Over the span of just two days at Executing Social Media, Los Angeles 2008, I learned how a group of 50 people usually communicate with millions and how they do it. There was a variety of influencers present at this conference. There were people working for media agencies, in-house social media gurus, and people looking to understand what it means for their product. In this kind of space, it isn’t uncommon to sit in a group of hundreds of chairs watching talking heads shout things at you that you’ve heard a million times at every conference.

In a session titled; “An Executive Survey of Social Media Tools & Resources for PR, Customer Service, and Marketing.“ by Brian Solis, we talked about Social Media tools and the right ways to use them. There are many social media outlets on the web but it is not necessary or always correct to be using them and many of them could be wasting your time. In the case of anything dangerous; it is wise to consult with a professional prior to engaging in social media activity.

Brian brought up some amazing points in this session:
• Companies on Twitter should be using it to monitor and communicate with their clients.
• It is important to approach people as people, individually and personally while conducting outreach in social spaces.
• Using Social Media tools to search for brands is much more helpful than searching on search engines.
• Always consider the long term. The sky is the limit for how brands reputation online can be damaged or improved in the long term of social media success or failure. The content spread around the internet will never disappear.