Seven months ago, I was an unpaid social media intern at a startup, working a part-time job and giving guitar lessons to home schoolers. Today, I work full-time for a marketing firm that is about to launch its biggest business venture.
Aside from my financial well-being, not much has changed.
That statement may undermine my unofficial title here at Pearl; Rich often refers to me as the “social media guy.” But sometimes I feel like a tadpole in the Pacific of digital marketing.
Today, the sea of social media will come crashing on Knoxville’s Convention Center for the Social Slam, a conference on social networking for business. I’ll be live tweeting the event and providing wall-to-wall (or at least wall-to-middle of the room) coverage of the conference.
Yet even as I retweet, like, and +1 (yeah, right) all things So Slam, I’ll be attending the conference as a greenhorn. And aside from making Fuzion a household name, my main goal is to learn.
1. I want to learn how to brand my Twitter. This has been one of my main challenges since I effectively swapped out journalism for marketing. As a journalist, I would live games, interact with my readers, and promote content related to my beat. It was a lot easier to sell my beat (Tennessee sports) than it is to market marketing.
2. I want to figure out how to measure my return on influence. Currently, I have a Klout score of 49. I have 600 Facebook friends, and around 180 Twitter followers. Mark W. Schaefer, author of “Return on Influence,” will be keynoting the conference, and I hope to turn those followers into dollars.
3. I want to gain wisdom. This one might seem a bit cheesy, but because I’m constantly on social media both professionally and privately, I need to learn how to avoid being too professional or to sales-y. I want my friends to know what I do at work, and I want my professional relationships to be more like friendships.
I’m looking forward to a great day meeting some new friends and learning at Social Slam; follow me @dangerdubs throughout today to see what I’m up to. If you’re in the neighborhood, come by and say hi!
