What a great Webinar, right? And I say that from a place of humility – it was an honor to have Brian Solis join us to chat about his newest book, Engage!. Admittedly, he chatted about so much more than his book, most notably discussing the very true fact that social media isn’t just changing business, it’s changing society and the way we interact with each other and with brands. As one of Brian’s slides said, “We are defining a new era of society and how we ultimately communicate with each other.”

We genuinely encourage you to take the time to listen to the archived presentation and the Q&A Amber Naslund and I hosted afterward, which is linked below. If, for some reason, you can’t listen, though, here’s a high-level overview of what Brian talked about.

Myths

Brian tore down some very prevalent myths about social media engagement that are continuing to surface in business conversations, including:

• The myth that engagement equals conversation. Engagement isn’t just about conversation; engagement is about strategically participating in a way that triggers a desired response from your connections, whether that’s a purchase or a referral or anything else you decide is meaningful.
• The myth that social networks are populated by “pimply, goth teenagers”. The average age on the most prevalent social networks is actually much higher than we’d expect. (There’s a slide that proves it.)
• The myth that social media engagement is free. Effective social media engagement is both science and art, and it takes experience, which is an investment in time and resources.
• The myth that engaging in conversations will create a negative perception of your brand. If anything, not engaging to shape and shift the course of conversations about your brand will breed negativity.
• The myth that if you engage, you give up control of the brand and reputation. On the contrary, engaging gives you more control than ever, because you now have the ability to directly contribute information that people seek to clear up false perceptions.

Core Concepts

Brian also touched on some big ideas and concepts regarding social media engagement. Here are a few of those for you to chew on:

• The opportunity for champions of social media engagement — in the very purest sense of meeting people on their turf and contributing value to their lives by empathizing with them and learning about what they need and want — is in becoming an internal diplomat of sorts. It’s the responsibility of the champions to translate all this talk about authenticity and transparency and engagement into language and messages that make sense to and resonate with executives.
• There’s is more to the online social space than the dialogue that is occurring. Businesses and the people working with social media have to establish what it all means for them. The conversations that are occurring are bigger than the social networks they reside on. Brian calls this connection of conversations and relationships that surpass the bounds of a single network the Human Network. The Human Network is truly the marketplace for businesses, and it spans across the entire Internet. What’s important for businesses is understanding how this network builds and transpires across online communities.
• Social media engagement begins with listening and research. It’s the research about people, the information businesses gather about relationships and networks, that helps a company humanize its story and make it relevant to the people it wants to connect with. Connecting on a human level is about being empathetic and listening to what your audience members need and want in their lives. If a company can’t understand what it is people are looking for, how can it personalize its connection and empathize with them?
• Attention is the currency of the online social landscape, and the community dictates where it is we as individuals and as businesses need to focus our attention. Strategic participation and engagement makes all the difference in building relationships and social capital. Both sides of a relationship — business and follower/fan/customer — have to receive a benefit from interacting. This truth should change the way we create and share content, because simply acknowledging people as followers or fans isn’t enough anymore. The key is to share information and content in a way that inspires measurable action that directly benefits both parties.
• Creating social objects — videos, blog posts, pictures, etc. — that speak on our behalf when we’re not around to speak for ourselves is an important part of the engagement equation. Effectively, brands are becoming media, because people are looking for that sort of valuable, educational, decision-inducing information directly from brands themselves. Optimizing these social objects to be found on social media channels (Social Media Optimization) is as important as SEO and will have a lasting impact on whether people will be able to find your valuable content in real time.

Want to Hear the Whole Thing?

We thought you would. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, the bits and pieces here are only high level. Take the time to listen to Brian’s presentation and his comments surrounding peoples questions when you have the chance, to get a full view of his perspective on social media engagement and where all this stuff is headed.

Brian’s slides, as well as a link to the recorded Webinar, are below. When you click on the link to the Webinar, you’ll be asked to register for it (again). Once you do that, a media player should pop up on your desktop and play the whole thing for you.

We hope you find value in the information Brian shared on our Webinar. Please let us know what you think, and if you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to post them in the comments. And thank you, again, to Brian for joining us!

Click here to listen to the recorded Webinar.

**Mac folks, we had some issues getting the Webinar recorded properly to run on a Mac OS. This isn’t something on our end but a slight discrepancy with the Webinar platform’s recording functionality. While we’re pretty sure there isn’t a fix for this problem, we’ll do our absolute best to find out if this is something we can resolve in the days to come. If, by chance, you happen to get the recording up and running, please leave a comment saying so for others who stop by. Thank you!**