more than just your location and what might be nearby; it can mean the neighborhood of cyclists, activists or gardeners that you want to live among.

Ning can be branded, and unlike Facebook you own your data. You can create custom data feeds, and there are already opportunities for monetization in gift stores or using a new virtual gifts platform.

You can find out more at www.ning.com or follow @ning on Twitter.

That’s All Folks

All in all, BlogPotomac offered an inspiring mix of ideas and tools that can help us create, curate and share information that, used to foster connections among real people, could help make the world a better place. So why has Facebook decided to aggregate my news, without asking what I want to see? That seems pretty old media to me.

Cameron Barry, a regular contributor to GrayMatter Minute, is a communications specialist at Strategic Conversations. You can follow her on twitter at @cameronbarry.

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To begin (and for transparency’s sake), I should say I’m not Italian. Not even a little bit.

But this is not the point.

I was scanning the Twitter stream the other day and noticed one of my posts was “retweeted,” so I went to send a “Thx for the RT” which led me to a closer examination of the fellow’s Twitter bio — now he turned out to be very Italian. That’s when I officially met the “master of the Italian card game Scopa.” And then I took a moment to enjoy a flashback to more than 15 years ago when I played the game on a regular basis while living in Europe. Molto bene!

But this is not the point, either.

I invite the two of you who are still with me to follow this pictorial trail (if you’re reading this through your RSS feed reader or your email inbox and not seeing pictures, click here) and I promise to usher you directly to my point, which is about how you can use social media to build a community around ANYTHING that is of interest to you and why that matters.

Hmm…what’s this “Meetup” about…(click) –>

Hmm…wonder what other groups are on Meetup.com that would interest me…

Okay…I’ve arrived at my point. (Grazie for your patience.)

THE POINT: (drum roll…) My Twitter time went from Scopa (a long forgotten personal interest) to Meetup (an online community building tool I simply hadn’t stumbled upon before) to a search of other Meetup groups…and, because I can never turn off the marketer in my mind, the realization that if I were the community manager for a business, I’d want to know what Meetup groups are out there and where they’re meeting. I’d want to see how my business could add value to the group, whether in promoting group participation within my own company or in offering a sponsorship of an activity to one of the groups — whatever. The point is (another point?), THIS is where social media and social business meet. (Or, “meetup” in this case.) And meetup.com is just one of the multitude of places they’re meeting using social media tools.

On a personal note, I found some groups that appeal to my unique interests, such as groups for “Chinese Language Learners.” Seriously. Who knew people were meeting up to chat in Chinese (or to try to, at least!)? I think that’s 酷.

Business. Personal. Italian. Chinese. Social Media. Social Business. It’s a mix that requires you — the mixer — to stir things up and engage.

I think this post serves as a case study on multiple levels:

• How Twitter can be a valuable tool for business AND personal use
• Why it’s important to READ PEOPLE’S Twitter bios and make sure yours reflects your interests
• Why taking a second to send a personal note to someone on Twitter can be worthwhile
• There is some truth in advertising (when they say “there’s an app for that,” they’re not kidding)
• There are people meeting up everywhere over just about everything — consider what that could mean for you and your business
• There is networking value to overlapping the professional and the personal online (safely and cautiously, of course)
• And for my new Italian friend, be careful where you invite “@usegraymatter” because she’ll end up posting about it

Scopa Cards (translated in Italian, "Scopa" means "sweep"). Points are awarded on each deal and when a player "sweeps" or wins all the cards on the table.

To think, all of this came out of a little tweet about a little deck of cards.

Meet online. Move offline. Maintain your network.

Scopa!

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Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who voted in the Baltimore Sun’s Mobbie Awards for Maryland’s Outstanding Blogs (and to my “mob,” in particular).

If you are local to the Maryland area and want to find some great local blogs, all of the nominees on the list are worth a peek.

Categories included: foodie, humor, pop culture, music and nightlife, neighborhood, news, politics, sports, Ravens, Orioles, Terps, family, personal, photography, art and DIY, business and technology, as well as a category for those blogs that defy categorization.

I thought this awards event did a great job of raising awareness about Maryland’s local blogs and bloggers. (Hat tip to the brainchild on this at the Sun.) It was great to see people rally around the blogging community here and I was thrilled to discover a few new finds to add to my RSS feed reader.

Congrats to all of the winners in each of the categories and to everyone in the top 10 best overall list.

Click here for a full listing of all Mobbies nominees and here to learn more about “the Social Sun.” Oh, and if you want to check out The Baltimore Sun’s list of news blogs, just click on through… http://www.baltimoresun.com/about/blogs/

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Coming soon…

I’m working on a post about privacy online to address the many, many, many, many questions and concerns people have brought to me over the past few months during presentations I’ve given and subsequent to some of my blog posts. It’s a big topic to tackle — but I’m on the case.

I invite you to send in your “privacy questions” now so I can incorporate them into my article.

In the meantime, I have this pearl of wisdom to share: if you don’t want something made public, don’t post it — EVEN IF you have all of your “privacy settings” on lock down on any given site or social platform. That’s just one woman’s opinion, but it’s a good preemptive privacy policy, no?

I’m going to take a closer look at the laws, the culture, and the best practices so that, together, we can figure out how to maneuver comfortably in the transparent, social online world without losing our individual senses of privacy.

Until then…

Gary Honig, president of D.C.-based Creative Capital Associates (CCA), provides accounts receivable financing to emerging businesses. Currently CCA has more than $10 million in available funding reserves with which they purchased $100 million of commercial invoicing last year. Now with offices in Denver, CO and Red Bank, NJ, CCA continues to fund nationwide. In an industry dependent upon relationships and referrals, Gary has very effectively harnessed the power of social media to raise awareness about his business, as well as to grow his personal and professional network.

Gary is on Twitter @garyhonig and blogs at The Art of Factoring. In this “Social Gets Local” post, Gary tells us how he puts his social media style to work for him every day.

Q: How has social media impacted the way you market your business?
A: As an early adopter of the power of social media, I began to incorporate the communication platform as an integrated part of our overall efforts. This allowed us to effectively get our message into the corners of business communities that had been previously hard to reach. Because the entirety of social media is an evolving mass, the excitement and anticipation of new concepts and applications drives the strategies. To successfully use social media marketing you must be nimble, pro-active, and quick to adopt fresh techniques.

Q: What social media tool do you use the most?
A: This changes as my needs require. A site like LinkedIn might help promote me as a subject matter expert, while Twitter might help me reach referral sources in a fast cost-effective way. The important thing is to cross-pollinate all these tools.

Q: How much time each day do you spend using social media?
A: Some days it seems as if I spend all day reading and writing. If you have enough self discipline to get in and get out of the social media spaces quickly, you can be very effective with 20 minutes here and there a couple times a day. The self discipline to not click on tantalizing subjects is key. That said, I think the threat of “wasting time online” does not mean that the tools are ineffective.

Q: Do you consider your time on social sites “time well spent”?
A: I have measurable results from the efforts to effectively use social media.

Q: What percentage of your new clients comes from social media?
A: Our business is relationships; possibly half the new relationships we acquire come through the social media marketing campaigns.

Q: How are you gauging “ROI”?
A: I believe we could be more effectively tracking our analytics. We are actively seeking to outsource some of this work to optimize the results.

Q: Can you describe your “social media successes” at the local, regional and national levels?
A: Local: We’re meeting good, strong resource partners by participating in events found through social media. Regional: We’re building awareness with better referral sources. National: We’re increasing our visibility as subject matter experts.

Q: Do you encourage your sales force to use social media? How or in what ways?
A: Yes, we believe that increasing the brand footprint by using social media is a great way to stay in front of new business. By staying on top of Twitter chat, working our keywords in discussions, and monitoring those keywords we can be first to respond when a question arises.

Q: What would you say to other local business owners about social media?
A: Be prepared to develop a plan that uses all the tools as a matrix strategy. The tools feed off each other. Use your time effectively, watch out for time drift and have discipline.

Q: What question do you have about social media that you’d like to ask your local business community?
A: What’s the last thing you read or attended that really stopped you in your tracks?

Click here if you’d like to be a part of Social Gets Local, a FREE local directory supporting businesses located or based in Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Annapolis that are using social media effectively.

Joan Schramm, who is an executive, career, business and personal coach at Momentum Coaching, has leveraged the power and reach of multiple social media tools to “achieve momentum” for her business.

In this “Social Gets Local” post, Joan shares her social media approaches, ideas and successes as both a business owner and a skilled social marketer.

Q: How has social media impacted the way you market your business?
A: My blog readership has tripled. By leveraging the power of blogging, I am able to earn more traffic and generate more requests for information.

Q: What social media tool do you use the most?
A: Tweetdeck for Twitter – it is a great tool for posting and for search, as well as for keeping track of important Tweets. I also use Friendfeed to further boost my exposure.

Q: How much time each day do you spend using social media?
A: I spend about 15 – 20 minutes a day on Facebook and on Twitter (@JoanSchramm) I’m in and out all day: 10-15 minutes in the morning; 10 minutes in the afternoon and 10 minutes in the evening.

Q: Do you consider your time on Twitter “time well spent?”
A: Absolutely. It keeps me up to date with what other people in the field are doing, and allows me to effectively communicate with a large number of interested people.

Q: What percentage of your new clients come from social media?
A: About 75 – 80% of my new clients come from social networking – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (in that order). The others come from regular networking, which is often an out-shoot of the social networking, so it’s all related. My outreach is more focused and I have started hosting a bi-monthly radio show on BlogTalkRadio. I’m also putting together a teleclass on social networking for job search.

Q: How are you gauging “ROI?”
A: I use search and monitoring tools (Google alerts and Twitter search) to gauge the Word Of Mouth (WOM) of my name/brand/business. Right now, I view the addition of new clients, as well as boosts in WOM as my primary measuring sticks for ROI.

Q: Can you describe one of your “social media successes?”
A: During the holidays, I ran a “10 Days of Holiday Giving” campaign in which I donated (to charity) $1.00 for every comment made on my blog. I got a lot of good feedback on that idea. I also have a Twitter account for a non-profit I volunteer with – Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League (MAGDRL). The response has been incredible, and MAGDRL was named one of the top 26 charities on Twitter by Mashable.

Q: Do you encourage your sales force to use social media? How or in what ways?
A: Our marketing efforts include our blog, newsletter and social media marketing. I use Google Reader every day to monitor my Top 10 list of blogs – which are great sources for sharing information.

Q: What would you say to other local business owners about social media?
A: Get ahead of the curve NOW. You are missing opportunities! Social media is NOT for kids – it’s for innovative marketers.

Q: What question do you have about social media that you’d like to ask your local business community?
A: Why aren’t more of you involved in social networking? I see a lot of skepticism and misunderstanding about its role in business, and I wonder why that is.

Click here if you’d like to be a part of Social Gets Local, a FREE local directory supporting businesses located in Baltimore, Washington DC and Annapolis that are using social media effectively.

Undeniably the size of a small country by its membership count, Facebook is continuing to expand its user base in increasingly exponential increments. Imagine the data its 25-year-old owner has at his fingertips about human behavior. It’s almost too much to consider…fascinating as it would be to sociologists, behaviorists and, of course, marketers. (Gotta hope he makes good decisions…with great power comes great responsibility, no?)

Facebook released this cool video that maps its growth to a whopping 250 million users that I wanted to share.

If you are unable to view the image above, you can see the video on facebook videos.

Not on facebook yet? I have to ask: aren’t you just a tiny bit curious?

No time for social media? Not interested? Overwhelmed? Think it’s a fad? Too busy? Prefer not to be “friended”? Nothin’ to tweet?

I’ve heard it all.

And I’m not here to convince you otherwise unless you ask me to…so feel free to sidestep social media if you’d like, but there’s a 3-step strategy that anyone who has a name, social security number, personal or professional interest, and a resume should know.

These are 3 simple steps that will keep you in step with “the latest technology,” even if you want to sidestep social media.

I always bring these three things up when I speak to a group about anything that’s going on online, and the pens/pencils always come out. (Oh, who am I kidding? No one uses pencils anymore.) These are pearls of Web 2.0 wisdom folks, three easy essentials that will cover you on the basics until you accept the power of social technology into your hearts and minds (and businesses).

1. MONITOR: Set up Google Alerts. This is so easy; I almost didn’t include it but for the fact that it always surprises me how many people haven’t done it. If you want to be alerted ANYTIME your name (or your family members’ names or any other keywords that are important to your personal security or professional development) is published online, anywhere in the world, set up an “alert” using Google’s FREE Google Alerts tool and you’ll get an email notification. THE QUESTION: I have been asked, “Why would I want to know when my name is published?” THE ANSWER: My response is always the same, why wouldn’t you? Always a good idea to do regular vanity searches by googling yourself so you can see what other people would see if they googled you, but even better to set up an automated system to alert you and keep you informed and aware of your digital trail. (And these days, we ALL have a digital trail.) While you’re at it, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have some kind of identity fraud protection on your SSN. It would cost less per month than what you might spend at Starbucks and delivers peace of mind without the caffeine.
2. MANAGE: Set up an RSS feed reader. I’ve talked about this before. I even put together a handy “how to set up an RSS feed reader” step-by-step guide that you can download for free. Gratis. That’s how much this means to me. It’s my little gift to you. THE QUESTION: How do you get the information that interests you most? THE ANSWER: You do an online search. Everything is about SEARCH these days. THE NEXT QUESTION: Are you controlling the flow of information in your life or are you overwhelmed by noise, a slave to pages and pages of search results? THE REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION: Do you only seek information when you need it, or have you set up an RSS feed reader so the information you desire most comes to you AUTOMATICALLY and is thus available to you to peruse or share at your convenience? THE DRIVE-MY-POINT-HOME QUESTION: In the Web 2.0 world of information overload, are you a victim of the volume or in control of your content consumption? THE EASY ANSWER TO ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS: Manage the content, kids — set up an RSS feed reader and live a happier online existence.
3. MAINTAIN: Set up your LinkedIn profile. Got a phone? Got email? How about a job or a desire to have a job? THE QUESTION: How can you have all of that and not have a LinkedIn profile set up in the year 2009? THE ANSWER: Sorry, but you’re going to have to tell me the answer because I cannot come up with one! I’m not saying LinkedIn will revolutionize your life, but gee-whiz, it sure can serve to make your life easier. (Yes, I still say “gee-whiz.”) There are lots of ways to use LinkedIn. Use it as an online, access-from-anywhere Rolodex of contacts; use it as an online resume you can refer people to quickly and simply; and use it to throw your hat in the virtual ring because people who you liked once upon a time and lost track of might love to send some business your way. You don’t have to post status updates if you don’t want to in this space. (Though it is recommended.) You don’t have to post photos of your kids. You don’t have to connect with anyone with whom you don’t wish to connect. You don’t have to post what you ate for lunch on anyone’s “wall.” You don’t have to tweet anything. But you do have to be there and properly maintain your presence and your profile. It’s your online “web cred” and, all things considered, it’s pretty low maintenance. Seriously, not being there is like going to a meeting without a business card. You can sidestep Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, etc., but I can’t figure out why one would opt out of LinkedIn if you’re in business. IF someone looks for you there for professional purposes and you’re not there, you miss the chance to make or enhance an impression. Being there is one more way to make it easier for business contacts to reach you if they haven’t seen you in a while or refer you to people within their networks in a few simple clicks. How is this a bad idea? I don’t see LinkedIn as being about social media as much as I see it as being about good business. Furthermore, should you ever find yourself in a position of needing to change jobs, LinkedIn ensures your network is quite literally at your fingertips. The big question here is: what impression do you think it leaves on prospects if you’re not on LinkedIn?

These are technology basics that EVERYONE in these curious times should consider, IMHO.

You can snub the social media mania for a while longer, if you’d like. As it was with the telephone and email, new communication tools are scary to some folks, and I’m down with that. But I swear by my Technology 3-Step.

Monitor, Manage, Maintain. It’s the very least you can do — for you.

Recently, a friend of mine had to undergo back surgery. The surgery would incapacitate her in the short term and require a long-term recovery program before life “returns to normal.” But the bigger problem was that she is also a caregiver to her husband who is battling Parkinson’s Disease.

How were they going to manage this?

This post is about how this couple’s community of friends stepped in with the help of a social platform that just blew me away: Lotsa Helping Hands.

A free-of-charge, private, web-based community you can use to organize family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues – a family’s ‘circles of community’ — during times of need. Easily coordinate activities and manage volunteers with our intuitive group calendar. Communicate and share information using announcements, messages boards, and photos.

It was amazing. LotsaHelpingHands.com provided a complete online solution to coordinating support and sharing support tasks across their network of friends. Not only did this site benefit my friend and her husband, but it provided clear and easy access for all of their friends who wanted to help them out.

It was a win-win for everyone.

Anyone who is a caregiver, knows caregivers, coordinates volunteers, cares for the elderly, is helping out new parents or parents in crisis, or anyone who is a part of a community supporting military families when soldiers are deployed can benefit from a social site like this. School organizers could use it, too, to organize classroom activities, fundraising events and more.

There are a multitude of applications that can be more easily managed with this truly helpful platform.

I didn’t imagine using “social media” in this way. So incredibly glad someone else did.

Not literally. Figuratively, of course.

The fact is, I don’t get out much during the week. Monday through Friday is a tumbler of parenting, working full time, managing two businesses, running a household and maintaining our zoo of domesticated animals.

So when I do venture out, I have incredibly high expectations.

Repeatedly, Ignite Baltimore has delivered, as has Ignite DC. And I’m counting on nothing less than total satisfaction from Ignite Annapolis (now in early planning stages).

The palpable energy at these events lights me up every time.

Haven’t been to an Ignite event? Let me quickly tell you what it is: a cross between a stage performance, networking event, block party, lecture series, improv show and a local mixer. More specifically, it’s a collection of 15 or so people from any given city, each allotted 5 minutes on stage with 20 slides behind them that are automatically rotated every 15 seconds, ready or not.

Who are the speakers?

Every man and every woman. Artists, technologists, thinkers, entrepreneurs, employees, personalities, professionals, unprofessionals and students, to name a few – and all of them brave enough to stand up in front of the Baltimore-DC-Annapolis-Etc. communities and share something.

Ignite events (started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis) are the most valuable organized events I’ve ever attended, professionally speaking. I’ve been to three and walked away from each equally energized and entertained by people who weren’t trying to sell me anything, but just had something cool to share.

It’s NOT all about social media – it IS all about your local community.

While the local Twitter population came out in force, there were plenty of non-twitterers amidst the presenters and spectators at the Ignite events I’ve attended. It’s amazing to have the chance to see what other people in the community are doing as opposed to hearing what someone is pitching, proposing, or otherwise “pushing.” These events are absolutely about sharing interests and ideas. They also avoid the awkwardness that can occur at more traditional “forced networking” events (you know, the ones that start with “Hello My Name Is…” badges and end with a pocketful of business cards that you’re unlikely to follow up on).

For example, I was fascinated at Ignite Baltimore #3 last week to learn about “The Archimedes Palimpsest,” now on loan at The Walters Art Museum, from Curator of Manuscripts, Will Noel. The guy and the topic that ignites him were fascinating. And Matt Castner, a blogger and recent college grad made “the case for being a generalist” with a polished, practiced and perfect delivery that also included one of the best impromptu and spontaneous laughs of the night. Jim Kucher, Melody Hildebrandt and Peter Corbett dazzled in their ideasharing about capitalism, the bailout-free web and crappy web apps (respectively), Amanda Schwarz has me rethinking my relationship with tea (black, green, oolong and herbal!), Debra Rubino encouraged me to do more eavesdropping, and Anne Draddy forever changed the way I’ll look at the tree canopy in downtown Baltimore.

It was a pot-luck of information and entertainment.

And it was an absolute delight to be exposed to such bright and interesting people in such a unique and lively format. Even the most “offbeat” presentation of the night was interesting in its, well, “offbeatness.”

Tickets are free. And you can do as much or as little actual socializing as you want.

To learn more about the Ignite event in your area, visit ignite.oreilly.com or wikipedia. Find out if your city has one and by all means give attendance some serious consideration. DEFINITELY worth your time, IMHO.

Local to me? Check out:

• Ignite Baltimore (Next event on 10/22 at The Walters)
• Ignite DC
• Ignite Annapolis
• Ignite Philly
• Ignite Wilmington

You can follow Ignite events on Twitter, as well:

• @IgniteBaltimore
• @IgniteDC
• @IgniteAnnapolis
• @IgnitePhilly
• @IgniteWilm

Oftentimes these events are webcast live, in case the workload, laundry and litter box keep you housebound. Just check their respective websites for the deets.

Bottom line? Ignite events are good for anyone’s gray matter.

I appreciate inspiration wherever I find it – I bring the energy from Ignite events right back into my work, into my personal interests and into my creative pursuits. So I want to issue a formal thank you to Mike Subelsky and Patti Chan, Ignite Baltimore co-founders, for lighting things up for all of those attending the event on June 25.

I look forward to getting lit again…hope I’ve adequately communicated why I think you should, too!

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• Ignite YouTube Channel (Best of Ignites from around the world)

On Friday, June 12, I attended BlogPotomac, in Falls Church, Virginia. BlogPotomac is a social media marketing event held for the greater Washington, D.C. community. Attendees enjoy a one-day event with nationally renowned speakers and advanced discussion of best social media marketing practices.

Thought I’d share my top five takeaways from the day.

1. It’s Not About The Technology.

Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford (and on twitter @scottmonty), spoke in the morning and this particular statement of his turned out to be highly “tweetable.” He talked about how social media is not about any given technology, but about a culture shift. It’s a shift we watched take place when the telephone entered the business world and then again when email entered our every day experiences. To paraphrase, technology, he said, will continue to evolve and change; it’s merely a tool to facilitate conversation and an opportunity to leverage more communication channels.

2. If The Leadership Doesn’t “Get It,” Don’t “Get In It.”

This one’s a Scott Monty paraphrase, as well. Bottom line? His success in social media at Ford is owing to the commitment of the company’s leadership to “listen” and “become a better company.” He’s not online “to sell cars” but to build a reputation. He was very clear that he could not have accomplished all that he has without the absolute support and backing of Ford’s leadership. (To read more on this, visit: Buzzcast #71: Scott Monty / Ford Motor Company (Video) and Scott Monty, Ford’s Agent of Change or simply google scott monty and settle in for some good biz-reading.)

3. Don’t Fear Negative Comments; Trust Your Community.

Can I help it if Scott Monty said so much good stuff? His point here? Know when it’s appropriate to respond to negative comments and when it’s not. Once you’ve built a community, you will see that when someone says something negative or untrue about you (or your brand), your community will oftentimes step up and respond for you to set the record straight (because you’ve taken the time and effort to build those positive relationships). I would append to this a comment from the next speaker at BlogPotomac, Liz Strauss. Liz is on twitter @lizstrauss and she blogs at LizStrauss.com. I tweeted at the event that Liz was worth the price of admission. To this end, she made the point that it’s easier “to trust” when you know who you are as an individual and a business. As a small business owner, I get this. And I’ve watched companies (and individuals) with a strong “sense of self” make a smooth transition into the social webs, so the point was well taken. Liz drove it home by adding that “social” should be INTERNAL, first. That is, “you can’t be truly social with customers if you’re not an open-conversation company on the inside.” Think on this one for a sec: Is your company social internally? Is there a strong communication and relationship-building effort between employer and employee? It’s a GREAT question and has never been more timely. (And it speaks to a company’s cultural preparedness to engage in the broader culture shift that social media is ushering in.)

4. Do You Need To Get On An Airplane, Or Get On Twitter?

Well, it doesn’t have to be twitter…it could be a video phone, skype, email, or any other tool. (It’s not about the technology!) At BlogPotomac, Liz Strauss reminded us all that “you don’t lead with the tools, you lead with the relationship.” With social media, you can build those relationships in a handful of different ways these days. (Whereas 10 years ago, you might have had to get on a plane, repeatedly, to build a quality relationship, you can often do more online these days to reduce the time you spend flying the friendly skies.) No one is saying the vis-à-vis isn’t of value, but the virtual can do a heck of a lot for you in between those meetings, if you use it appropriately. If this statement doesn’t resonate with you, then you might ask yourself how you use the telephone or email to build, maintain and support relationships (they’re “virtual,” too) and consider that social media offers similar opportunities to “connect.” If it feels unfamiliar, it’s only a matter of spending the time to learn how to use them well to pull – and push – value.

5. You Don’t Own Your Reputation.

Okay. I like this one. So the same thing we say about a company’s brand can be said about your own reputation. What do we say? Well, we say that “you don’t own a brand, you earn a brand.” So, too, with your reputation. YOU don’t define your reputation – your COMMUNITY/NETWORK does. You know who you are and you live it. They affirm and share it. This was the topic of discussion when Amber Naslund (who works for Radian6, blogs at Altitude Branding and is building her reputation @AmberCadabra) and Aaron Brazell (a.k.a. @technosailor, blogging at technosailor.com) took the stage. Fascinating stuff to consider. Brands are managed by businesses, but “controlled” by customers. To this end, you can’t control what gets put out there about you. You can only do what you do and do it well. The reputation follows. I focused on this portion of the dialogue, though much time was also spent on the notion of “personal branding,” as well as the balance between the personal and the professional brand. To me, it all goes back to reputation – whether you’re a business or an individual working on building relationships – all you can do is be your best you, every day. (Oh, and if you don’t want something showing up online, don’t put it there!)

Blog on!

Thanks to Geoff Livingston for a putting on a really great BlogPotomac. If you missed it, there will be another held in October. I think I heard October 23rd, but you should check the official website for official deets.

One final thought for business leaders and marketing veeps…

When you consider that you “allow” employees to communicate with clients on the phone and via email every single day, “allowing” them to communicate on the social webs (with best practices guidelines in place, of course) is simply a matter of evolving and extending your trust in your employees. An inappropriate email could easily be made public and a phone conversation could be easily converted to an mp3 and posted online for all the world to hear. Employees don’t do those things (typically) because most don’t set out to betray the trust of the company that employs them – or jeopardize their own reputations.

If “fear” feels like a barrier to social media, remember that businesses once feared email and, before that, the telephone. It’s simply not about the technology, it’s about trust and reputation. Social media is giving us all an opportunity to examine and extend the reach of both.

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• Ford’s CEO Takes On Twitter (pistachioconsulting.com)
• Innovators in Social Media (businessweek.com)
• Big brands in social media: Ford and Southwest Airlines (socialmediatoday.com)
• How Social Media is Radically Changing the Newsroom (mashable.com)
• Has the Ping replaced the Ring? (graymatterminute.com)

Melissa M. Gomez, Ph.D., is a jury consultant and owner of MMG Jury Consulting in Philadelphia. She tweets @mmgjury and blogs at The Legal Intelligencer. I want to thank her for taking the time to share her twitter experience and for not listening to her cousin.

Twhat?

About a month or so ago, I was sitting at my dining room table with my cousin (who, for his protection, will remain nameless) and he mentions something about this Twitter thing.  “I have heard of that. What is it?” I ask. His answer: “It is the ultimate tool for narcissists. Basically it is folks thinking that they need to share with the world when they drink their coffee, eat a ham sandwich and use the bathroom.”  Hmm. I don’t think I would be very interested in that.

Fast forward a week. I am chatting with my good friend and “social media stylist” (@usegraymatter). I need advice because I am going to be a regular contributor to The Legal Intelligencer blog, Pennsylvania’s local legal publication, and I had only written traditional (print) articles before. She brings up this Twitter thing again and I share my cousin’s perspective.

I tell her I am not sure how Twitter would be useful for a jury consultant like me. I get an earful.

In a few hours, I have a Twitter profile up and am searching around to see if there is anyone in the legal profession tweeping or tweeting or twipping or whatever they call it. I am not very hopeful. I know that none of my clients have ever set foot on twitter. They barely have time to check their email.

TwaHa!

What I find is something pretty incredible.  Folks in the profession are not only on there, but are really using Twitter as a professional tool. I see folks using Twitter as a platform to share ideas, articles, legal blogs and ask for referrals. Only the occasional ham sandwich rears its head. Pretty cool. So, I start to follow people. And they start to follow me back.

But what to tweet?

I am pretty sure no one is interested in the half-eaten granola bar sitting on my desk, so I start to tweet about what I would be interested in: good quotes, articles about courtroom psychology, blogs, things that jurors tweet about their jury duty experience. More people in the legal field follow. I follow more people.

Twa Moral of the Story…

So far, my take on using twitter professionally can be summed up in a comment I made on @lancegodard‘s  blog posting  “Aren’t you on Twitter yet?”

I think it is important to realize what social media may and may not be for legal marketers. For my business, I find that the point of marketing is to not only look at immediate gratification, but at the long term benefits.

Specifically, I am tapping into a whole new potential client base through Twitter-folks who may or may not need a jury consultant in the future, but who I know are going to be the future leaders in their industry — they are already setting themselves apart as the experts of their field through their blogs and such.

I realize that Twitter will likely not lead to immediate business, but it is getting my name out there in another form and with a new group of folks. That is never a negative for anyone as long as you put yourself out there in a meaningful way.

When I started my solo practice after years at a big litigation consulting firm, a good client advised me: “It doesn’t matter how you do it, just keep your name in front of people in a meaningful way. That way, if something comes along next week, next year or 10 years from now, your name will be the one to pop in their heads.”

I think Twitter is a great way to do that.

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