I joined the San Antonio Social Media Club a few months back but hadn’t had the chance to attend an event yet. Today was my first breakfast event. It’s basically a meet and greet and then you will have a guest speaker to discuss a topic of interest. Today, Luis Sandoval (@pandaran) spoke about how to manage all your social media tools. This is key because there are so many platforms out there and it can be so overwhelming to try to keep up with everything. You don’t want to just join everything and simply have a presence but not be active, that defeats the purpose of social networking. They key is finding communities that give you the most bang for your buck. What are you trying to accomplish? Answering this question should help you find the communities you want to be a part of. Not everything is for everyone and it is imperative to recognize this or you will find yourself wasting your precious time messing with something that brings no value to you or others.
Following the speech, there is an open forum for Q&A. I noticed that people still struggle with understanding the purpose of Twitter. Companies don’t want their employees wasting time on these social media platforms. That is not a Twitter issue. That is a company culture issue. If you breed a bottom up culture, a culture where your customers are the star, a company where your employees feel like entrepreneurs – Twitter is an open door opportunity. Those companies that aren’t accepting Twitter are leaving that door closed because they are too scared to see what is on the other side. If you aren’t on Twitter, your competitors are.