I had a unique opportunity to sit in the front row of the Building Trust in a Connected World Summit (short name needed) and listen to 3 experienced social media marketers. Chris Brogan and Julien Smith (wrote Trust Agents) and Mitch Joel (author of 6 Pixels of Separation).

Mitch kicked it off sharing how the “great untethering” (meaning online connectivity everywhere) and world of consumer recommendations affects marketing to the ever growing 1.8 billion people online. He noted consumers are able to create their own online experience making things like banner ads almost totally ineffective. Companies have been reluctant to get involved in social media because of the lack of control over their brand when compared to traditional marketing. Mitch argues that the amount of control is the same as before but what is different is the volume (who is heard-not quantity) that consumers now have-”like Spinal Tap said, It goes to an 11″. So brands now are publishers of an experience since your brand is no longer what you say it is but what Google says it is.

Mitch made a comment that has stuck with me. He said even though his blog has thousands of followers he writes for a target audience of 6. He went on to explain that he focuses on creating content that appeals to the 6 Chief Marketing Officers that will hire his marketing company and provide the yearly sales he needs. When blogging or creating a community focus on the who not the number. Use your influence to share things that are seen as valuable, smart, insightful and caring to your audience who ever that may be.

Julien Smith (I always have to check how he spells his name ie or ei), tatooed and dressed in a hipster motif then took the stage after being introduced as crazy smart. He’s definitely a critical thinker that captured my attention enough that I didn’t take as many notes as I wanted because I didn’t want to miss anything. He encouraged everyone to find an audience that wants to hear what you have to say and create a place for like-minded individuals to gather, share stories, and feel like they’ve found a group who gets them.

This sent me off in thought about what kind of community we’re creating here at BrainHuddle. We see quite a few vistors but we don’t hear from you all that much. Why? Are we not inviting or engaging enough? Or is the audience we’ve found a bunch of social media introverts, which as I previously confessed at the begin of this blog I was. So I leave that question for you to help us answer (you can call yourself anonymous in reply if needs be)-Who are you and why have you come here? A Princess Bride scene just popped into my head with Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) pumping air into the tortured and ‘mostly dead’ man in black (Cary Elwes) and then yelling into his ear, “What’s so important?…” That’s what we want to know so we can give you more of it.

And with that I’ll save the Chris Brogan summary for tomorrow.