If you follow social media at all, you've encountered the splendid work of
Valeria Maltoni, this week's Blogger of the Week. Unlike some of those other A-List marketing bloggers who like to make you come to their site so they can get a brownie point on their statmeter (and you know who you are), Valeria embraces the information-wants-to-be-free ethos which underpins the social media movement. You can read her posts not only on her
Conversation Agent blog, but also right here at SMT or at Fast Company, Marketing Profs Daily Fix, and Marketing 2.0.
"I started
Conversation Agent in September 2006, but I was sort of blogging before because for more than seven years I moderated an online listserv for the business group of Fast Company magazine readers," she says. "As a result of developing the Fast Company network to 500+ professionals and running almost 100 events in the last seven years, I accumulated a lot of knowledge and learning from experience I was eager to test in other media. And I've always enjoyed writing as a way to communicate with others -- the conversation is a space.
"Blogging was a natural progress of my work with that social network because content marketing and synthesis of where marketing meets PR meets communications and social media is the concept behind Conversation Agent. My brand promise: connecting ideas and people -- talk can and does change our lives."
Valeria is one of the many co-authors of
The Age of Conversation, a groundbreaking ebook collaboration by 103 of today's top marketing writers. Valeria is a frequent speaker on branding, integrating marketing and social media to serve business strategy, and customer conversations as the new marketing. She publishes in both English and Italian. Educated at the University of Bologna and Villanova University, Valeria combines New World sensibilities with Italian style. She's an active member of the Blog Council, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the American Marketing Association (AMA), the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia (WACA), and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
Valeria is currently Director, Marketing Communications at SunGard Availability Services.
A big thought on social media:
"While they have lots of the small things in common, and answer to similar questions, social media and communication "design" stem from different places," she says. "Communication is two-way and social media can be and often is non-linear and discontinuous. The intention and philosophical framework that they draw from is fundamentally different. Social media tools allow for the creation of a system, while communication does not. SM create a space for dynamics to take place, it's a container. I don't think we've found the big thought on what social media is about, yet. but the story of how it is allowing a different kind of conversation is building evidence towards that kind of insight."