Getting Social : Social Media : are you forgetting the social and focussing on the media?

So tonight we are presenting for a group of financial service professionals about how can you build your brand, deepen client engagement and increase referrals and new business by listening and communicating with clients.

It's a topic we love, and love engaging and connecting with people on.

And there is the essence of what social media is....it is social.

Too often the "media" is the focus and old style marketing is thrust upon clients and prospects from a business that thinks it is getting social.

Too often the messages are not about the client, they are about the business.

Times have changed, in that no longer is the primary information that shapes our choices as consumers, coming from the business selling the goods or services.

We have as humans have always done but with accelerated power and scale made choices by consulting trusted sources, our social circle.

Now that social circle is no longer the people in a tiny village. Rather our social circle is global and instantaneous!

We have a bigger voice than the company and we are using it.

The way to get social and become the most interesting person in the room (or on the web) is as it has always been : to listen.

Can't wait to hear what people are saying and feeling tonight.