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.

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.

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?

Depending on how traditional your organization is and their reluctance to adopt social media practices, it can’t be worse than this video. Here’s an extreme example from the pharmaceutical industry where the legal adviser cannot even authorize listening in the social media space. Show it to your boss next time they tell you that you can’t do something.

Raleigh-based strategic web shop, hesketh.com, is hiring an online strategist and a blog post with an embedded video seems like a much better way to apply for this type of job, rather than a boring cover letter and resume. Don’t worry, Mom, I sent them an email with a resume. too.

Here are some links to things I mentioned:

Triangle Tweetup Recent community building event with 250 attendees.
Raleigh Twestival Local version of worldwide event to raise money and awareness of global clean water initiatives. We raised nearly $2300.
Triangle Social Media Club Helped revive local chapter to share social media knowledge with community.
North Carolina Wine TV Online video show reviewing North Carolina wine, creating awareness of North Carolina wine industry and building online brand.

And if you want to see the formal job stuff, here’s my LinkedIn Profile. Contact me via email, phone or your preferred social network.

UPDATE (7/8/09): I had a phone interview today, and I though it went pretty well. We’ll see if I have a follow-up interview.

Last week’s Social Media Club featured a discussion about using tools to monitor conversations about yourself, your company or your brand on the social web. Listening is the first step of any social media campaign. It is also known as conversation tracking or reputation management.

Every day your customers prospects are using online forums, social networks, blogs, chat rooms and leaving comments across various platforms. While using these services people are having thousands of conversations online daily. By listening to these conversations and engaging, you can build valuable relationships which lead to new business and sales. We heard several examples of listening to competitors online to gain inside information about website updates, potential product releases and out of town sales calls.

Thanks to Nathan Gilliatt who jumped in and led the discussion on the benefits of using paid monitoring tools, rather than the free tools. It is mainly an issue of scale, and the amount of web chatter surrounding your company or brand. He suggested using a free tool like Blogpulse or getting a free trial on paid tool like Techrigy to determine the level of monitoring required. Rather than post a long list of links as promised, here’s a link to Nathan’s post about monitoring tools and here’s a post from Social Media Today with an even longer list of tools.

Whether you’re a startup or Fortune 500 company, as you begin to explore or implement a social media strategy for your company, you should include an engagement policy. By having an engagement policy in place, you’ll establish how you will communicate with customers and prospects online. We shared good and bad examples of customer service using social media. Companies’ use ranges from active customer service like Dell to active listeners like @OmniHotels (ask @JeffTippett about his new robe), all the way to non-responsive companies like now Cisco-owned Pure Digital, makers of Kipp’s faulty Flip Camera.

We talked about finding thought leaders in your industry using LinkedIn, blogs, and human connections. Twitter is a noisy channel to follow the thoughts of thought leaders, but may be an easy way to find them.

It is also important to have an overall social media policy, and many cited IBM as a good example that many people use as a starting point for their own policies. It should be noted that this is a living, online document that is updated as changes happen in the social web space, and not a printed document sitting in a binder on someone’s shelf.

Thanks again to everyone who came out and participated in our discussion. Triangle Social Media Club meetings are all about sharing your thoughts and ideas about Social Media with others, whether you are a veteran or just starting out.

The OnlyBurger Hamburger Truck travels around Durham, North Carolina and serves burgers and fries. I caught up with them and some of their customers on the Friday before Memorial Day. Check them out and follow them on Twitter at @OnlyBurger to find their next stop. The food is great, by the way.

Lisa Sullivan helps associations and non-profits understand social media, so they can growth and strengthen their communities. She talks about some of her challenges and successes.
Find her online at springroadconnections.comand on Twitter at @LisaSullivan.

Email marketing firm Bronto, located in downtown Durham NC, is hiring and I just wanted to give them a shoutout and let them know that I am interested in the Director of Account Management position.

The following list was created by Jeff Cohen, who blogs at DigitalPapercuts.com, and Kipp Bodnar, who blogs at DigitalCapitalism.com, and yes, it is completely coincidental that both blogs have digital as the first word. Since Twitter is still on the top of everyone’s mind, we thought it would be a good time to document 101 uses for Twitter. Since this list was meant to be both fun and educational, we want you to share it with your readers and indicate how you have used Twitter. There are certainly many other uses for Twitter, but we wanted to compile a list that could be created in under one hour. Please feel free to add your own uses in the comments.

The rules for this post are the following:
1. Please post this on your blog in its entirety
2. Bold or underline your uses for Twitter
3. Add the tag twitter101 to the post
4. Make sure you link back to both of the originating posts: Kipp’s and Jeff’s
5. Add a comment to this post if you like
6. Tweet your post with the hashtag #twitter101

101 Uses for Twitter
1. Answer the Question “What are you doing?”
2. Tell Your Friends Your Going To Jail
3. Alert Your Family That your Plane Has Crash Landed in The Husdon
4. Explain To The World What You’re Eating
5. Announce You’re Currently Peeing
6. Your Chair Can Tell The World You’re Farting
7. Plants Can Tweet You For More Water
8. Say Something That Gets You Fired
9. Gather A Group Of Friends For Drinks
10. Say Something That Gets A Job Offer Pulled
11. Say Something That Angers a Client
12. Complain about a Product or Service
13. Ask for Free Stuff
14. Obsess about Bacon
15. Tweet for Your Dog or Cat
16. Showcase an Endless Array of Self-Portraits
17. Meet People at a Concert
18. Share News
19. Report from a Natural Disaster
20. Pimp Your Blog Links
21. Pimp Your Mom
22. Ask for 1,000,000 Followers
23. Announce the Song You are Listening To
24. Tell People How Awesome Your Macbook Is
25. Wonder How This Twitter Thing Works
26. Gratuitous Cursing
27. Comment That You Are Sitting At Your Desk
28. Make Fun of People Who Use PCs
29. Complain about How Facebook is Ripping Off Twitter
30. Wondering if Anyone Uses MySpace Anymore
31. Ask Someone to Marry You
32. Report on Your Blind Date
33. Tell Everyone What You Thought About the Latest Blockbuster Movie
34. Spoil The Ending of a TV Show
35. Thank Someone for Great Customer Service
36. Complain About Bad Customer Service
37. Bemoan The Fact That Traditional Media Doesn’t Get It
38. Share Speaker’s Speech from Conference
39. Make Fun of People Who Are Not at SXSW
40. Revel That You are Not at SXSW
41. Tell People How Wasted You Are
42. Talk about the Weather
43. Share Heartwarming Stories About Your Kids
44. Link to Photos of Your Vacation
45. Use a Location-Based Service to Tell Everyone about Your Latte, including a photo and a map
46. Post Cute Pictures of Your Pets
47. Meet Members of Your Local Community
48. Sell Stuff
49. Buy Stuff
50. Promote Events
51. Crowdsource Ideas for Things You Get Paid to Know
52. Hire A Freelancer
53. Report on Terrorist Activity
54. Name Drop People You’ve Only Met Online
55. Name Drop People You Are Having Lunch With
56. Send A Message To The President
57. Talk About Which Twitter Desktop App You’re Using
58. Talk About Snuggies
59. Use Stupid Shorthand such as: nom nom, lol, FTW, WTF, etc…
60. Try to Make Others Jealous of How Awesome your City is
61. Pimp The Latest Sci-Fi Trailer
62. Tracking Trends
63. Announce Your Plane has Landed: Wheels Down
64. Review Movies
65. Tell A Story
66. Make a Public Apology
67. Admit You Did Something Stupid
68. Ask for Computer Help
69. Complain about Battery Life
70. Pitch Your Startup to Scoble and Techcrunch
71. Make New Friends
72. Exclaim the Guy/Girl Across the Room is Hot!
73. Argue Politics
74. Wish Twitterville Good Morning
75. Tell your Followers to Have a Good Day
76. Tell the Twitterverse Goodnight
77. Share Quotes
78. Express Your Belief in a Higher Power
79. Avoid Sending E-mail
80. Learn
81. Listen
82. Ask for Help
83. Raise Money for a Charity
84. Share Stats of Social Media’s Growth
85. Auto-Pimp your New Twitter App
86. Auto-DM Welcome New Followers
87. Get a Date
88. Ask for Travel Recommendations
89. Share What You’re Reading Offline
90. Provide Traffic Updates
91. Talks Sports and Update Scores
92. Share Recipes
93. Tell Someone You’re Running Late
94. Find and Share Funny Videos
95. Talk to Your Boss
96. Train Surgeons
97. Make Yourself Look Smart
98. Change the World
99. Bash Microsoft
100. Express your Undying Love for Twitter
101. Retweet

So after a quick count it seems I have done 50 of the #Twitter101. How many have you done?