A New Communication Gap to Fill

Forgive me, I might geek out a little on this one.

For years, I’ve made a good living—along with my fellow consultants—filling the gap between how Information Services (IT) and Business communicate. It’s usually IT and Accounting, or IT and Human Resources, or IT and Sales, or IT and the business as a whole. These groups all communicate in different ways, and we Business Analyst/Project Manager types have to write documents, draw pictures, and produce graphs so everyone on all sides knows what the other sides are trying to say.

The new gap in communication is between Marketing (not sales) and IT. For years, Marketing has been using a number of spray-pray-techniques (TV, radio, print) to get their company’s or client’s message out to the public. More recently, these three media have been increasingly ignored by the public. TV, radio and print are all in a long death spiral, as far as advertising goes. They are cutting back on staff and content, which makes them less valuable to viewers, listeners, and readers, and less able to sell advertising, which is largely ignored by the consumers anyway.

What’s an advertising firm/department to do? Turn to the Internet. The problem is that they really haven’t figured out how to market effectively on the Internet yet—and it may take a while. And when they do, the Internet will morph.

Oh, yeah, and the Internet means you are involving technology, and probably IT. IT “gets” the technical side of the Internet, but most departments don’t really understand how to use the technology to meet marketing goals.

The next big thing, or current big thing depending on how you look at it, is social networking. Now you’re really in for it, because the Marketing folks have heard about and want to use it, but the IT folks don’t understand how it impacts business. Who is the visionary here—a technical marketing person?? Now there’s a gap for you, and I dare you to try to find one!

If you’re in this quandary, my new book will help you sort a lot of it out. If you need a facilitator or thought leader, I’m here for you. But remember this social networking thing is just like the Internet, a moving target. Your only chance of exploiting it before it morphs is to understand the underlying core principals. Then you can “get” any new tool or craze that comes along and decide if it’s worth using or not.

M. A. "Ryan" Yuhas
Author, Speaker, Social Networking Facilitator
InterDimension Strategies Inc.
972-841-0226
877-217-9959

New Book Released

Hey, everyone...

Just wanted you to know about my latest book. It's The Social Networking Executive Primer--Connecting FaceBook, Myspace, YouTube and Web x.0 to the bottom line.

This is the perfect book for you (or your boss) if you're trying to catch up with social networking and how to use it to make a difference for your bottom line. If you're an IT, marketing, or business person who just can't seem to get your CEO/CFO/CIO interested in what social networking can do, give them this book. Do you have your own company? This would also be very helpful to you if you've been trying to figure out how to get free PR and build an engaged following around your business.

I've consulted with dozens of companies all over the US for over two decades. Since 2000, I've made a concerted effort to learn and utilize social networking. I've helped a major non-profit organization embrace social networking and launch their specialized sites. I've built a number of additional social networking sites on free public platforms, such as Ning.

I'm available for executive workshops, college talks on networking safety, and seminars for jobhunters who want to use the net to pump up their search.

Reach me, Ryan Yuhas, at 972-841-0226 or 1-877-217-9959.

Where do I plug in? Hyper-local social networking

It’s a fair question, and one that I ask every time I take my guitar to a recording session—but that’s for another blog. Today, I’m talking about social networking. More specifically, hyper-local and hyper-focused social networking. Where do you plug in to your social network?

I recently helped launch a social networking site for the Collin County Songwriters Association in North Texas. We used ning.com to get it going, and the speed and ease of putting it together was breathtaking. But our excitement from the speed and ease didn’t hold a candle to the rush we got from what happened next.

To put it simply the site BLEW UP, and I mean in a good way. Now, I guess I have to qualify what I mean. It’s not that we got a huge number of participants—right now we’re at 67 members and climbing. What was amazing was how much started to happen on the site. Videos, photos, discussion forums, blog posts, music posts, friending, and events. Wow. Why did it do that, and why did it happen so fast?

My answer is pretty simple. We already had a group of people who wanted to network. The social network online merely facilitated the synergy that was already happening, and put it on steroids.

Right now, people are wondering how to use social networking for their business. As I wrote in my upcoming primer for executives (and stole from Groundswell), one of the five things you can use social networking for is embracing your customers—creating a cult (think Harley Davidson owners, who spend an inordinate amount time of time recruiting people to become Harley owners). For a certain niche of small businesses, this is a perfect fit.

If I had a dance studio, music school, cheerleading school, karate school, flying club, day care, guitar shop, night club, wine club/bistro, church, hobby shop, special interest group, local political party, arts organization, or anything that is as much a club as it is a business, I’d start a social network. I’d use ning or something like it, because it’s free and robust. Set yourself up as the information broker, the expert, or the facilitator for something happening in your neighborhood. Goose it up with an occasional discussion post of a controversial subject that everyone would like to comment on. Stand back and watch it fly.

What are you waiting for?

M. A. “Ryan” Yuhas
Ryan.y@sbcglobal.net

Did Fox News get it right?

I just got some coverage in Houston on the local Fox News. I was made out to be an conniving opportunist--actually that's dead on. They spelled my name right, gave me a link. All very cool.

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/weird/090317_social_networking_profit

The article is about paying someone to be friends with your friends on Facebook, Myspace, etc. Personally, I'm not sure that having someone stand in for you and answer your social networking email is all that bad. Where I've seen Virtual Assistants really help is in going out and inviting new friends to your network. Now, this does not produce the quality of following that you'd get if you went out and really had conversations with your "friends." But if sheer numbers is what you're after, this is a great way to go.

Are you after sheer numbers? May not. More soon.