Memphis made history on the Internet this month, as one of the world’s most respected bloggers, best-selling author Chris Brogan, spoke for the first time in our river city.
As he spoke, the audience live-tweeted, blogged and broadcast the event over the Internet, showcasing Memphis to hundreds of thousands of listeners across the globe. You can search Twitter.com (type #BroganMemphis in the search box) and you will see the incredible information that was shared on how social media give us all a big voice.
Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs in the Boston area, left Memphis a fan of our great city, though he chided us on our need to put social media to greater use. He has already shared several posts about our city to his more than 136,000 followers on Twitter. Others in attendance at the event, as well as those who follow them in social media, brought #BroganMemphis to an audience of, literally, several hundred thousand.
After hearing Brogan speak, I participated in a roundtable discussion with some incredible people who flew into town from across the country, and even Canada, to be together and talk social media. These social media “power players” not only realize the importance of social media, but they are also using it to leverage, promote and protect their brand. Needless to say, my brain is in high gear, churning and thinking of better ways to help my clients and my community.
Brogan underscored the need for “trust agents,” people who understand the nuances of social media and how to “humanize” the Web by sharing information in a dynamic, conversational way and connecting with others in meaningful ways.
Here are my 10 reasons we need “trust agents” in Memphis:
- We live in a hyper-competitive world. You have to constantly be improving your game if your organization is going to move forward. Trust agents keep it moving.
- We have some incredible stories to tell in Memphis (contrary to what has been reported). We need to tell them better and louder.
- Internet-savvy trust agents become evangelistic spreaders of good news.
- Memphis is home to FedEx, a worldwide brand with worldwide connections, which positions Memphis to deepen strong connections that already exist.
- Memphis can use trust agents to attract new businesses, jobs and people. (Hey, that would help our tax base, right?)
- Trust agents make excellent employees.
- Trust agents are dynamic, inclusive, engaging and always improving things. This helps raise the bar to do more and do it better.
- Memphis can use more teachers. A community cannot have enough people blogging, talking, sharing, debating issues. It’s healthy, and it’s what makes outsiders look in and say, “Hey, there’s a fun party in there!” (Twitter is like a cocktail party — but that’s for another day.)
- Being a trust agent is fun. Building influence, improving a brand and earning trust is mostly about people.
- Trust agents connect you to other trust agents. You might get the chance to hang out and learn from cool people who are doing great stuff all over the world — and that is way cool!
Amy Howell is the owner of Howell Marketing Strategies LLC in Memphis.
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From: The Commercial Appeal