What did we do before Facebook? Before Twitter? Before most of what we think of as social media and smart phones and all of today's connected technologies existed?
Five years ago, much of what we think of today as social media was either in its early days or still stuck on a whiteboard somewhere.
Five years ago, we felt the same pain that we do today. We felt overwhelmed by new media (there were millions of blogs in 2006). Our filters sucked only slightly more than they do today.
In November of that same year, a group of about 100 of us teamed up with the Society for New Communications Research and hosted our first Boston meeting of the club. Jen was there, as well as Chris Heuer, and we were joined by a great group of Boston folks, including the following folks who really helped get the word out and share their thoughts: Adam Weiss, Adam Zand, Alison Raymond, Amanda Watlington, Barbara Rudolph, Brian Cavoli, Bryan Person, Chuck Hester, David Meerman Scott, Doug Haslam, Geoff Livingston, Mike Spataro, Paula Slotkin, Scott Monty, Susan Koutalakis, Tom Francoeur, Tony Sapienza and many others who you'll recognize in the photos below.
Following their sold out event in San Francisco with speakers from Facebook, Zappos, Dunkin’ Donuts and much more, GSMI has decided to bring the 2011 Social Media Strategies Summit to the East Coast. They've gathered more of the best and brightest speakers in the social media marketing arena to present emerging strategies, tactics and case studies in the successful use of social media. This event reveals how leading brands use social media to consolidate and expand their market share, as well as, gain valuable market data.
The Boston Social Media Club had a great event on Thursday on the importance of measurement for both small and large companies. I encourage you to have a look and listen.
Last night the Social Media Club Boston met to discuss "The Future of..." a number of subjects: from video to music to money and a couple other topics in-between. The presentations were fascinating, touching on everything from Marxism to augmented reality, trust, underwear and several other sequiturs and non-sequiturs. But the one thing that wasn't touched on by any speakers -- until, prompted by one Twitter comment in particular, I forced all of the speakers back up on stage at the end to speak to it -- was what the heck social media had to do with any of their predictions and explanations.
One of the best answers I got was that social media has both nothing and everything to do with their passion, both now and in the future. I was reminded by one of the speakers that not too far in the near future, we might as well call the "Social Media Club" the "What I Do Every Day All The Time For Work And For Fun Club" -- it's going to be that ubiquitous in the future.
Last week, the Society for New Communications Research Fellows met and made their own list of trends and predictions for 2009/2010, while I'll share with you next week. Not all of them have to do with social media directly, but social media touches on almost all of them. It is becoming ubiquitous. Time to find a new name for the Social Media Club.
In my very first post on this blog, I wrote that "social media is about change management. It's really about changing the way you do business." I went on to argue that "integrating social media across the many customer touchpoints (not just the website and phone system, but every single employee of your company) requires a new way of thinking about your business. In reality, it needs a few key characters. In that vein, and with all due respect for the Social Media Breakfast, the Social Media Club and John Hughes (and with all credit to Adam Zand, who first mashed up social media and high school and who lately specifically mentioned The Breakfast Club), I offer:
The Social Media Breakfast Club
"The Change Agent" When you first look at the change agent, he might seem like "The Criminal." He's not satisfied with the status quo and is willing to go to lengths to challenge the system, even if it causes a little trouble. But he's a necessary character in the Social Media Breakfast Club.
"The Champion" Call him "The Jock" if you want to, but you're still going to need him, because he's the guy who can rally the troops and, if necessary, force some of the change that needs to happen down the team's collective throat.
"The Creative" She might seem like "The Kook"or "The Basket Case" to some, but that doesn't mean you should lock her up and hide her from the world. Tap into her creativity to help lend some authenticity and originality to the content that you develop.
"The Nerd" While social media is getting easier and easier, it doesn't mean that throwing a little technology savvy at it can't significantly improve the end product. Tap "The Brain" -- or find your inner nerd -- to work with The Creative to find some news ways to do old things, and maybe even some new brand new things!
"The Collaborator" She may seem like "The Princess," but she's not as stuck up as she seems -- she's just intensely aware of what others think and feel. In reality, she's an incredible collaborator, and can be great at finding and working with others to achieve a common goal.
None of these characters can, by themselves, succeed at implementing social media across an organization. But together, they can find common ground and work to make a much better place for everyone.
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