Getting started in Social Media

On Saturday, I gave a speech to a group of accomplished young advertising and marketing professionals. The emphasis of my talk was my career of 26 years and how advertising/marketing has changed and forced me to reinvent my career to be successful. And the driving force behind all this, social media, and my agency's perspective on it and what we are doing to be competitive in this crazy new environment.

Afterward, I left a pile of business cards and welcomed anyone with questions to contact me. Here is one question I received and my answer follows. (I share this because the purpose of this blog is to record the trials and tribulations of an old dog learning new tricks, others might have helpful additions or suggestions and are welcome to add their thoughts)

"Thank you so much for coming to speak to Ad 2 today. I really learned a lot from your presentation.

I'm the one who works for a very traditional advertising agency and I'd like to help them move forward into doing social media work. They are all scared of new media/social media right now so I need to start educating them so they warm them up to this idea. The catch is I'm not educated enough on my own and don't have any personal experience to draw from. Any ideas on how to learn enough about this myself with out actually doing this kid of work to be able to start convincing them this is something we should pursue?

Any ideas would be helpful. Thank you again!"

Thanks for the kind words. First, I applaud you for recognizing the status quo will not help your career or company you work for. My advice is pretty simple and falls into two buckets.

Start small—it’s easy to get overwhelmed with what you don’t know. Start with Seth Godin’s Meatball Sunday and Tribes books. They both quick reads but chock full of references that will take you further. Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody is an important read as well from the psychographic vs. Sociographic marketing perspective. Wall Street Journal and New York Times and Business Week all have interesting articles written from a business perspective that are great sources of knowledge—always look at the world from the client perspective.

Find kindred spirits—people you work with, friends, etc. Start sharing and asking questions. You’ll find there are a lot of people out there like you and the power of this group will change your life because either you will feel empowered to change your company or find a new one to work for that fits your career vision.

Study your industry, your client’s industries, and the consumer. Your industry—try to understand who is doing what and why. How are marketing firms adjusting? What happens to those who do nothing--can be powerful arguments for you with your management. Client’s—look for examples where their competition is doing something differently—again gives you the excuse to at least bring it up. The consumer—they are the one driving this bus...watch and try to predict where they are going.

Last but not least, try little things first and then build. Momentum will follow.