Alberta Business Marketing

Hello from Phoenix, Arizona

This evening I managed to invest some time with HTG1 and the HTG Advisory Council here in the Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, Arizona.  Tonight is a sad night for me.  It was my official last social engagement as a member of Heartland Tech Groups (HTG) and the HTG Advisory Council.  A great bunch of awesome guys, however with my new career direction in the Calgary Search Engine Optimization and Social Media world. it is unfortunate but I am no longer a fit for HTG, as a member at least.  There maybe something else we can figure out, hopefully.

Canada’s Social Media Landscape

Yesterday I mentioned the Social Landscape and what I feel are contributors to the overall landscape in our socially connected online world that we live in.  A critically important online world that can’t be overlooked any longer by business, families and anyone else who is stuck in a log cabin up north totally disconnect from all human interaction.

Many of us as professionals in social media, throw the words “social media” around pretty loosely.  But really what is social media?  Many of my peers including myself have different descriptions for social media and as a consultant serving the Calgary community I may just continue to use it, out of context in my mind, because that is what people know.

In my opinion, Social Media is simply the art of communicating, the art of delivering the message to a reader, the crafting of the message for people to view, and the reaction to the original message or posting.  Print media is the same thing, the newspaper you read is the tool for reading print media.  I can get the message in a magazine, paper or even a cocktail napkin.  In our online world, Facebook is just a tool for you to read social (online) media.  I hope this make sense to many of you.

Social media is the message, Facebook is the tool, and social networking is the art of creating mutual win-win online relationships and social currency is the “go giver” of the online world.  Like I said, I hope this makes sense to many of you.

Here is another example.  If you are a publicly traded firm in Canada and need to combat some negative press coverage in the print media world, you can turn to social media to help share your side of the story to reach your audience.  Different tools and perhaps the same message.  Twitter can be a service or tool for you to get your word out (the media).

Love to hear what you all think on the this topic.  This is my first leg of what I can the “Social Landscape”.

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Microsoft Partner Webcast – Feb 24 at Noon Eastern

Why must you use social technologies to market your business today? Pretty valid question in today’s world of Facebook, Buzz, Twitter, Foursquare, Blogs, Podcasts and everything else out there.  On a good day this has the potential to confuse the brightest marketing expert.

What can you do now to create a social networking impact?

When you think about it, no one is forcing you to use online technologies and you don’t have to even consider it if you are happy where you at today.  But really think about it, how social technologies fit into your business?  It is not that important if you build strong and vibrant online communities which feed into your referral sources is it?  No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to engage in online strategies to grow your business, are they?

You don’t have to do any of this.  Look around you though.  Do you competitors have blogs?  Are they influencing the community?  Are they posting feedback on your Chamber of Commerce Facebook fan page?  Are they out there hosting meetup groups?  What are they doing that you are not?

Join Calgary Social Media Consultant Stuart Crawford (that’s me) on Feb 24th at 9 AM Pacific or Noon on the east coast for a very special Microsoft Partner 5W25 session on Social Media.  This is not a death by “presentation software” webinar.  You will get “down and dirty” on discussions on how your business can use social technologies daily and how you can build a strong following online which will spill over to the face-to-face community.  How can you influence those in your community?  You see social media is simply a communication tool to get people to call you, email you or fill in some form on your website.  It is something very crucial to the success of your business and when done right can have a huge upside.

Here is a question for you.  If you are not out there, how will anyone know you are there?  This goes back to the core basics about business networking.  Sit behind your desk all day, no one will call you.  Don’t get online and share information, no one will know you exist.

What will you learn in this Microsoft 5W25 webinar on Feb 24th?

What will we be covering in this one hour webinar with the fine folks at Microsoft?

In my last talk I pretty much laid the ground work for this discussion.  Back in October we covered a bunch of boring theory around social media and the tools available, no one liked it they wanted more, more life stories and lessons learned from the trenches, more real life examples of success and more meat around this subject.  This time you will have your meat and potatoes on how you can use Social Media in your business.  Not fluffy stuff, real life examples of stuff I did and what some of my peers have done online.

We get to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty this time around.  Social Media is critically important but for reasons that are not shared now.  You need to tune in.  However, it is more than just letting people know you published a blog via Twitter or you helped a client out via Facebook.  Social Technologies and the effective use on online tools and services goes far deeper than simple status updates.

You have to tune into the webinar to get the full story.

This Microsoft 5W25 seminar is open to most Microsoft Partners around the world.

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