pic used w/permission of Wm. Marc Salsberry of TechZulu (more pics & videos can be found at their site)

I had the pleasure of attending the LA Social Media Club event at Mahola’s headquarters here in LA this past Monday night.

Approximately 200 people in and outside of the social media realm attended the event which included dinner, drinks, networking, and a panel discussion emceed by Jackie Peters of HeavyBag Media and including Nicole Jordan from Rubicon Project, Michael Dorausch a chiropractor who’s use social media as a pioneer in his industry, Robert Richman a social media strategist, and Brian Solis, a social media guru, co-founder of Social Media Club, and principle of FutureWorks.

You can follow Social Media Club on twitter by clicking here and I urge you to visit Social Media Club’s site here for an event in your area and if you’re in LA it’s time to join the group on Facebook and start coming to the events!

I enjoyed enlightening discussions with many of the attendees including Devlyn Steele, CEO of ToolsToLife.com about the value of content and his value-driven social network, with Francisco Dao, founder of TheKillerPitch and blogger for FastCompany about PR in the social media realm, Kyra Reed and Marjorie Kase, co-founders of Markyr Media, an LA social media PR agency about the value of authenticity in social media, and enjoyed a thoughtful discussion on the evolution of web design with Andy Dugan of C/D Entertainment. I definitely can’t forget Tiffany Weller of Done! SEO who so graciously turned a dry event into a party with her wine and bartending services and TechZulu’s presence with Jennifer Stavros, Efren Toscano, and Cristina Cinque and though I didn’t get a chance to speak with him, I could see Hayden Black of GoodnightBurbank and AbigailsTeenDiary cracking everyone up.

I can’t forget Tim Street’s hilarious and poignant tweets throughout the evening, Edwin Duterte of OneKeyAway fame, John Noland Marchesini, Omar Foshizzi of WhoopTonez.net, Salvador Medrano, and last, but certainly not least, photographer Wm. Marc Salsberry of TechZulu and owner of WMSProductions for the great event pictures available on Facebook and TechZulu and for permission to use them on this post.

Some interesting points of discussion and a few of my takeaways/thoughts from the event:

• Care must be taken to remember that if you’re in this industry (”the left”) it seems like everyone and their Mom is on Twitter and is networked on Facebook. Yet, their is still a vast ocean of individuals who’ve never experienced social media (Wikipedia’s entry was showcased during the event) and its grandeur and who have no idea what web 2.0 even means. Additionally, if you’re in this industry it’s easy to fall prey to the overwhelming sensation that everything in the realm of social media and social networking is so fast-paced and saturated that you should give up on launching anything without heavy competition and earlier-to-market entrants. We must remember it takes the rest of the world time to catch on to new trends, so if you’re ahead of the curve or riding the curve, don’t become overwhelmed. Even 37Signals, with their uber-popular blog Signal vs. Noise recently wrote about how when they launched their blog they thought it was too little too late, what with the thousands of blogs cropping up before theirs hit cyberspace. Yet, their blog is now incredibly popular and widely regarded in the tech and design communities and proved to be an invaluable marketing channel helping to propel their products to success. Lesson: if you create content worth talking about, people will talk about it. Give them no choice and don’t fear the clutter. Clutter only makes you look better.
• There was some talk about social network “cultures” and how Fortune 1000s and companies in general aim to enter the social fray without context. Facebook has a culture. mySpace has a culture. Bebo and Twitter and Digg and Squidoo have cultures. I see similarities between entering social media spaces and entering foreign markets: before entering a foreign market you must understand the culture and if you don’t, you must find someone who does. I think Facebook and mySpace and other social networking channels can have cultures within cultures, in the form of groups and such. McDonalds didn’t go into India serving meat burgers and a company shouldn’t go into the social networking realm blindly ignoring existing cultures. Immerse yourself (or find others who are immersed) and give value to gain recognition.
• Corporate social media endeavors are often successful when bridging corporate with humanity. In my opinion, the best marketers aren’t marketers; they’re customers, other departments, and fans in general. Corporations that have experienced success often experience success as the result of social media being attached to an individual or group of individuals or sometimes simply a passionate fan. It’s 2008 and it’s time to bring personality and humanity to your business if you’re entering the social sphere.

Other memorable quotes included:

• “once you know where to look, you know where to be”
• “…the Internet has experienced several waves including a wave of static websites, a wave of interactive websites, and the current wave of social websites…”
• “social media is a conversation, not a campaign”
• “people make it viral”
• “there’s nothing that succeeds like success”

Can’t forget some more pics courtesy of Wm. Marc Salsberry of TechZulu (more pics & videos can be found at their site):

Last of all, I want to hear your thoughts on the event! If I left you out or if you thought a discussion point was particularly thought-provoking, please post a comment… I’ll review each comment and will incorporate them into the post as pertinent. What did you gain from SMC LA? Will you go to the next event? How would you improve it? Also, can someone post the link to the “Social Media Guide” mentioned during the evening? What other social media events in LA and beyond are worth attending?

If you want to hear about upcoming social media / social networking posts and other riffs and rants, follow this blog and join me on twitter! Until next time…!

A key point often forgot (or simply ignored) by marketers and individuals looking to make a splash in the social media realm is the idea that you need to add value to receive value in the world of web 2.0.   Countless stories can be cited of companies and marketers entering the social media and social networking fray trying to tap into the social sphere, but ignoring the very core reason why the social realm exists.  This reason is so that users can help users.  Collaboration is the cornerstone of community and an analogy for successful open source and collaborative initiatives can be summed down to “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

It’s this principle, though, that’s often overlooked by many.  It goes back to my recent blog post entitled 99% in which I quoted Seth Godin from his new book, Meatball Sundae, in which he wrote: “1 percent of the people are givers. In Wikipedia, for example, about 1 percent of the users create and edit articles.”  Using this logic, there is a huge chunk of social media users who are content to be social media browsers and not contributers.  This is all fine and dandy, but my point in this post is that if you’re striving to market and actually market effectively using the social media realm as your stomping grounds, you simply have to fall in the category of a contributer, otherwise your efforts won’t be nearly as effective, if it all.

What does this mean?  It means that before you start a Facebook advertising campaign, Facebook company profile, and spam a bunch of Facebook users with your marketing message, take a step back (and a deep breath while you’re at it).  Just like with organic search engine optimization, success in social media marketing isn’t usually something that happens overnight.  The efforts that lead up to a particularly viral blog post, a following on Digg, success on YouTube, or getting your Squidoo lens to bring traffic to your website are typically overlooked, but for the sake of my argument, this is a huge mistake.  Using Facebook as an example, before you do what I’ve described above, it’s a better approach to first actually use Facebook for a while on a personal level.  Add friends, make connections, and focus on adding value to the community.  Post relevant and thoughtful notes, actually contribute to groups, and stay in touch regularly with friends.  Once you’ve built a presence and a following as a contributer, you can then begin to phase in your marketing goals.  This is true with nearly any social media marketing campaign.  Before you’re blog is going to work for your business, you need to first focus on writing good content, and a lot of it.  You need to first focus on reading OTHER blogs and posting thoughtful comments and responding to comments you receive.  You get my point: contribution is the effective stepping stone to marketing results.

I’ll pause now on the social media marketing discussion (don’t worry, I’ll be coming back to it regularly in the future). In the meantime, I’d like to highlight one website in particular that could be a valuable tool in your social media toolbox, if you follow my advice above: Squidoo.

Squidoo is a website that was pioneered by marketing guru Seth Godin as a social platform for easily creating pages on any topic imaginable and enjoying the benefits of a strong community and the inheritance of great PageRank.  Squidoo does a good job describing itself: “Squidoo is an incredibly easy platform that allows you to build a lens, all by yourself, in less than five minutes. Don’t build a lens instead of your website. Build a lens to help your website.”

Squidoo is great because it’s super quick to get a “lens” started and constructed with social media and search engines in mind.  If you’re a pet shop, you can easily create a comprehensive lens on, say, raising a lesser-known species of turtle or perhaps starting an aquarium.  With a multitude of widgets to choose from, you can add content, plug-in RSS feeds, showcase photos via Flickr, highlight products via Amazon, or present videos via YouTube.  What’s more, you can easily categorize and tag your lens before subsequently submitting to social bookmarking sites and joining Squidoo groups.

All of this means you can drive traffic to your website, earn money on ads (or donate the money to charity), build credibility, build online brand/name presence, and provide individuals, including your prospects, with valuable information at a time when they’re looking for it, a time when your help can make an impression.

Before you think it’s too good to be true, remind yourself that your initial goal is narrow: to focus on contributing and adding value.  Squidoo is merely a platform for adding worthy content and fresh (or different, or witty, or more useful) information to the web.  The web may be cluttered and crowded, but one thing is true: value has a way of floating to the top.

So head on over to Squidoo and let this lens help you get started.  Need an example of an informative lens? We recently build this lens on finding and choosing a web design company.  Still need more assistance?  Check out their FAQ and forum!