Talking Social Media with Chris Brogan and Peter Shankman

Earlier today, I joined in a conference call with two well-known social media influencers. Chris Brogan has just written a new book with Julien Smith called Trust Agents. Peter Shankman may be best known as the founder of Help A Reporter Out or HARO as its devotees call it. It's a service that links reporters and sources with daily queries from reporters sent via email three times a day. I've had the good fortune to meet Peter Shankman and hear him speak in person and I'm hoping to get the opportunity to meet Chris Brogan one day.

I learn from both of them daily. Daily. Sometimes hourly on a busy Twitter day.

My takeaways from the call have ended up in this list. It didn't start out to be ten like a Letterman list. I thought it might be five or so. It just kept growing. So here are the Top Ten Things That Stuck with Me in the Social Media Call with Brogan and Shankman.

1. Grow bigger ears
While some business folks try to use social media as another advertising channel, one of its key advantages is listening. People are probably already talking about your business. And if they're at the point of asking, then they're usually ready to buy. You wouldn't walk into a cocktail party shouting about your product, right? Use the same behavior for social media. Listen to conversations, join them, talk about your stuff, but talk about what else is going on too. How exactly can you grow bigger ears? Chris Brogan wrote a nifty post about that. You and your clients must switch from "Where do I advertise?" to "Where do I listen?" to get the most from your social media efforts.

2. Listen to/for your competitors
Are you competitors on Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? Or any other sharing site out there. Listen to what they're doing and saying. You'd pay attention to an article written about them in a newspaper or a magazine or broadcast on the news, so this is just your basic research to know what your competition is doing. You might find out that people are talking and they're not responding, which leaves you poised to answer the consumers' needs instead of your competition's getting the win.

3. How do I get more followers?
Peter Shankman says provide good information. His example is don't tweet that you're eating yogurt, tweet that you're eating yogurt that you just bought for 75 cents at a new Pinkberry's opening on Main Street so others can use the info. Chris Brogan says be helpful and offer good information.

Both say the number of your followers isn't as important as how engaged your followers and friends are. You can have thousands of followers, but if they're not commenting and passing along information and asking you questions, it's just a number. Your clients may think this number is important. It's your job to explain it's more about engagement.

4. B2B Marketers are still struggling with social media
Brogan says go where there is no road and leave a trail. Social media is inexpensive, so being trailblazer won't break the bank. To that I add that people are still experimenting with different ways to use social
media, so your way could turn into a best practice for your industry if you're a trailblazer.

5. Make interesting comments about your industry
People who are making informational comments about their industries are more likely to be followed when someone is doing a Twitter search looking for keywords. That can yield new clients. Try it and see.

6. You can't make viral
Ever had a client ask you to make a viral video? These guys say you can't make viral. You can make something great, that becomes viral. But making something viral -- it's just not going to happen. You can also create an army of loyalists by giving them excellent customer service. Then it won't be you tooting your own horn -- they'll be singing your praises and urging their friends and colleagues to give you a try. And they might just pass along that great content you created. Look, now it's viral.

7. Don't listen to the Stoppers
These are the people who tell you it can't be done, or we already tried that, or I just don't see the point of that effort. Show your clients how many of their colleagues are using social media. You could find that 70% or so are using some sort of social media. When your clients see that they know people who are already using social media, they'll be more open to your ideas. You know this advice is good for more than just social media. You can apply this to many obstacles in your business.

8. You can make money from sharing on social media
Shankman says this post brought in more than $100,000 in business for him. Both men travel a lot giving talks about social media, so their use of social media has certainly helped their businesses. Chris Brogan has compiled these case studies of businesses that have successfully implemented social media. Maybe you'll get some ideas there too. I'm going back for a second look.

9. Have a "parking lot" for the information you're tweeting about.
You should have a permanent web home for the information you're sharing on social media like Twitter. It's a place where you can point people, or where the ideas you're sharing live. Brogan brought up a business that created a "So you found us on Twitter" page for their website. Genius. Wish I'd thought of that.

10. But social media takes so much time. Is there a way I can update everything at once?
Sure. There are many clients that will help make updates for several social sites and many are useful for controlling the stream of updates coming your way. There's TweetDeck, Seesmic and HootSuite for starters. Some of them can be used to update everything at once. But both men suggest not relying on a service that blasts the same update everywhere. And I totally agree. That's because each site is different, and the people you're talking with on each channel is different. Your LinkedIn contacts might not want or need to know the same thing your Facebook friends do, for example. Same thing with Twitter and Facebook. You can manage your content efficiently without resorting to an "update them all at once solution", I promise.

While some of the social media asks you what are you doing, or what are you sharing, Brogan and Shankman say a better question for you to keep in mind is "What has your attention?" If you comment and share about ideas and influences that are important to you, your passion will attract attention and engage your audience.

And here's my big position on social media. Don't think of it as ROI, Return on Investment, but ROE, Return on Engagement when it comes to social media. Brogan and Shankman talked about engagement nonstop during this call. What else do you want to know about business and social media? I'd be happy to fill in any blanks or answer any questions I might have raised for you here. Meantime, I'm a huge Twitter fan and would love to chat with you there too. You can find me @stephskordas.