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Posts Tagged ‘Media Experts’

Off the heels of a successful trip to New Orleans to speak at Webtrend’s Engage 2010 conference, I’ve been invited by Jeremy Fairley to sit on a panel at the University of Tampa’s Center for Leadership.

I got to spend quite a bit of time with Jeremy when he was launching his blogging initiatives in Tampa and his program has been recognized nationally. He understands how to motivate his team, measure the results, and continues to refine his strategy. I’m looking forward to catching up!

The breakfast panel will be discussing Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Business. Here’s the information from the official site:

The topic of Social Media captured the attention of the business world in 2009. A multitude of seminars and online discussions answered the question: “What is Social Media?”

This panel discussion elevates the discussion to a higher level by bringing together Social Media experts who will address the next steps to answer the critical question: “How do I harness the power of Social Media for my business to succeed?” The discussion will open with a Tampa Bay organization’s Social Media success story, and be followed by a moderator-led discussion with the experts that will focus on critical success factors in Social Media use. Next, the floor will be open to questions from the seminar participants.

Attending this panel discussion will empower business leaders to capture the unique benefits of Social Media to leverage a firm’s presence in the marketplace. Among other topics, the panel will address: how and when to use social media effectively; how to integrate the use of multiple social media platforms; what social media can NOT accomplish; how much Social Media costs; how to measure success; how to use Social Media in a B2B environment and what the future holds for Social Media marketing.

If you’re a reader from the Tampa Bay or Bradenton area, I’ll be flying down a couple days early to spend time with my parents (in Bradenton). Please let me know immediately if you’d like to meet up – I’ve got to book the tickets soon!

This post was written by Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr is the founder of The Marketing Technology Blog. Doug is President and CEO of DK New Media, an online marketing company specializing in social media, blogging and search engine optimization. Their clients include Webtrends, ChaCha and many more.

Thanks for subscribing! download Doug's eBook on Blogging for SEO on us!

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If I were at a company looking for the perfect marketing or advertising agency, I would find an agency that has the following characteristics:

• The perfect agency understands how to leverage and measure each medium.
• The perfect agency tracks all the latest technologies.
• The perfect agency has videographers, vocal talent, print designers, graphic designers, search engine optimization experts, mobile marketing experts, brand management professionals, project managers, ecommerce and conversion experts, public relations experts, usability experts, pay-per-click experts, blogging experts, social media experts, analytics experts, and developers for every platform.

That perfect agency doesn’t exist. Stop looking for them!

If your company truly wants a partner in stepping up its marketing efforts, your perfect agency should have the following characteristics:

• Your perfect agency understands you, your products and services, strategies, internal business structure, and the skills you have internally.
• Your perfect agency knows the niche that they are great at – and they concentrate on that instead of trying to be everything to everyone.
• Your perfect agency is well connected in the industry, knowing where to find and consult with industry experts. They know where to find videographers, vocal talent, print designers, graphic designers, search engine optimization experts, mobile marketing experts, brand management professionals, project managers, ecommerce and conversion experts, public relations experts, usability experts, pay-per-click experts, blogging experts, social media experts, analytics experts, and developers for every platform.
• Your perfect agency knows how to manage projects utilizing external resources so that you don’t have to worry about it. Your perfect agency probably even bills you once, and takes care of paying all the other resources.

Yesterday, I was at a prospective client and the coordinator, Jim Brown of Evereffect, assembled no less than 5 companies to come in and consult with his client. He recognized that their challenges were much larger than the expertise his firm had internally – so he went out and identified a well-rounded collection of local experts to assist the company. I was humbled to be one of those firms.

Whether or not I get to work with the prospect remains to be seen… but no doubt that client has already found his perfect marketing agency with Evereffect.

Some folks in town believe that they are competing with my firm or others. It’s a terribly narrow view of the industry. Instead, co-opetition should be our rallying cry. If we all work together to get the best results for our clients, our clients grow, our region grows, and we grow.

Connections ’09: The Largest One-to-One Marketing Conference in the World

Only 100 seats remain for the industry's leading one-to-one marketing conference – Connections '09: Success by Design. Don't wait – reserve your spot today! If you're looking for the best ways to build a powerful one-to-one marketing program that achieves outstanding business results, then you can't miss Connections '09.

Whether you're an email marketer, strategist, designer, or developer, we've got something in store for you. And, with more than 1,000 marketers in attendance, the opportunities for networking and learning are endless!

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• FriendFeed Blog
  We are happy to announce that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed. As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle…
  (tags: socialnetworking socialmedia friendfeed social)
• Social Media — Content Before Engagement | Working with Agencies
  It seems like every time I meet with an agency, they bring along their social media experts. I’m not exactly sure what makes someone a social media expert. Perhaps it is someone who knows how to amass a lot of Facebook friends or how to put a lot of torque into their Twitter wrench.
  (tags: brand socialmedia social-media-expert)

Just wanted to invite everyone to Blog Indiana 2009! Noah and the team have graciously asked me to return – this year to lead a session on blogging for search! For those veterans of Blog Indiana’s first year (which was fantastic), this year appears to make this one of the best social media and blogging conferences in the country!

Here’s the Press Release for Blog Indiana 2009

Blog Indiana, founded last year by Noah Coffey and Shawn Plew, announced its second annual blogging and social media conference. The three-day event will be held August 13 through 15, 2009 from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm at the Informatics and Communications Technology Complex on the IUPUI Campus and will bring bloggers, marketers, and small business owners from across the state in an effort to promote education, innovation and collaboration. The conference is sponsored by the IU School of Informatics and Smaller Indiana.

“We want to help empower businesses and entreprenuers to take advantage of the latest in social media,” said Noah Coffey. “This conference will help do that by providing insights and best practices from local experts as well as help introduce novices to the whole concept.”

Blog Indiana 2009 is an all-day, three-day event for those seeking to capitalize on the financial benefits and brand exposure of blogging and social media. Topical sessions will be lead by successful social media experts such as Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Chris Baggott, Brad Ward, Tom Britt, and many others.

Sessions will include discussions on hot trends such as Twitter, Facebook, and the social web. Other items such as blogging for beginners, using blogs & social media in your business, monetizing your blog, political blogging, and more advanced topics. Panel and group discussions will also be offered on Saturday.

Non-Profit Summit & Higher Education Summit

Due to popular request, this year will feature two 1-day summits with sessions geared specifically towards those in the non-profit and higher education worlds. The Higher Education summit will take place on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 and the Non-Profit Summit will take place on Friday, August 14th, 2009.

Ticket prices vary depending on which part of the conference you wish to attend. Early bird pricing ends the week of July 12th, 2009. Seating is limited. This conference is open to residents and businesses outside of Indiana. Tickets can be purchased online.

“In the past, most blogging and technology-related conferences have either been too expensive or too far out of state,” noted Shawn Plew. “Blog Indiana 2009 will bring a low-cost, high-value conference to Indiana.”

About Blog Indiana LLC
Noah Coffey is founder and president of Coffey Design. When not designing web sites, Coffey is blogging about it and the challenges of freelancing and being a first-time parent.

Shawn Plew is a web consultant for TGFI, Inc., based in Indianapolis. He blogs about his experiences as a first time father.

About IU School of Informatics
The Indiana University School of Informatics has set as its goal to be nationally recognized as the foremost in the country for excellence and leadership in Informatics programs, including undergraduate and graduate education, research, placement and outreach. These programs include opportunities for professionals trained in state-of-the-art information technology and science with an emphasis on creative human applications.

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  This is the official Kevin Hood blog post. The reason why I am saying my name a lot is because when I search Google for my name, this guy who shows horses comes up before me. He used to own KevinHood.com, but let it expire several years ago and I snatched it up the second it became available.
  (tags: kevin-hood kevinhood indianapolis)
• Why You Shouldn’t Hire Social Media EXPERTS | Professional Blog Service
  We wrote about the problem with people calling themselves social media experts a few months ago, saying there basically aren’t any. We figured this was just some little topic of discussion we had going on around town that would have died off pretty quickly, but it’s still going on, and there are a few more people talking about the same thing.
  (tags: social-media social-media-experts expert expertise)

Yet again today I was invited to a handful of events – in person and via webinar – to gain exposure to a social media expert and their take on social media marketing. As I review their profiles, their LinkedIn info, their sites and their blogs, I find no substantial information supporting the premise that they are social media experts.

Social media expert? Really? Perhaps they have tens of thousands of Twitter followers, hundreds of comments on their Facebook wall, and membership in a dozen or so networks. Perhaps because they’re a charlatan, a shark or a geek.

What would I classify as a social media expert? I love Peter Shankman’s list of qualifications and disqualifications for social media experts. I would add – that if it’s pertaining to business – I would like to see a long list of measurable results and references across a variety of companies and strategies.

Do I classify myself as an expert? I do – but not because I claim to understand it all. This is a young medium and its changing on a daily basis. It’s changing business behavior. It’s changing consumer behavior. My decade of experience evolving from direct marketing and database marketing, email marketing, etc. enabled me to naturally evolve into my current status.

I don’t claim myself an expert because of my knowledge of social media… I claim myself an expert because of the work I’ve accomplished for companies large and small to grow their business, retain and upsell customers, and reduce customer service calls by effectively utilizing social media.

Do I claim myself an expert because of the work I currently do?

• I’m a VP of a blogging platform I helped dream up that’s doubling its business each year.
• I own an up and coming New Media Agency (excuse the mess, we’re REALLY young) with a couple heavy international clients.
• The integration and automation tools I’ve developed in the blogging, email, video and mobile space.
• The 2 social networks I helped start and continue to help run.
• My own blog which spans 4 years (plus a couple more on other platforms) speaking to social media and marketing technology.

NO! None of this qualifies me as an expert.

I call myself an expert for three reasons:

1. Businesses seek experts, not gurus and geeks.
2. Calling myself an expert holds myself to a higher standard and expectation with a company that I must fulfill.
3. I fit the definition:

An expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well distinguished domain. An expert, more generally, is a person with extensive knowledge or ability in a particular area of study.

Am I smarter than the rest of the folks out there? Nope.
Do I know everything about social media? Of course not.
Do other experts always agree with me? Not a chance!
Has all of my work been successful? No – but much of it has.

I do believe that I have had an outstanding knack for analyzing business processes, marketing mediums, and determining how technology can bridge the gap. I don’t lie to clients and tell them they must be a part of social media if they wish to survive. I do share with them many of the successes, though! It’s a medium I personally believe in and hope to see mass adoption of – not because it can be manipulated by bad businesses – but because it can be leveraged by great businesses.

I believe social media connects businesses to prospects, builds improved relationships between customers and companies, pushes companies to improve customer service, builds transparency, and encourages thought leadership, entrepreneurial talent and evolution… all great for business.

And that, my friends, is my expert opinion.

PS: I’m sure if you go back far enough in my blog or comments on other blogs that I’ve torn into a few folks who self-proclaimed their expertise. Now it’s your turn.

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