I had a chance to meet Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and hear him speak yesterday.  Chris is the leading blogger on social media and author of  Trust Agent.  Here are some of his key findings and pleas to us marketers!

• His greeting to the group with “Sawabona!” a Zulu word which means “I see you”.  He urged us all to use social media to “see” your customers in a new light.
• “Social media is the right way to do marketing.” He felt most prior marketing messages made the marketer feel good, like they were talking to themselves.
• Key social media tasks:  Listen > Connect > Publish
• Listening by “growing bigger ears” is the secret sauce.   See his blog entry with practical ideas:  http://www.chrisbrogan.com/grow-bigger-ears-in-10-minutes/
• Connect:  use social media tools to bring value to your clients.  For example, instead of a blog that promoted GoToMeetings he worked convinced this client to address the needs of the not-in-the–corporation worker with a blog called workshifting.  (FYI…this is a great resource for me!)
• The key to publishing is to write about others…on a “12:1 ratio. The more you write about others the more awesome you are to your customers.”  Another quote: “ People matter more than that one sale.”
• Interesting tidbit:  Social media now bigger than porn on the web.  Fantastic!
• Final words:  “BE HELPFUL!” I say “Amen!”

It was a great event… so fun to finally meet many folks I had been following:  Mary Bjorn @mbjorn, Rich Mahn @rickmahn, Mykl Roventine @myklroventine, Christopher Lower @mrchristopherl , meet some new social media MPLS folks:  Aimee Cheek@aimeecheek, Keith Privette @keithprivette, Lisa Grimm @lulugrimm, Kristin Hortenbach @pickycook, and of course  see old friends Dan Wallace @ideafood and Pam Muldoon @pamelamuldoon.   Looking forward to meeting Desarae Veit@desaraev as well!

Thanks Chris for spurring us all on in your humor-filled way!