I went to an all-day seminar where there were many fields of small business. The seminar was a comprehensive overview of social media marketing. I got to meet a handful of folks; they were accountants, pet walkers, and other small media/ad agencies. I am pretty sure a lot wanted to know how to do B 2 B social media, which is totally different than B 2 C social media. But it was hard for me not to be curious what everyone did. While mingling, I glanced at everyone’s nametag, many of them customers of the hosts of the event. But then I remembered from something I saw on the Tedx SD twitter stream. Don’t ask what you do; ask what you are passionate about. I took the line and asked a fellow attendee. “What are you passionate about?” And she said, “Well, I do two things” I work for a designer and but I am passionate about yoga.” Later, I found out she was also a “happiness coach” from her business card that she gave me. I looked at her card and said, “oh you’re a yoga instructor and happiness coach”, and I was intrigued. She knew I was kind of taken back by the presentation from the seminar; in my opinion, the presenter was throwing out everything but the kitchen sink. As someone who is familiar with Social Media, my opinion was while the seminar/workshop provided lots of information; it also provided a lot of inaccuracies. While the buzzwords were thrown out there (conversation, engagement, relationship) and lots of stats, there was no ok…let us start and see the big picture, there was no taking a pulse of the audience (lots of B2Bs rather than B2Cs there). The seminar missed a lot of points on the “social” in social media but instead he taught that social media was another component of marketing. “If you know marketing, you know how to do social media”, was something I recalled. I think that is what left the bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I am biased but it takes skill and passion to use the social media tools out there and to have a virtual conversation. I held my “finger (tongue)” on my twitter stream much of the time I was there, but I know some things had to be tweeted. All was not lost. I learned that I knew the Gap / Facebook Places Case Study better than he recalled it. Also, reaffirmed not to believe everything I hear. PS. Google is a good fact checker.
I did take away from this conference was I was relieved when the designer assistant slash yoga teacher slash happiness coach said that I looked happy. In actuality, I was a bit steamed. Maybe it was an affirmation that I was happy knowing social media wasn’t just marketing.
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