The social media champion at your company should rarely be seen in the company office. In fact the social media champion should be out and about whenever possible; attending conferences such as SXSW or the Newcommforum. The social media champion transcends the online world and bridges the gap between online and offline communication.
The reason for this is that your social media champion is essentially a face of the company. You can’t have the company face hidden in a cubicle while he plays on twitter. What’s the point of having thousands of twitter followers if you don’t know who they are? Why have a bunch of facebook friends if you haven’t met them (or aren’t planning on meeting them)? The whole point is to have the social media champion meeting the twitter friends, networking with bloggers at SXSW and picking up new strategies from the Newcommforum. If you are out there networking and meeting people, then those people will talk about you and begin to recognize you and your company. Not only that but you can also spread the word about your twitter profile, facebook pages, etc.
The social media champion position is actually one the hardest jobs out there. It’s not easy to maintain a positive brand image with everyone while simultaneously trying to build and maintain long-term relationships with customers and users. Not only that, but the social media champion needs to have his ear to the ground at all times. He needs to know about all the social media technologies that are out there and how they can be leveraged to build and maintain relationships. Sure the job is going to be a lot of fun, but make no mistake about it, it’s darn hard work.
Who is your social media champion? ….Why is he in the office?
Jacob, other than the above conferences which other ones would you recommend?
Thanks-Bob.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the comment. Aside from the new comm forum and SXSW I would recommend:
Web 2.0 expo
http://www.web2expo.com
Search Marketing Salon (which I host)
http://www.searchmarketingsalon.com
There are a host of other smaller events as well, for example the social media breakfast events, or the local social media meetups. Join socialmedia.com. Also look out for blogger meetups in your area. Just recently attended a meet up with Gary Vaynerchuk which was a lot of fun, but not publicized. Connect with folks online through twitter and read popular social media blogs (alltop.com), they usually mention which events are going on where.
There are also a bunch of events overseas, but realistically you can’t go to all of them! Check out http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/2075/ they have a decent list of upcoming events, haven’t been to many of these though. Hope this helps, Bob, if not let me know.