I am always doing that which I do not know how to do in order to learn how to do it — Picasso

As a long -time teacher, I typically have begun classes each semester with a questionnaire to encourage my students to tell me “About Them.”

One item asked, “Where would you like to be five years from now, and how will you get there?”

Interestingly enough, my personal answer to this question had always been “Exactly where I am, doing what I’m doing.”

But the Social Media Revolution has changed all that . . .

and the course of my life with it

I am particularly proud of a recent post which discusses a great deal of what I’ve learned this year: “Ten Mistakes Made by Social Media Newbies”

Here is one comment on that article submitted by a fellow Northwestern Medill graduate — and my response:

Shari,

You are right on. I’m a ’79 GSJ grad­u­ate. Tell me about what you do. I believe that cor­po­ra­tions make all these mis­takes and need peo­ple like you to help them plan and par­tic­i­pate com­mu­nity mar­ket­ing. I want to learn more.

John
By John Morocco Strate­gic Plan­ning — Media & Pro­mo­tion — Inte­grated Mar­ket­ing Plans — Neigh­bor­hood Mar­ket­ing
Hi John,
Thanks for ask­ing. I know that lots of us “social media evan­ge­lists” LOVE to talk about what we do.

As a uni­ver­sity marketing/PR/advertising prof for more than 15 years AND a jour­nal­ist ever since grad­u­at­ing from Medill in ’69, I have “only just begun” study­ing All Things Social Media and chron­i­cling my edu­ca­tion for a year now.

I still can’t believe that as a PR and Adver­tis­ing teacher, it took me SO LONG to under­stand the huge evo­lu­tion that’s already been going on for the last few years.

That being said, if it took ME so long, i.e., some­one teach­ing mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, then it stands to rea­son that peo­ple who are “only” prac­tic­ing these activ­i­ties will need leaders/teachers/evangelists to help them under­stand and nav­i­gate this new frontier/landscape.

And I want to help. So … if you want to learn more, my sug­ges­tion is that you stay tuned to my blog arti­cles AND per­haps do some of the “home­work” I sug­gest along the way.

Hope to hear more from you, and I hope you don’t mind, I’ll be adding this com­ment to my actual blog. It might be inter­est­ing to fol­low the Thread of com­ments. They will show you one way that people/brands do build com­mu­nity.
Lots of luck, and please con­tact me with any ques­tions. If the answer is long like this one, I’ll turn it into a blog post.
Shari

Join me . . . and join the conversation. We really are embarking on a New Frontier which will change Everything!