What I learned at BlogWell Atlanta

I’ve already posted on the 10,000 foot view, so I wanted to get at about what I actu­ally learned Blog­Well Atlanta.

Andy Ser­novitz had some impor­tant points on ethics and dis­clo­sure. He out­lined dan­gers to a brand of not hav­ing clear, legal agree­ments with ven­dors act­ing on a brand’s behalf and opined that the new FCC guide­lines a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment for the indus­try. His belief is that social media will be much bet­ter served by gov­ern­ment polic­ing than it would by being allowed to evolve on its own the way email did.

There were some com­pelling BtoB sto­ries. Orange and Sun­Guard had showed how social media ben­e­fited their bot­tom line through pro­vid­ing help­ful infor­ma­tion to clients and poten­tial clients.

Also there was a ter­rific UPS cri­sis man­age­ment story. And I enjoyed hear­ing about Coca-Cola’s Expe­di­tion 206 campaign.

But what did I really learn there? That there’s a vibrant com­mu­nity of pro­fes­sion­als try­ing to fig­ure this social media thing out. That it lives beyond the blogs and tweets. That peo­ple are engaged, smart, and want to do the right thing. And frankly that’s damn refresh­ing place to be com­pared to dis­cus­sions about direct mail, email mar­ket­ing, or print adver­tis­ing. Peo­ple really are see­ing a brighter hori­zon in this space while in tra­di­tional mar­ket­ing the world is shrinking.

So even if Twit­ter does turn out to be a stu­pid fad, I think social media is a pretty great space to be in.

November 19, 2009 – 12:07 pm | By Jimmy Gilmore | Posted in BlogWell | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (4)
  • http://www.brandonsutton.com/ Bran­don Sutton

    Hey Jimmy — great to hear your take on Blog­well. I share your opti­mism in this space, and I think we’re just scratch­ing the sur­face. Your last sen­tence really res­onates with me — it speaks to the flu­id­ity of this field. I think mar­keters have to be care­ful not to ‘wait and see’ or take advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties while they are hot. None of us knows what net­works will be hot a year from now, much less in 5 years. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be engag­ing using the tools that are avail­able now. Wait­ing to see if [insert social net­work here] is going to be a fad or the best thing since Won­der­bread is tak­ing time away from con­nect­ing with peo­ple right now! Change is part of the equa­tion now — that part we know for sure. The best thing mar­keters can do is work from a well-defined strat­egy. The tac­tics and tools may change, but they can be adapted to fit the strategy.

    • http://jimmy-gilmore.com/ Jimmy Gilmore

      Change is some­thing mar­keters have accepted for awhile now. It’s the pace of change we’re cur­rently see­ing that’s freak­ing peo­ple out.

      I absolutely agree on the tools and tac­tics. It dri­ves me crazy when peo­ple dis­par­age the entire social space by slam­ming one par­tic­u­lar technology.

  • http://www.brandonsutton.com Bran­don Sutton

    Hey Jimmy — great to hear your take on Blog­well. I share your opti­mism in this space, and I think we’re just scratch­ing the sur­face. Your last sen­tence really res­onates with me — it speaks to the flu­id­ity of this field. I think mar­keters have to be care­ful not to ‘wait and see’ or take advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties while they are hot. None of us knows what net­works will be hot a year from now, much less in 5 years. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be engag­ing using the tools that are avail­able now. Wait­ing to see if [insert social net­work here] is going to be a fad or the best thing since Won­der­bread is tak­ing time away from con­nect­ing with peo­ple right now! Change is part of the equa­tion now — that part we know for sure. The best thing mar­keters can do is work from a well-defined strat­egy. The tac­tics and tools may change, but they can be adapted to fit the strategy.

    • http://jimmy-gilmore.com/ Jimmy Gilmore

      Change is some­thing mar­keters have accepted for awhile now. It’s the pace of change we’re cur­rently see­ing that’s freak­ing peo­ple out.

      I absolutely agree on the tools and tac­tics. It dri­ves me crazy when peo­ple dis­par­age the entire social space by slam­ming one par­tic­u­lar technology.