is this thing on?

I attended another conference today, in Los Angeles. Fortunately, it was a virtual conference hosted by MarketingProfs, so I could attend the sessions from the comfort of my office in the UK. The conference ran in New York time, and was attended by people from all over the world in a virtual conference environment. While not as sophisticated as Second Life, it wasn’t as scary either, and took no time to learn the environment.
The conference was on Business-to-Business Marketing, but there were some interesting points for publishers too. One presentation of note was by Greg Verdino, VP of Emerging Channels at DIGITAS, called “Is this thing on?”. Greg’s live webcast presentation was followed by an interesting Q&A, and focused on the use of social media by B2B businesses – blogging, podcasting, social networking, wikis.
Greg spoke about the difference between communities of interest v. communities of practice. The latter is more relevant for B2B. The former is what should really interest publishers.
A couple of important messages from the presentation:

1. social media that isn’t social is just media. Social media is about people rather than content. It’s important to encourage feedback and discussion.
2. social media is not a tactic or a campaign – it’s a commitment. You need to provide value, start the conversation, facilitate discussion, foster trust – and repeat as necessary!

You can see the slides in full on Greg’s blog.