Marketing, Road Trips and Hammers

So much has happened in the last 2 months. I launched a killer Twitter based fund raising campaign with the organization I work for Operation Smile. We flew to San Francisco and threw a launch party and then promoted it at TWTRCON, the first Twitter for business conference.

It was so amazing meeting the various personalities and marketing professionals who, like myself are trying to harness Twitter and (for the most part) use it's powers for good. It was also refreshing to discover that one can be valued for their ideas and ability to develop unique and dynamic strategy even while they may lack the technical mastery to fully implement. I was told an analogy of marketing days gone by when websites first arrived and it wasn't up to the strategist or marketing manager to write the code for the site but it was up to them to make it look great and produce.

AHHHHH sigh of relief. Because frankly these web tools are so vast and while I am working hard to master them and reading the masters to do so (you know who you are because you get my dm's and @'s)i sometimes get caught up in the tools and forget that i am skilled at the plans. My husband had yet another great analogy as I fretted in the car on a roadtrip en route to Bonnaroo at my lack of ability to get my apps to work on my Blackberry.

He said-every man has a tool set in their house somewhere, a hammer, a saw some sand paper. But do many of them have the forethought, creativity and drive to use those tools to really create something amazing like a piece of furniture or art?

WOW. pretty heavy stuff. I used to use the pencil and paper analogy but in the tech world this is even more illustrative. (the pencil analogy if you haven't heard me ramble about art is that you can give 50 people a pencil and paper and ask them to do something with it and the artist or creative thinker will create something magical while the others will right their name or play tic tac toe).

So for the rest of the road trip I contemplated the tools I needed to master, read my Seth Godin and Clay Shirky like a good little web marketer and felt excited about the evolution of my marketing and creative mind.

So we've arrived in lovely Manchester Tennessee where we are surrounded by what I can only dub "Faux Hippies". I just woke and started reading my morning blogs, still reeling from my road trip of web marketing exploration and home read this incredible blog post from Mark Olson which seems to echo many of the themes I was contemplating yesterday. "Groovy man"

I am so inspired and excited about this paradigm shift, where finally innovation and passion have equal places in the tool box as experience and technical skill. The constantly evolving and revolving nature of the tools we are using evens the playing field a bit as we're all learning them together.

So I guess for the duration of this "Social Media Strategy" road trip I'm on, I'll make sure I subscribe to the right RSS feeds, maintain a steady watch on the tool makers, keep an open mind and then continue to figure out more creative and incredible ways to use my hammer...

social media's so bright, i gotta wear shades!

SO many wonderful things have started to materialize since the New Years Bell tolled and the start of 2009. I switched gears in my professional role from Donor Relations Supervisor, managing my International children's medical charities Donor Relation Call Center and grassroots fund raising to a role doing a very similar function only using social media.

I met some amazing mentors and contacts very early on by attending the We Are Media workshop from NTEN in Feb. and then had some great conversations and learning experiences from SxSW Interactive in March.

The more I learn, the more I feel like it's o.k. to listen to my instincts. While I may not know the jargon and the latest trends in web marketing, what I have always had a knack for is relationship building. Talking to people, anticipating their needs, predicting trends and acting on my instincts.

These traits have served me well in various fields including the restaurant business, retail, marketing and radio. They also helped way back when I donned a purple with and face glitter in my role as a professional clown! (thank god that was pre-social media and the pics are non-existent).

I am reflecting on all of this this because I recently had some really amazing conversations with folks who are outright terrified of social media. People who I have always respected and admired for their incredible intellect, innovation and professional prowess are now asking me for my thoughts and ideas related to social media. And, while I'm not an "expert" like my colleagues and mentors, and I don't speak fluent tech ease, I realize I do have some valuable perspective and information to help them get their toes wet in social media.

I also realize that there are no experts. Everyone is learning, we're all in this together which certainly echoes the very notion of "social" media. You can't get a degree in it because surely by the time the commencement speech is over the technology has changed. But the philosophy remains the same. And the philosophy of Social Media is what seems to have corporate America shaking in their loafers.

While I have a ways to go to maximize my understanding of the total picture if the world wide web, I am uniquely qualified to dive into the pool of Social Media philosophy and strategy. I started as a user and evangelist starting with Friendster in 2002 and then Myspace, DeviantArt, Etsy etc etc. I am now an official Facebook and Twitter addict and am anxiously looking for the next great way to communicate.

And the communication is the key-social media has created an incredible community to learn, grow, explore, elevate and inspire. The playing fields are becoming more level and the walls are being broken down in more ways than you can even imagine.

In the coming weeks I will have some personal benchmarks that will prove to even more solidly tie me to this insane online world and I can't wait to see where it all takes me. The lessons are pouring in from my mentors are invaluable as are the conversations, tweets, blogs and webinars. I'm grabbing some sunglasses (with non-reflective lenses to reduce the screens effects on my eyes) because this social media future is so freaking bright...bring it on!