Since Adam was busy attending the SNAP summit in San Francisco, I was lucky enough to take his place at a conference about Business Applications of Social Networking hosted by the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives this week. (Thanks, Adam!)
As an eager-to-learn Social Media novice, the half-day event proved worthwhile. It was a wonderful introduction to Social Media, but it was also inspiring to see so many professional women of all ages come together to talk about cutting-edge web strategy. Of course, there were also some pretty inspiring men in attendance.
One such fellow, President & founder of Socialtext, Ross Mayfield, kicked things off with a stellar introduction to the world of social media, and how businesses can leverage social software to their advantage. You can check out the detailed slides on his blog.
Prolific blogger and Forrester senior analyst, Jeremiah Owyang, outlined the basics of Social Media implementation with astonishing clarity during his presentation. Do yourself a favor and check out these slides. This man is amazing -- and Forrester's POST methodology should be included in Communications textbooks nationwide.
Next up, was a panel on "The Strategic and Tactical Implementation of Social Networks in Business". All the women were smart and savvy, but Karen Appleton from Box.net struck me as rather harsh in her assessment of Facebook profiles when she made it seem like a young professionals were committing a mortal sin by donning a cocktail dresses in their pictures.
Robin Wolaner gave a humorous presentation on Purposeful Networking, particularly as it pertain to Baby Boomers and her newly launched Boomer-oriented site, TeeBeeDee .
Finally, Ning CEO Gina Bianchini pulled it all together in her presentation on "Launching and Growing Your Online Community". This woman is classy and cool, and her comparison of launching a Social Networks to throwing a party made me want to start one on her site.
All in all, whether you are a man or a women, this conference was a great introduction to Social Media Tactics for Business. You should be able to see the whole thing online on the FWE&E website next week.
Until then, here are my basic takeaways:
• Understand your audience and prototype your network before launch
• The NetGens are coming of age, and you bet they will expect/bring more internal Social Media applications to the workplace
• Plan to be flexible. Your customers will ask for change. Heed their advice, but don't lose your voice in the process
• Don't don something in your Facebook photo you wouldn't wear to the office
• If you have a corporate blog, make sure it's transparent
• Social Networking isn't for everyone (yet). If it doesn't make sense for your business needs, don't push it.
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