I just realized how much of my time is spent on Twitter, blogs, YouTube, etc. It is amazing to see how the marketing of technology is maturing and adapting to the new media.
And, now is a perfect time for you to get involved. More on that later.
One could argue, and I have, that Gartner is nowhere near the bleeding edge of technology. In fact, a common, albeit misinformed perception of Gartner, is that they can predict the past with 80% accuracy. But, the reality is that most of their clients are very large multi-national organizations that fall into the late majority category, to steal a page from Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm".
So, to see Gartner with a very active Twitter account and to see an entire channel from Gartner on YouTube can only mean one thing. Social media is crossing the chasm and its not just for consumer products.
Ignore this trend at your own risk. In fact, I heard through the grapevine that one open source company was having a hard time getting activity in their "community" and their forums were dead. But, their software is used by thousands of companies. How is that possible? Well, it turns out that the dialogue was all on Twitter.
And, with the lovely state of the economy, budgets are being slashed all over the place. Many companies are cutting back on their marketing spend. (Many are moving money into digital advertising like Google Adwords because the results are measurable). Social media is FREE. It only costs time and energy. But, being a regular contributor to the world of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc can pay huge dividends.
However, it must be a full-time job to be done correctly. You need to have a strategic plan on how to attack the social media space. Without, you are just noise.
Here are some links to my pages:
