Blogger of the Week Beth Harte hit a grand slam with readers of SMT when her Who Are You? And Why Should I Trust You?  post became the most read, highest rated and most commented upon post of the week.  Harte is a marketing and communications professional (and an adjunct professor of marketing and PR) in the Philadelphia area who started her career when companies barely had e-mail—let alone websites and blogs.

“I started blogging in 2006; it was a personal blog (now defunct) and not related to marketing, communications and social media,” she says. I didn’t really consider myself a blogger at that time; it was just something fun to do. I was blogging under a nom de plume because I was not comfortable about sharing my identity on-line. And, I didn’t post there that often.”

After becoming more involved with social media and meeting a lot of great social media leaders and evangelists, Beth says she learned that in order to be real and have a real presence, she needed to let everyone know who she is and what she was doing from a marketing and communications perspective. As well, she wanted an outlet to share her passion and discuss her thoughts about how marketing and communications were changing in light of social media and Web 2.0 tools. The result was her current blog The Harte of Marketing.

“My involvement in social media has evolved from a personal perspective to include a business perspective. I know social media works—I have experienced it first hand,” she says.  “At my current employer, I manage our blog and IT forum (still in their infancies) as a way to generate conversation among customers and people in the IT industry. Social media is really working to kick off dialogue and we are looking forward to the challenge when the forum is so crowded that management of it requires a full-time position. I am using traditional marketing to create buzz around the blog and forum as well as Web 2.0 tools like Twitter.”

As a consultant,she helps businesses understand social media and help them to decide whether social media is right for them and will work for them and their customers, prospects, employees, etc. She also speaks on the topics of social media and SEO.

“There is still a lot of misunderstanding around social media and it stops businesses from taking steps towards implementing it into their marketing or business strategy. I think two-way communication is challenge because it’s not the standard marketing practice,” she says.   “I help clients understand that marketing and communications are changing and that their customers actually want to communicate with them and how to embrace the power of that connection and conversation.

“Social media has given me the confidence to share my marketing and communications knowledge beyond just a corporate job and being an adjust professor. I don’t think I would have ever considered being a consultant before now. And for that, I am thankful to everyone who has given me the courage to do so. The power of people is an amazing force.”