Chris just spoke to us about Social Media and Networking for businesses.  He went very fast and had a lot of content.  Either you caught on or it flew over your head.  Since it was what I do I got it all, so I wanted to give a few highlights here.

There were some basics.

• Social media or social networking are not just buzzwords that sound cool.  They are the way your customers are talking.  They talk about everything.  Including your business.  Whether you know about it or not (or want to admit it or not), they are discussing the good and bad (not that there are any :-)) aspects of your business.  Then others read those thoughts and base buying decisions off of those.  IT IS HAPPENING.  Now you have two choices.  Let the talk happen all around you and close your ears, or you can watch it, even influence it for the better.
• Get Wild!  Be creative.  WILLitBLEND.com was created by a company selling blenders.  Sounds basic enough, right?  I mean, how many blenders are there in the world?  A ton.  How did they stand out?  They took every day objects and blended them: an iPhone, a full can (with the can) of pork and beans, a football, glass.  They also did real ones we might do: coffee beans, granulated sugar to powdered sugar, chicken and chicken broth to make chicken soup.  What did this do for them?  Their ROI is off the charts.  The videos went viral, people loved them.  They appeared on national news and sales took off.  Do something wild.
• Where are you online?  He showed us a number of places where every company needs to be.  Where to get in on the online action.  Where to network with people to increase business.

This is what we are doing, in part, with the Community Portal.  Giving our customers a chance to discuss and network with each other.

More to come...