Social Media Blog by Michael BritoSocial Media Blog written by Michael Brito.

This will be my first of many tweetups that I am planning here in Silicon Valley.  It’s great to meet other business professionals here in the valley that use Twitter; and even greater when we can help the surrounding communities at the same time (we are partnering with several non-profit organizations). The first tweetup is scheduled for July 23rd from 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM at Rosie McCann’s Irish Pub in Santana Row. Here are the details of the event. Please consider joining the community or following the Silicon Vallley Tweetup Twitter handle. I look forward to seeing you there.

I was pleasantly surprised at the turn out from today’s social networking conference in Beverly Hills 90210. I met some really cool people from a very diverse group of companies. Here is a quick recap of the speakers and you can also check out the pictures below as well:

Session 1: Travis Falstad of Electronic Arts talked about social networking in the gaming environment.This was of keen interest to me since I am a serious gamer and Madden (on the Playstation) expert! “EA Sports, It’s in the Game!

Session 2: I talked about building brand loyalty on the social web.

Session 3: Adam Pisoni, VP of Engineering at Yammer talked about enterprise communications and social media.

Session 4: John Ploumitsakos from Google talked about the changing landscape and trends on the social web.

Tonight, I attended the Third Thursday: Social Media in Marketing & PR meetup at SAP in Palo Alto. Jeremiah Owyang spent about 30 minutes explaining the new Forrester Report that examines the social web, tools & collaboration, and – what I found the most astounding, the era of colonization. Here is a quick glimpse or you can buy the full report here.

After doing a little research within my own communities on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, it is clear to me that this space will soon be inundated with even more social media consultants and experts. <— like we need more of those.

The same thing happened almost ten years ago with search. Take a look at the job boards today and the resumes posted there; I am sure you will find a several hundred, if not thousands, of people with similar skill sets related to paid search, search marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, etc.

It’s probably already happened with social media; and the question we need to ask ourselves is “what can we do to differentiate ourselves from everyone else, especially during these tough economic times?” What I think will differentiate the common skill sets of blog design & consulting, twitter expertise, RSS gurus, social search, etc. is the following:

I served 8 years in the Marines. Well, more like 6 and then I spent 2 years in IRR (Inactive Ready Reserve) which basically means that if all hell broke loose somewhere on the globe and my presence was needed to “kick butt and take names”, I’d have to go, contractually. With that said, I have always had a soft spot for my brothers/sisters who have served or serving now to keep our country free; and allow me to do what I do best.

A big thank you to Major Dan Ward of the United Stated Air Force for kindly answering my questions; and putting some deep thought on how the Air Force can/should use social media for more than just a recruiting tool. His insights are quite amazing and I want to quickly highlight one of his quotes below about social media and how it can create “ambient intimacy” and “that persistent, real-time connection between people.” Right on Major. Hat tip and salute to you sir.

Kudos to my colleague and friend Kelly for emailing this article about social media and how it’s doesn’t really drive purchase decisions (press release here). This strongly conflicts with other, credible research I have examined that states the contrary. 

Bob Duffy, in an email string to Kelly and I, responds with the following:

Saying Social Media doesn’t drive purchase is like saying, talking and listening does not lead to decisions. Study is flawed because it does not consider reciprocity of the conversation.  Also flawed because they assumed the association needs to be with the site and a purchase decision and they ignored the association is between trusted sources and purchase decisions.

I have to agree. First, advertising on social media sites is not participating in social media.  That’s talking AT the conversation; not IN the conversation. As I have said before, the true essence of social media is direct-one-to-one conversations between two people; in this case a consumer and a brand (when I say brand, I am referring to a community manager of sort). Now, we all like to bash MLM; but the reason companies like Amway are so successful (they are a billion dollar company, I think) is because everything they do revolves around direct interaction and communication.

Ahh yes, the statusphere … the place where people like you and I spend the majority of our time. This is the place that determines the direction of our attention as we navigate to a multitude of different web destinations and experiences; and return informed, enlightened, distracted or possibly irritated. From a brand’s perspective, it serves as an opportunity to listen, observe, engage, empower and influence people; not an audience but real people. People like us.

The following video is of Brian Solis who presented just yesterday at the Clio Awards. Here are some key takeaways:

• More explanation on the Statusphere
• Brands need to inspire action and then measure it
• Talks about Coca Cola’s Facebook engagement
• Conversation Prism
• It’s not just about authenticity. Brands have to be believable.

Here are some random things I have learned about Twitter in the last 2 years, in no real intelligent order – completely random and off the top of my head as I sit in my hotel room in Las Vegas, gearing up for the Clio Awards.

I use Twitter for business and personal and it works for me. I am careful not to bombard those who follow me with too many marketing messages. I realize the business value of Twitter so I frequently tweet about Intel.  I track my retweets and click throughs to Intel-related content and it’s relatively high; more so than search or display advertising. Volume is low but that’s fine; it’s about building trustworthy relationships.

I wrote a twitter manifesto about a year ago and I don’t necessarily think the same way I did back then; although I still follow the 80/20 rule.  80% of my tweets are conversational, personal or general industry related. The 20% is Intel specific.

I am sitting at the San Jose airport heading to NYC on a red eye. I wanted to quickly share what I will be doing on Monday to officially launch the new Intel marketing campaign, Sponsors of Tomorrow. 

To learn more about what we are doing socially for this campaign, you can check out the aggregated conversations from Intel employees, search twitter for #tomorrow, or follow me on twitter to get the Inside Scoop.

I don’t know the answer to this question. My intuition tells me no and that Twitter doesn’t have that much power; but my alternate personality keeps tapping me on the shoulder in disagreement. And to clarify, maybe I should rephrase this question to be “Can Twitter really suck the life out of a brand, if a brand chooses not to participate?”

I read about it all time in Twitter and on various social media blogs; how big brands and corporate America continue to #fail at social media. There are hundreds of Monday morning quarterbacks that try and poke holes at various strategies, programs and corporate blogs; and then give their unsolicited feedback on what they (the brand) should have done. Funny thing is … that these same folks would jump at the opportunity to work for and/or consult with the very organizations they criticize, duh.

Some people want brands on twitter. Some don’t and some are not sure. And then there are random peeps who bitch about a product or service, expecting the brand’s Twitter account to start following them and treat them like some celebrity customer because they use twitter and have thousands of followers. I say whatever to that and I will save my point of view for a different post.