Last Thursday, Orange County was fortunate to welcome Brian Solis, one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. Organized by Bryan Elliott of LinkedOC, the event was held at SEED People’s Market in Costa Mesa and welcomed 200 people.

Brian’s recent book, Engage!, serves as a “guide to help brands and businesses to build, cultivate and measure success in the new web.” In his presentation, Brian touched upon many relevant points about the ways we engage with each other through social media.

Here are some of the takeaways. These seemed to stand out the most:

• The five Is of social marketing:

         -   intelligence, insight, ideation, interaction, influence

• Social media is more about psychology and sociology than technology.
• People will always talk about you; may as well give them something to talk about.
• You’re marketing to an audience with an audience with an audience, etc.
• 1 + 1 = many
• Social media raises our oxytocin levels (the chemical that makes us happy)
• What is it you want to cause? Change? Organize? Sell? Raise? Discover? INSPIRE.
• Influence = desired and measureable outcomes.

A few others:

• Social media is equalizing the landscape.
• Attention becomes the major currency in content creation.
• Trust zone – who you connect with online; what you share, what you don’t share.
• Three top reasons people follow you:

          -  1. Updates

          -  2. To stay inform

          -  3. Receive discounts

• Hybrid theory: “We are the people we’re trying to reach.”
• You have to create content and make sure it gets found, is relevant and worth sharing. You want people to react.
• It’s not scalable to react to everybody.

Finally, Brian closed with a quote from George Bernard Shaw:

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.”

What are some of the ways you’ve been able to utilize social media to “create” yourself?