Social Slam Conference Takeaways

Posted by Melissa

Last month, I attended the Social Slam Conference in Knoxville, TN organized by the Social Media Club Knoxville.  I absolutely loved being among like-minded social media professionals.  It was a great day of learning and reinforcement.  The day made me feel energized and the speakers were absolutely fabulous, providing useful tips and ideas. 

Halfway through the day the conference I realized that most of what was being told was common sense if you really think about it.  For example, one of the main things stressed throughout the day was NOT to send out automated tweets.  If you really think about what twitter is, then this would absolutely make sense.  Twitter is for conversation and engagement.  Would you want to have your customers send an email to you, to not receive a reply, but later in the day receive an automated email message not related to their question? You wouldn’t, so why should your twitter be any different? Twitter is meant to engage your audience, not just push information to them.

The biggest takeaway from the conference is to really be sure your social media strategy is aligned with your overall marketing and business strategy.  All of the speakers’ provided tips on how to do this and how to make social media more valuable to your company.

Some other key quotes that I took away from the Social Slam Conference that may you want to keep in mind for your social media strategy:

• Community engagement is a lifestyle, not a job. – Marisa Peacock
• The spiritual nature of social media is that people beg for love and earn respect. - Billy Delaney
• Listen to your “fans” (they can tell you a lot of things that you may not see sitting in your office)- Lynsay Calor
• Content is greatest sales technique in the world. Period.-Marcus Sheridan
• One of my favorite places to put a blog address is an invoice. Clients look at invoices.- Stanford Smith
• We like change when it means something to us- Gini Dietrich
• Business is built on relationships, just like it always has been – Mark W Schaefer

(As a side note, since this was a nationally attended social media focused conference, the organizer tracked all tweets related to Social Slam, and Melissa came in at # 8!)

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