My workshop was entitled “Monetizing Trust; Bringing Your Audience from Rapport to Revenue” and it was well received by the audience.  This year, I’ll be chairing two sessions, both about Social Media.  The first is a panel discussion with Warren Sukernek, Jacqueline Voci and Julie Wisdom.  The second is workshop devoted to Social Media and the opportunities to integrate multiple platforms to communicate more effectively with your audience.

It’s an exciting time for me.  I just finished my book: Make Yourself Useful, Marketing in the 21st Century.  And my website now has over 350 pages on content on it.  Together, they offer a good synopsis of my expertise along with the credibility to share it with others.  IMC 2008 will be my first opportunity to offer my book to the public.

The interesting thing will be to hear the thoughts of other experts in the same field.  Social Media has grown to include so many different platforms (including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Utterz, Flickr, Digg, StumbleUpon, Wikipedia, Meetup, all the various forums, BlogCatalog and blogs in general) that everybody has a slightly different angle on the opportunities available.  The panel discussion will undoubtedly raise some fascinating possibilities.

When I was in Sweden for IMC 2007, I went out for dinner with 13 other speakers.  Between the 14 of us, we came from 11 different countries.  I doubt the participants will be as diverse this time around but I’m really looking forward to meeting the other speakers and all the attendees.  Conferences like these are incredibly valuable in a networking sense and can quickly add to your business in ways you’d never imagine beforehand.

To top it off, Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and the weather in September is hard to beat.  I would encourage anyone interested in Internet Marketing to attend this conference.  Not only will you meet true experts in the field but you’ll also be introduced to a growing niche of modern marketing that’s far broader than most people realize.

This Tactical Execution website is build on WordPress and there are a number of things you can do to integrate your blog with your other social media accounts.  Last week, I installed a plugin entitled Twitter Tools.  It basically does three basic things.  First, if you post a tweet, it will automatically create a post in your blog presenting the contents for your website visitors.  Second, if you post a blog post (like this one, for example), it will automatically post a tweet announcing your post to your twitter audience and telling them where to find it.  And finally, it allows you to post a tweet from your WordPress dashboard.

I originally installed the plugin because of this last feature.  I don’t do a lot of texting and never get around to visiting my twitter account so the ability to post a tweet when I’m managing my website is a great feature.  But since I’ve installed the plugin, I’ve come to appreciate the first two features as well and have noticed an increase in traffic to my blog as a result.  I’ve also had a number of new people start following me on twitter.

In my post about twitter and utterz, I described the ability to make one cell phone call into the utterz platform and automatically populate your twitter account, your website (via the blue widget you can see on the left hand side of this website) and your facebook profile (because twitter integrates nicely with facebook).  Well, it turns out that facebook can be seamlessly integrated with your blog as well.  By going to your “Notes” page, you can add the RSS feed from your blog and have your facebook profile be updated every time you write a new blog post.

Between my website, facebook, twitter and utterz, all my activity is completely integrated.  I am now looking at ways to integrate other platforms like LinkedIn or BlogCatalog or YouTube.  I’m sure there are and just have to allocate some time to do the research and then take the steps necessary to complete the process.  My point is that your digital footprint grows exponentially when you integrate your different audiences and it doesn’t cost a thing.

This same concept is true for so many things.  Take YouTube videos.  If you do just one video, you’ll most likely get lost in the thousands of other videos.  But if you do a series, you broaden your reach.  Think about it like a fishing net.  You want your net as big as possible, catching people in different ways and for different reasons.  But once they see one of your videos, they’ll quickly see all the other stuff you’ve done.  And at that point, the cross-polination increases the traffic to all your videos, not just the original one.

With all the social media platforms, you can see the same effect.  You have friends on facebook.  You have followers on twitter and utterz.  You have fans on YouTube and visitors to your website.  Regardless how they find you initially, they can immediately be introduced to all the other stuff you do, augmenting your online identity and increasing your traffic at the same time.

As you probably know, social bookmarking platforms aggregate the bookmarking activity of all their members, allowing users to search for tags and find the most popular websites bookmarked under those subjects.  That sounds a lot like a search engine, doesn’t it?  Well, there’s one big difference.  Search engines deliver search results according to a sophisticated algorithym developed by Google, Yahoo, MSN or whoever.  Social bookmarking platforms deliver results based on the preferences of the peer group.

This is a monumental distinction.  Social bookmarking is the ultimate democracy.  Never before have we had such real-time visibility of our own peer group.  And although some people believe it only fuels the Britney Spears generation, the opposite is true.  You can search for the tag “Mozart” or “fly fishing” and find the top rates sites according to other people who are also interested in those subjects.  But there’s an even bigger implication than that.  Social bookmarking and the internet in general have put the focus back where it belongs: content.

Back in the good old days, people looked at the SOURCE first and the CONTENT second.  Today, the reverse is true.  Today, they look at the CONTENT first and the SOURCE second.  Do you know what that means?  Do you see the implications?  I am willing to bet this one simple change will, over time, create a wholesale shift in our culture.  I believe this one change creates more opportunities for early-stage entrepreneurs than any other shift of the past century.

What’s that change?  Well, it means that people with good quality content can get noticed, even if they doesn’t have fancy titles or extensive experience or some heroic feat under their belt.  Even someone brand new in a particular field can rise to the very top if their content is good enough.  The titles don’t matter anymore.  The experience isn’t so important.  The heroic feat that justifies our status as an “expert” has become largely irrelevant.  If your content is good, your content is good.  Period.  You’re an expert.

The moral of the story is this: figure out what you’re an expert in and then demonstrate that expertise.  Whether you realize it or not, you’re already an expert.  You know more about something than most other people.  If you haven’t already done so, figure out what that something is.  Figure it out.  And then start building your knowledge and demonstrating your expertise on the internet.  If your content is good, it will rise to the top and get recognized accordingly.

Social media tools like social bookmarking are making it easier and easier to sift through the endless piles of content to find exactly what you’re looking for.  Although more content is being produced today than ever before, it’s becoming easier to find the good stuff.  The cream rises to the top.  That’s an opportunity; for me, for you, for everyone.  The real question is, “who will take advantage of it?”  Personally, I intend to.  That’s what I’m doing right here.  And I suggest you do the same.

Whether it’s blogging, micro-blogging, podcasting, social networking or posting videos, the time has come for you to show your stuff.  Speak your truth and show the world where your passion lies.  And then let your peer group spread the word.  It’s an exciting time.  Don’t let the opportunity pass you by!