In my presentations and consulting I suggest that creative professionals use social media at least one hour a day (or 5-7 hours per week). This includes a great deal of “listening” as well engaging. Yes, I’m a marketing communications consultant and am therefore biased, BUT these suggestions are not based on turning you into a social media consultant, they are geared to get you the best marketing value for your time.

Ask First: Before you prepare your presentation gain a list of the attendees and see if you contact them via email. Ask them what they expect from the presentation. If you can’t email them, research them.

A: The middle shouldn’t be the default; it should be a choice, a hard one, and include a commitment to the long haul. Also, it’s not about waiting, you have to make a business there, not bring a business to there…

Freelance creative professionals increasingly ask me these two questions:

1. Is there any work “out there?”
2. Is that work for me?

The answer to both is no, not right now, and maybe not for a while, if ever. There is no work “out there” for anyone anymore in the way it used to be. There is no low hanging fruit; there is no regular gig. If you keep asking these questions then there is no work for you.

These are the slides from my presentation to ISACA and IAA (the Chicago chapters of national Internal Auditor and IT Governance organizations). The goal of my presentation was to point out the necessity of developing a company-wide social media policy based on these main observations:
- Employees are the new marketing department
- Marketing is now Communications; Conversations/Engagement
- While the adoption rate is high (and growing), most companies don’t have a policy

Similar to an ecologist pointing out that the culprits of bad-recycling-habits are actually the manufacturers who create all the packaging, NOT the consumer who is then left with the rubbish to dispose of, if we want to figure out “why brevity?” we need to focus on the people/places/things who say that messages, “are too long,” as we cave to this demand and chop-up our daily language into sound-bites via Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.

Here are my slides and an edited-down video from my presentation. The content of this presentation includes both tools and tactics that creative professionals should be using to be “active” in their marketing. The goal of “Active Marketing” is to display to your audience your verve for your subject…

Shawna Coronado’s recent post on Gardner Rant points out how green lawns can be put to use as food producing gardens . Not only for the owners consumption, but importantly to help feed the hungry…