I had the pleasure of attending the Social Media Business Forum (#smbf) that took place October 23rd in Durham, NC. It's the first event that was put on by Jeff Cohen, Wayne Sutton, and Ryan Boyles of OurHashtag, and Kipp Bodnar of Howard Merrell & Partners.


They are passionate about teaching business people how to benefit from using social media and are responsible for many of the social media events and tweet-ups in the "Triangle" (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) North Carolina area. Jeff Cohen told me that they recognized a real need for business people to be educated on social media and tried to incorporate some educational programs at their other activities before deciding to put together this event. And clearly there is a need to educate business marketers on how social media can enhance both their marketing and business communication in general.
There were 160 people who attended the Forum. From speaking to some of the other attendees, I found that many of the people attending were the marketers who already believed in the power of marketing through social media and were looking for information on how to improve their efforts. I heard several people say that they really had to convince their bosses of the value of attending this event and are still trying to convince them of the value in social media marketing in general. That's a theme that I not only heard at this event but from our own MarketingProfs events as well. And I've been hearing it for a while now. Honestly, I would have thought that issue would have died down by now. With all the ways you can now monitor and measure social media marketing, it's hard to believe, that many presidents and CEOs are still not convinced of the value of using social media.
During the keynote panel at the Social Media Business Forum, speaker Jason Falls reminded everyone that customers are seeking information online and in these social media forums. It was a good reminder that we need to be where our customers are, isn't there marketing value in that alone? So I fail to understand why the question of the value of social media keeps coming up.
But it does, and as long as it does, I'll keep planning sessions for the MarketingProfs events that address this issue as well as social media measurement, monitoring and other topics that address value. And I hope other social media events such as the Social Media Business Forum will as well.
All in all, I thought the Social Media Business Forum was a great event. Kudos to Jeff Cohen, Wayne Sutton, Ryan Boyles and Kipp Bodnar for recognizing the need for social media marketing education and providing it to the local business community. See you next year!