AlphabetSoup

Yesterday I went to a nice luncheon sponsored by this local group called the Web Association (www.webassociation.org) on the growing impact of social media.

Since I am trying to learn, understand, and work with “social media” for Gray & Company (i.e. this blog), I decided to attend the event at Windows on the River in the Powerhouse, on the west bank of the Flats.

It was a very interesting panel: George Nemeth from Brewed Fresh Daily; John Ettorre from Working With Words; Dan Hanson from Great Lakes Geek. Jim Kukral from ReveNews played the role of moderator.

Each of the panelist shared specific examples that demonstrated how social media such as blogging, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Digg, etc can offer businesses an opportunity to reach new markets, customers, and revenue streams.

I learned about a lot of great sites, but I think the general concept I was already aware of. A lot of people where there to hear the basics, and I think they did a good job of explaining something, being comfortable with the jargon associated with web-speak. But the overall problem with the concepts is that there is no real definition of social media, or web2.0 as it is being called. The landscape for these tools and outlets is expanding at an exponential rate, and not many will be able to keep up.

So I think what I took away from the luncheon is try it. Most of this stuff is free. Be creative. If you are trying to promote yourself, your company, a product, go get a free myspace page and yell from internet rooftop. Start a blog and have a conversation about your company, or create a video promoting yourself and a proven leader and upload it to YouTube.

The costs are minimal, the potential is unimaginable.