There are plenty of opinions on where our economy is headed – not just in the US but globally. How do you save the world? Seth proposes being a linchpin (Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?). Umair Haque argues we don’t need to be great, but good. We should focus on socially responsible entrepreneurship.

I recently got an invitation to speak at the honorable St. Gellan Symposium in Switzerland. The topic? Entrepreneurs – Agents of Change.

Tomorrow, I leave for Indiana to go speak to the bright students at Culver. On what else? Entrepreneurship. What will I tell them? Yes, entrepreneurs have changed the world since the beginning of modern civilization. Perhaps even before that. (I sense a  “even a caveman can do it”  joke.) I will tell them my story about how I became one. And, I will share with them these five key points about Entrepreneurship -

1) Ideas aren’t worth much. EXECUTION IS! Ideas are a dime a dozen. Dreamers are a dime a dozen. The true power lies in execution. No matter how brilliant the idea,  if you cannot implement it – it doesn’t mean much.

2) Invest in Education. Education doesn’t have to be conventional. It does have to be constant. A solid entrepreneur never stops learning. You can bootstrap everything, but you can’t skimp on training.

3) Marketing. Marketing. Marketing. It’s not a dirty word. It isn’t ugly or scary. It is a necessity in today’s world. It can’t trump the product or the service – but it can take a good product or service to a whole new level.

4) Social Media has CHANGED the world -leverage it. You can be more, do more, say more -reach more than ever before. But, don’t mistake the medium for the message. Yes, you can broadcast your ideas to millions. But should you? And more importantly, which ones?

5) Learn to Listen and SPECIALIZE. You can’t solve every problem. Don’t even try. Just get VERY good at fixing one or a few. When I first started The Marketing Zen Group, it wasn’t called that. We didn’t specialize in online marketing. We definitely didn’t pride ourselves in being social media experts. We failed because I tried to build a general consultancy. When I started listening to my clients, that changed. I realized that they were already telling us what problem they needed help with. That’s when we decided to focus on online marketing. It was hard at first. Saying no to other things always is, but then so is becoming just another company.

Everybody always talks about why social media marketing is so important. I agree. But, I also think there are reasons against social media marketing. Here are 10 reasons NOT to partake in social media marketing.

1) You don’t have the basics right. Your business model is non-existent. (Call Joe). You don’t have a tested product. You don’t have a goal. Your website hasn’t been updated since 2002. Social media marketing comes last.

2) Your boss isn’t on board. I’ve seen this happen, and it never ends well.  No matter how much you LOVE social media and think it could turn your business around, it doesn’t matter unless your boss is on board. Even if you are able to get some traction, your boss will pull the plug if he or she wasn’t sold on the idea from the beginning.

3) Your employees aren’t on board. I sat through a wonderful lunch the other day where a boss was ready to make things happen with social media. His manager on the other hand was not. The manager was clearly too busy handling operations, and didn’t think he could handle one more of his boss’  ideas. If you think social media is for your company, make sure your employees see the value first.

4) You want a short term solution. I am sorry guys but no one is going to say “ooh look! a business consultant on twitter. I want to hire you!” Social media is NOT a short term solution. It is, more or less, a lifetime (at least business-wise) commitment.

5) You want to see a direct impact on ROI. Will it impact your ROI? Yes. Will it directly impact your ROI? No. The bigger the sale, the more touch points a business needs. This is how must people buy from us: Someone refers them to our website or they find us on (gasp!) a social media site. They sign up for our newsletter. Six months later, they hear me speak somewhere. They continue to follow me on Twitter. Another month goes by. They decide they need their website optimized or their facebook fan page customized or to entirely outsource marketing. They call. They are ready to buy. Did social media impact our ROI? Not directly. But, did it create a channel for us to keep in touch until they were ready? Absolutely.

6) You don’t want to build content. Somewhere out there, Newt and Joe are vigorously nodding their heads. Social media is a channel. It is a medium. It is two tin cups with a wire in the middle. It is NOT a substitute for the message. When you mistake the medium for the message, you get inane status updates like “just had a PB&J.” Seriously? Just because you now have a megaphone does NOT mean you no longer have to have something valid to say while using the megaphone.

7) You have a zero budget. Social media marketing is not free. The tools are free, but the tools are no good without a strategy. Just ask B.L. Ochman. If I handed you a hammer, nails, and a few boards – could you build a shelter? Yes? Okay. How long would the shelter last? If it collapses on you, it can cause more harm than good.

You don’t have time. Social media takes time. It doesn’t have to be your personal time, but it does take SOMEBODY’S time. And, it takes quality time.

9) You don’t want to work within a changing landscape. Social media yesterday was blogging. Today it is video. Tomorrow may be location based social networking. If you are truly interested, you have to keep up. Or, you have to assign someone to keep up for you.

10) You don’t believe in giving it away. True story. A couple of months ago, I am sitting in the boardroom of a leading accounting firm. I am explaining the concept of blogging, and the head partner asks me: “Why would I give away what I know?” I explained I wasn’t talking about trade secrets or anything of that sort. But, instead, I was talking about content that would build their expertise as a firm. He scrunched up his brow and said “for FREE?!”  This isn’t a social media problem. This is a mindset challenge.

Photo Credit: @Vlauria on Flickr

According to a study by The Neilsen Company, consumers spent 5.5 hours on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009. Just three years ago, the average consumer spent 3.

Key points from the study -

- The most popular online categories, in order of popularity, are: Social networks, blogs, online games, instant messaging.

- Growth from Facebook (200%) and Twitter (368%)  trumped overall social networking growth.

- Time spent on social media sites by an average US consumer went up 143% in a year.

- US has the largest population of social media users (142.1 million), followed by Japan (46.6 million).

Ha! I love it when I am right. *Happy Dance!*

For years, I have been explaining that Twitter was never in the social networking business. It was in the human search engine business. It isn’t Twitter vs. Facebook. It was – and will be – Twitter vs. Google. Do I also smell an IPO in 2010?

Good buddy and reputation management expert, Andy Beal, picked up something very clever in Biz Stone’s OpEd piece. Biz Stone is one of the founders of Twitter, and I had the pleasure of sharing the speaking stage with him this past year.  Very down to earth guy, but, I digress.

Here is what Andy found…

“It can be these things but primarily Twitter serves as a real-time information network powered by people around the world discovering what’s happening and sharing the news…In the new year, Twitter will begin supporting a billion search queries a day. We will be delivering several billion tweets per hour to users around the world…”

A BILLION searches. Google currently handles around 400,000 million searches a day. Twitter will BEAT that.

The coming decade will redefine not just the role of media – but media ITSELF.

The King is Dead. All Hail the People.

(photo credit @respres on Flickr)