It was a little surreal to be in a radio station talking about social media. KGMI is quite a storied place; founder Rogan Jones figured prominently in radio and cable television history. Now of course like most corporation-owned radio stations, there's quite a bit of automation and offsite control. (8AM on a Sunday may have exacerbated that perception.)
Good intro to Social Media and some key local experts. Come to the conference, it's the bargain of the century!
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Word of Mouse - Introducing Social Media
(column published in Bellingham Business Journal)
In the Internet economy, your customers and partners can talk with you, and about you; this is coming to be known as “social media.” Do you think that their opinions affect your business? Stupid question, right? Word of mouth has been part of commerce since forever - the Greek term "agora" means both 'market' and 'place that people gather.' The traffic of opinions can make or break success - ask any restaurant owner. Now, though, the broad availability of public, permanent, searchable digital records is moving word of mouth from the street to the screen - and in the process, giving businesses new and better opportunities to participate in these conversations.
To put that more concretely - people are getting more information from the Internet, but they are also creating more information on the Internet. Most of it is public, and much of it becomes permanent. The agora conversations are recorded, replayed, commented and - critically - are instantly accessible with a Web search.
It doesn't really matter what your business does - make things, do things, sell things - you are also in the business of creating and disseminating knowledge. Your business exists and runs, at least in part, on a globe-wide network that holds and moves numbers, words, images, video, and sounds everywhere. Even if you ignore it, knowledge about your products or services will be created and disseminated. Those 'chunks of knowledge' will have a direct effect on your business - on your brand, reputation, customer behavior and ultimately your profitability.
Digital Marketing
