You haven’t sub­scribed yet?

Every­one wants to inte­grate social media into their mar­ket­ing plans. They pay big bucks to learn how to do so. They spend hours or their lives and travel many miles in search of the of some golden tid­bit they can take back to their com­pany so man­age­ment will finally give them a budget.

But this isn’t their only prob­lem. Buy in from man­age­ment, while impor­tant, isn’t REALLY what’s hold­ing them back. These peo­ple have barely grasped the internet.

While on a panel at the Direct Mar­ket­ing Asso­ci­a­tion 2009 con­fer­ence, held in the lovely San Diego Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, one thing was READILY apparent.

NO ONE HAD LAPTOPS.

I know that lap­tops and net­books aren’t required to use social media, but they help. I get that you don’t need a smart­phone to use twit­ter or Face­book, but they help. I also under­stand that these peo­ple, rang­ing from late 20s to late 60s, don’t have to PERSONALLY use social media, but damn it, how can you expect to com­pete in a realm where every­thing can be put online?

I can make a video and upload it in less than one minute on my iPhone 3GS. Around 2000 peo­ple will see it. I can send a funny pic­ture to those same 2000 fol­low­ers. I can record audio and share it, too.

So how do I know most peo­ple are so far behind that they’ll never catch up? When they asked us to slow down in giv­ing rec­om­men­da­tions because they couldn’t write fast enough.

You want to be on the cut­ting edge of tech­nol­ogy? You want to learn how to posi­tion your­self and/or your com­pany for future suc­cess? Start by using the tools required.

Twit­ter isn’t tough, nei­ther is Face­book. Blogs take min­utes to post. But you can’t teach adop­tion. I can’t show you how to rec­og­nize an event and then dis­sem­i­nate it into share­able form. I can’t teach you how to see a smart­phone as more than hard­ware. I can’t teach you that the inter­net is no longer a sep­a­rate place, that it’s a com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nel just like morse code and the telephone.

You need to fig­ure THAT out on your own.

Posted via email from Tyler says…

More from tdhurst

• Social Media IS NOT advertising
• Do more, teach less
• Foul­ing one off at #phxdw
• Dear brands: get off my social networks
• Lis­ten­ing must come first

Arkayne recommends

• How To Find a Social Media Expert (Derek Neigh­bors)
• A Quick Guide to the Social Media Tool­box (The Pub­lic Rela­tions and Mar­ket­ing Group)
• How Small Busi­nesses Can Tap Into Social Media (The Pub­lic Rela­tions and Mar­ket­ing Group)