Hawaii Social Media Club is Changing Lives and Businesses

On Thursday, October 23, 2008, Hawaii Geek Week will rock with the exciting Thursday, October 23, is the Social Media Club Workshop in Honolulu. This one day workshop is ideal for businesses, bloggers, especially those in the media, marketing, advertising, and social services.

The speakers include Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells from San Francisco, Beth Kanter from Boston, and Roxanne Darling from Honolulu.

What Social Media Means in Today’s Economy

Listen, folks, traditional media and marketing isn’t working any more. You cannot survive in today’s economy doing what has been done in the past. It’s a new world and that world is online and “social” right now.

That seems a little harsh, but over the past two years of traveling around the world talking to people about web technology, blogging, and social media, I’ve learned some very important things, many covered by this exciting workshop on social media, including:

• Where do people get their information today?
• When you want news, where do you go?
• When you want to find someone, where do you look?
• When you want to communicate, how do you do it?
• When you want to shop big ticket items, where do you go first?
• When you need a recipe for a social gathering, where do you turn?
• When you need directions to a location, how do you get directions?

If the answer to any of the above questions included the word “web,” then welcome to the modern world of social media.

Answers to our questions are coming through the web into our world more and more every day. Through our desktop computers at home and work, laptops, micro-computers, handheld computers, car computers, and cell phones, we are becoming reliant upon the web as a source.

So much of our daily information and input comes from the social services, networks, and interactivity on the web.

• If you need to hire someone, it usually begins with Google, followed by Facebook and LinkedIn.
• If you need an answer to a question Google can’t provide, you turn to Twitter and ask your “followers” and “friends.”
• If you need input from a lot of sources, with some thought involved, you publish the question on your blog.
• If you want to track news and information across a variety of sources, you use your feed reader or visit a blog network with the information you need.

If you and your business isn’t learning about how the web works, especially how social networking and media work, you may not be serving your customers to the best of your ability.

See Also

Old Blogging Sites That We Thought were Gone

Not every business needs a web presence, but more and more people are turning to the web and social media for solutions. If your business isn’t among their options, where is it?

I’m really looking forward to attending the Social Media Club Workshop, especially after my own full day Web Weavers Workshop on blogging tips, techniques, and WordPress. These two workshops will have me pumped and primed for the Windward Community Tech Fair Workshops and Exhibits at Windward Community College on Friday, and the almost sold-out Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii on Friday and Saturday.

What a great week to be in Hawaii. I’m surrounded by the best of the best in blogging sharing their expertise and knowledge. Stay tuned for more news from Honolulu.