I have been involved in social media, both personally and professionally, for over six years. While that pales in comparison to my more than 20 years of marketing experience, it is a long time to be involved with such a new area of marketing and communications. My career path has taken me from client-side marketer to agency to social media consultant to social media at an agency. And now it is time for another step. If you will allow me to paraphrase, “One small step for Radian6, one giant leap for Jeff.”

That’s right, I have started at Radian6 as a social strategist. If you are interested in what I will be doing, you can read about it on their social strategy blog. I am excited to be working with Dave Thomas, someone I began stalking when he was social media manager at SAS software. Well, stalking in a social media way, and we even did an interview with him for SocialMediaB2B.com. I was there, as evidenced by this photo.

So onto to the important part of this post, my mom. For years my mom has told me that she doesn’t understand what I do. No matter how many times I have explained, she claims not to understand. But every time there is an article in her local paper about a local company using social media, she is tempted to cut it out and send it to me. Just like I told her not to send jokes by email, or urban legend warnings that were disproven by Snopes.com years before, I had to tell her not to send me the newspaper clippings.

Now that I am working for a social media company, she can go to their website and try to figure out what they do. Frankly, I think she is just happy that I am progressing in my career “in these troubled economic times” and that I picked a growing field to be in.

I also think she is actually a bigger fan of salesforce.com, Radian6′s parent company. She can understand what they do because she used to be in radio sales. A sales-based CRM system is something that makes sense to her. A company monitoring the social web for mentions of their brand doesn’t really makes sense to her because she can’t imagine why anyone would talk about a brand online. Salesforce.com is a company that her friends have heard of and is talked about on tv. She is also excited that I get to go to Dreamforce, their huge tradeshow next week in San Francisco (Here’s a link to a free pass to the keynotes and the expo if you are around). But she a bit freaked out by the re-targeted salesforce.com ads that have started following her on the web.

This position is a great fit with my experience and skills and I am looking forward to working with enterprise companies that understand the value of social media and are looking to improve their adoption of it. If you have any questions about social media monitoring or Radian6, just let me know. I’ll be in the thick of it soon enough.

To support Movember and raise funds and awareness for Men’s Cancer Health, my friend Greg Ng, the Frozen Food Master, hosted a 24-hour live version of his web show, Freezerburns, to support the cause. He offered up an hour slot for a donation to Movember and each co-host picked a food to review. Grace and I appeared at on a 4am slot and reviewed Boston Market Salisbury. Watch the video above.

Watch my previous appearance on Freezerburns and an interview I did with Greg about the show.

If you would like to donate to Movember and support the cause, here’s a link to my Movember page.

Facebook has been around a long time, and the following video shows an early etiquette film of how to act on Facebook.

Most people who work in social media, and take it seriously as a way to build business, eschew the terms expert and guru. I am certainly one of them. This video shows the perception most people have of social media practitioners. Hat tip to Blog Around the Clock.

Today I spoke at the Living Arts College @ School of Communication Arts in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was great to speak with students who are learning their digital skills and get them thinking about creating an online personal brand.

The presentation below covers the following topics. Note that the presentation only features images and screenshots. There is not a bullet point or even text throughout the presentation.

• Introduction to Brand and Personal Brand
• The Importance of Owning Your Name as a Domain
• Why You Need to Pick One Appropriate Photo and Stick With It for All Profiles
• Creating Social Profiles
• Time for Content
• What to Blog About

Across the several blogs I publish, along with events that are managed using WordPress, we get a lot of spam. I generally like that we get spam, provided the spam filters are cranked way up so nothing gets published, because it means that sites are well-indexed by Google and found by the spammers as being worth their time leave a little garbed comment with a link. Some have disagreed with me, but I’m sticking to it. I also always go through my spam comments to make sure nothing erroneous got caught in the net.

Below I have collected some spam comments that have amused me. Many appear to be written by non-English speakers, so there is amusement in that, but some of them are so off topic of social media, wine or local Raleigh-area events, that I chuckle at them. Enjoy, and let me know your favorite spam comments… in the comments.

Loved your latest post, by the way.

emm.. informative..

As we know, posts are playing vital role for conveying messages to the Internet World. So bloggers be ready to celebrate and convey the message of greatness.

Rather interesting. Has few times re-read for this purpose to remember. Thanks for interesting article. Waiting for trackback

Hey, ok, I get it, I guess – but does this really work?

nice! i’m gonna make my own blog

Thank you! You often write very interesting articles. You improved my mood.

Thank you very much for that dazzling article

I really like your blog and i respect your work. I’ll be a frequent visitor.

In truth, immediately i didn’t understand the essence. But after re-reading all at once became clear.

Thanks for article. Everytime like to read you.

Hmm… I read blogs on a similar topic, but i never visited your blog. I added it to favorites and i’ll be your constant reader.

I really like your blog and i respect your work. I’ll be a frequent visitor.

Thank you for your article! I hope the author do not mind, if I use it for their course.

Good post! Podcherpnul a lot of new and interesting! I’ll go give a friend in ICQ:).

A case of you do not manage blogs on related topics? Do you have excellent and a lot of hits, I’m Watching.

It is a pleasure to sit at work. Escape from this boring work. Relax, and read the information written here:).

Hell! Cool yourself otvetili.Beru in tsitnik! The meaning of life and everything else. Resheno.Bez jokes..

Apologize for my bad english, I think its a precarious piece of your writing. Kind-heartedly I be suffering with faced alot of difficulties in this condition but your article determination definately escape me in future. Offer You

I read and I feel like home. Thanks to the creators for the good life!.

Cool:) You can say it blew up my brain!

Thank you for the great quality of your website, every time i come here, i’m amazed.

decided to help and sent a post in the social. Bookmarks. I hope to rise in popularity..

Good time of day! I do not see the conditions of use. Can I copy your text written on your site, if you put a link to this page?.

It’s very simple in words but in fact, much nesootvetsvuet, not all cheerfully!.

I also occasionally see this, but as it has not previously been attached to this value.

At root, I logs, we got the news.

Purely my IMHO – you can not make the choice. Good luck, think about it.

Yes! fully endorse the article interesting.

Already, too, you say thank you.

Just wanted to say HI. I found your blog a few days ago on Technorati and have been reading it over the past few days.

The Internet is written with a capital letter inside, if that. And no hundredths of a point and a semicolon. This is standard. And so all good, just veri Good!.

Nice content indeed! i will visit as often as i can.

I would like to take this time to tell you all about my recent experiences with this cream I found.

Can you recommend a good disco?

Write a post on the floor, there are pages and no reply? Normal.

Spasibochki:) Cool topic, please contact the bowl – you get excellent:).

I wrote something similar, but you issue more deeply exposed.

Yeah … Here people used to say: ABC teach – in all hut shout:).

If you should see her…

Do you understand me?

You ought to take more exercises.

I’d like a packet of biscuits, please.

Properly optimizing your pages to make them “search engine friendly” can greatly increase your search engine rankings, traffic levels, and potential earnings from your website.

Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?

Hi there,
Not sure that this is true:), but thanks for a post.

I agree with you him, her,

I’m in oil.

Please, leave me alone.

I’m sorry, I can’t.

I wouldn’t do it.

A mere online presence won’t serve the purpose of reaching out and impressing your target audience, to beat the competition you need a well designed website with a good search rank and for that you need help of companies which provide complete solutions in website designing and development and search engine optimization.

I’d like to visit the flower market.

Thanks.what a lengthy and in depth article but full of useful information

Hey I felt lyk being random but also I do totally agree with what all those people have been saying!!! Lol….. xx

Hello, I found your blog in a new directory of blogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, Your blog looks good. Have a nice day.

Inga said “what a load of crap!” just for the sake of irony, but I’ll refrain

Intimately, the article is actually the sweetest on this notable topic. I harmonise with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your next updates. Saying thanks will not just be adequate, for the tremendous clarity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay informed of any updates. Gratifying work and much success in your business endeavors!

Hello,thanks you for this fantastic blogg, i really find much new things on it and i really loved the design of the blogg. I found it on bing. I also want to wish you a happy new year.

Happy New Years!! To my favorite blog, hopefully no tactical body armor is required with all those idiots shooting their pistols along busy streets.

Haha, your site formats perfectly on my new iPhone, didnt look quite right on my old phone

My son bought a brand new one for my home. Except I am running into some trouble and I could use some help.

Oh I love this as a birthday cake idea! Might have to use it!

Years ago when I named my blog Digital Papercuts, I didn’t really think about it as a brand. When I joined Twitter two years ago, the ideas of social media authenticity and online identities were still based on anonymity, so I did not use my real name. My profile is @dgtlpapercuts, based on my blog name. Well, today I discovered a Twitter conversation that used my online identity, my brand as a noun. That means I made it, right?

I recently had the opportunity to speak to a Social Media class for MBA students at NC State. The 2nd year class is taught by Claudia Kimbrough and she worked with Chris Moody to arrange an awesome lineup of guest lecturers. I was excited to be included on a syllabus that included Joseph Jaffe, Andy Beal, Wayne Sutton, Katie Morse and Camden Watts.

I arrived at the class on a particularly busy day, between final preparations for our business conference the next day and heading to the State Fair for a Tweetup. I was asked about slides or presentation, and I replied that I didn’t have any. Some people call this “going rogue,” but I just call it speaking. All I needed was an internet browser to show examples.

My general topic was using social media to build community around a business or organization. I talked about various projects that I am working on, as well as answering questions along the way. Claudia took great notes and posted them on the class blog. The high level takeaways are listed below. Read the blog for the detail under these points.

• Figure out who and WHERE your customers and prospects are
• Content is still King
• Use Google Analytics and some other cool tools
• RSS feeds are inherent to blogs
• Start a blog for Personal Branding

It was fun to speak to a class about social media, because these are the next group of business leaders. Everyone assumes that the digital generation knows all about social media, but that’s really not true. They understand it as a personal communication tool, but there’s a big leap transfering that knowledge to business applications.

From Marketing Voices:

The legendary Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author and Twitter aficionado talks about the strategies he uses for gaining incredible numbers of people following him on twitter. More than 180,000 people are reading his tweets as of October 2009. He talks about how there is no correct or incorrect way to use Twitter despite the challenging criticisms he gets from his followers on his strategy. He uses Twitter mostly promotionally just to build Alltop, a company he co-founded and loves dearly. Guy talks about how he is a broadcast network—more like PBS– as he educates his readers with his content-rich tweets. He uses ghost writers and discusses his transparency and tricks-of-the-trade.

If you are part of the social media world, and especially the Twitterverse, you know that Twitter recently added a list feature so Twitter users can now organize the people they follow into smaller, more manageable groups and view their timelines together. While this makes Twitter more usable for users who are following a lot of people, it also provides a bit of insight into what people think of you, or in this case me.

As of this moment, I am on 58 lists. That seems like a large number, but not really when it is compared to the 2128 people who follow me. Does that mean that 2070 who follow me and didn’t put me on a list don’t care about my tweets? I wouldn’t go that far, but I am sure some of them don’t. I am more interested in what the people who took the time to put me on a list think of me. I’ve divided the lists into categories below and have examples of the list names.

Professional Lists (34%)
These people are interested in viewing my Twitter stream along with others tweeting about B2B, marketing or social media.
b2b-marketers
b2b-thinkers
social-media
social-media-b2b
marketing-tweeps
marcomm-advertising
industry-professionals

Local Area (34%)
The next category is of people who have grouped me with others in the Triangle region of central North Carolina
nc-neighbors
triangle-nc
raleigh
raleigh-durham
triangle-tweeple

Event Speakers (12%)
I have spoken at several recent events and a few people have categorized me related to those events.
speakers
socialfresh
smbf

A Lonely Category
Only one person has categorized me as a photographer. This is not surprising as I don’t tweet about photography or share my real photos that much. Mobile phones have made everyone an online photographer.
photographers

Huh?
These three people created lists that I don’t understand. I do know all of them, but am a bit boggled by the names. Teneighty? Information? What else are you getting on Twitter? And blinkers? All of this person’s lists rhyme, but I don’t know what it means.
teneighty
information
blinkers

It Could Go to My Head
I am both humbled and jazzed to be on the following lists. They show that I have made a real impact on people and they value my thoughts, opinions, and even friendship. Thanks. You guys are very cool.
smart-people
rockstars
thoughtleaders
smartncooltweeps
top-b2b-influentials
a-list
friends
worlddomination

What is the best list that you are on?