Some of the people I may never stumble upon again – but like you, we had a nice exchange.

Had I found info on Twitter direct from Acer, Amazon (who sells the models) or other retailers I would’ve been absolutely open to it – even if they didn’t “build a relationship” with me.

It’s a matter of being where your potential customers are, be it Twitter, Facebook, etc. and being AVAILABLE should they want/need to interact with you. You don’t have to hold hands and sing songs with every potential customer, but you do need to be there for them just in case they want to.

Godin claims that the real value in social media is in the number of real relationships you develop. On sites like Twitter and Facebook, it’s easy to get people to follow you and never develop any sort of true connection. The challenge is developing worthwile relationships through helping one another.

I agree…but, there’s more to it than that. Social media can act as a good place for finding an audience and getting a response from people you don’t know too. Especially on Twitter, where the information is highly searchable. Many people rely on search.twitter.com for information needs, not friends. I do, more often than not.

For instance, I was looking for cheap flight tickets. I used search.twitter to find out who’s been talking about cheap flights and what tips and tricks they found to get cheap flights. I found helpful links, asked people who sought info on twitter to see what they found out, and so on. I will likely never talk to these people again, but, I found them, they helped me and I moved on to the next question of the day. My point: There is more than one measurement of success in online media. Businesses can gain valuable traffic by posting informative links on twitter. You don’t always have to rely on solid relationships for quality results, but it obviously helps.

The question I have is how to monetize “building a social media army” from a business standpoint. I realize this is a rather obscure question, so possibly dropping some suggested readings or videos like the one CrystalsQuest provided wuld be most helpful. Thanks.

Thank you very this very nice chance to win, good luck to all

Best,

Toby

PS does it matter I was following you before you announced the contest?

PPS mattcrist, did you see the video from Seth Godin on SocialMedia – http://www.openforum.com/marketing/video_socialgood.html

My company is considering the possibility of managing several social media campaigns for local and national businesses. I stressed the importance of 3 things: 1) find your audience; 2) engage with your audience; and 3) content is key.

We are still trying to come up with the most logical business model. Monetizing social media campaigns for clients (and making them successful) begs the question: how involved does my company need to be vs. how involved should our clients be in engaging and content creation? The client has more authority on the subject. We have more know-how in the realm of social media. I envision a social media platform that we set up, clients can use, and we can guide them through the process. Any thoughts?

I won a sweet Kodak Zi6 HD camera from Kodak’s Twitter Contest while watching The Streamy Awards… check out @kodakCB for proof…

let’s make it 2/2 for Twitter prizes… woo-hoo!

Thanks Michelle!
God Bless,
Yoon