Just spotted this ad in KC Small Business magazine. I think I like it. Thoughts?

Snakey Social Media Salesmen: Selling Questionable Cure-Alls for All Your Marketing Problems Since 2005

Preparing for our social media luncheon, I discovered an email in my inbox that made me pause. Like any less-than-glowing review, it immediately made me a little defensive. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that most people still need educated on what’s happening in the social media landscape. Not everyone is sitting around the online campfire, singing Kumbaya, and tweeting about the latest trend to hit the interwebs and sharing their unsolicited expert opinions on all things social media.

For those living in what we geeks distantly refer to as IRL, the business world is more challenging than ever, with marketing getting more and more competitive, complicated, and buzzword-laden by the  minute. It’s no wonder that this person – who, by the way, I consider more of a colleague and peer, and less of a potential client for me to target (or some other scary word that proliferates predatory sales vibes) – felt certain there must be a “catch” to my invitation. And since education is such an important part of our business, I’ll be sure to clarify this in the future. Take a look at my response to this skeptical diner and let me know what you think!

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To: Sarah

From: Sally

Sarah, thank you for the info, sounds interesting. Must say it is a bit odd to be asked to pay $30 for you and Ami to sell your services to us! – Sally

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To: Sally

From: Sarah

Hi Sally!

Thanks for your email. I’m sorry you couldn’t join us today. I’m also sorry if anything I said suggested our goal for the luncheon was to make a sales pitch. After chatting with you at the ABC Networking Club luncheon last month, I was under the impression you might enjoy/benefit from participating in a conversation about social media.

Your email was a good reminder for me that, for those of us immersed in the social media landscape every day, it’s quite possible we take for granted some of the principles that make it such a unique and impactful marketing phenomenon. These principles manifest themselves in best practices for social media engagement, which we all discussed this afternoon. Some of these include:

1.    Creating genuine relationships both online and in real life,

2.    Building trust with business partners and potential/current clients through transparent communications, open dialogue, and frequent conversations,

3.    Sharing information (for free!) to educate members of your community without expecting anything directly in return,

4.    And driving conversations and building a community of people around social media as a tool for our businesses so that we can all improve and prosper as business owners.

Ami and I are wrapping up the Powerpoint presentation and some handouts we had at lunch today and will make a summary available online ASAP. In the meantime, I’m attaching a couple screen shots of the worksheets we talked about as take-home resources to help create and implement social media strategies. These are obviously pretty high-level, but I think they help get the social media ideas flowing. When we get all the information compiled so you can see it all in context, I’ll be sure to let you know. I’d love to hear your feedback!

In today’s competitive every-gal-for-herself marketplace, I can’t say that I blame you for expecting a “catch” when it comes to events. Beyond covering our expenses, the main things Ami and I hoped to accomplish today were connecting some new networking contacts and sharing some best practices. I personally hope I can empower business owners to make the right decision if they find themselves in a situation where they feel pressured by a social media “snake oil” salesman using tired old methods to sell these marketing tactics that were created in defiance of that exact experience. Does that make sense? I see it happen all the time and, as you can tell, I’m pretty passionate about it! So, if you ever feel like chatting, I’m always excited to grab a coffee with you! … no strings attached.

Thanks again for your email, Sally. I hope things are going well with your business. If you have any questions or if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to let me know! Hope to see you at another ABC Networking Club event soon!

Best regards,

Sarah

1. Everyone has a marketing strategy that includes social media strategy.
2. Everyone knows what social media is. I mean, really is.

When we think of marketing, advertising, public relations, and communications, each one of us has our own predisposed set of assumptions, intimidation, and even judgment. Add into the mix newfangled buzzwords like new media, social influence, digital marketing, online branding, etc., etc., etc., and we’re even more inclined to feel a certain way about these industries that made us feel alienated and un-artistic before they started in with their new generation of jargon. That’s our prerogative and it’s totally fine. I’d love it if in the comments section of this post, you’d share with me some of your thoughts on old and new school creative industry buzzwords.

Meanwhile, I thought this was as good a place as any to share a special invitation to a luncheon I’m hosting with a couple colleagues who have really led the whole marketing/advertising/promotions/communications via social media whirlwind by incredible example. Our hope is that good food, good company, and good old fashioned discussion will help shed some light on this web movement so that real businesss owners can learn a little about the merits of new media as a marketing tool and even take away some relevant tools to help apply social media in its most practical sense to the promotion of their deservning goods and services. Take a look …

Hope to see you there! In the meantime, sound off on what your biggest social media woes are at Kinetic Ink’s Facebook discussion and don’t forget to let us know about your impression of marketing industry jargon du jour right here!

If you’re anything like me, you find inspiration where you least expect it and, of course, when you’re furthest from a pencil and paper. Fortunately I had my phone with me on this sunny afternoon on my family’s farm in Northwest Missouri. What could we achieve if we found a way to bottle this kind of inspiration? Even the most creative among us can’t always summon the truly awesome feeling we get when inspired by surprise. How do you channel yours?