Last week, I opened a new Twitter account, @All4Monitoring, to support the new social media monitoring service I’ve been offering clients.

Why start a new Twitter account aside from helping me plant seeds for this new offer? Actually, I have a very clear intention for it. As the profile says, it’s “All about monitoring, including links, pointers and the odd challenge to companies to see if they’re listening. Are you all for monitoring?” (Sidebar: The link from the profile is to our new site: socialmediamonitoring.ca, a URL I couldn’t believe was available given the presence of serious social media monitoring players up here in Canada.)

The idea is to become a hub for all things related to social media monitoring. So you can expect to learn about new monitoring services, talk about familiar ones, participate in the odd twtpoll here and there, and general observations about monitoring the social web for all kinds of different reasons.

Of course, you can play a role. To get the most out of this new Twitter account, it would be great if you could:

• Follow and reply to @All4Monitoring
• Tag any tweet with #a4m to point us to stuff and get our attention (as you can see, this hasn’t taken off just yet!)
• Provide feedback on the account
• And anything else you can think of within your comfort zone and the realm of Twitter

I’m viewing this effort as an ongoing experiment with a clear direction. If you have any ideas for how this account can evolve, let me know. I’m all ears!

Otherwise, I’ll see you out there on Twitter!

P.S. Feel free to connect with me on my personal account, @MarkGoren.

Gearing up for a busy fall, as I’ll be leading workshops at three different events organized by the Advanced Learning Institute, a conference organizer based in Chicago. It’s a great pleasure for me to be involved, as I’ve learned so much and made some lasting relationships at their conferences.

So here’s where you can find me this fall:

• Social Media For Government Conference, September 29 - October 2 in Ottawa
• Social Media For Healthcare, October 5 -8 in Washington
• Social Media For Crisis Communications in Government, November 2 - 5 in Washington

I’ll be running variations of the same workshop at all three events, the basic description of which is:

In today’s marketing environment, it’s vital that you respond to the right conversations in the right places. Using social media monitoring tools that are openly available, you can learn what’s being said, identify the most active and influential conversations and know where you need to be present online.

In this workshop, you will learn why it’s crucial to monitor the web to lead your marketing efforts, plus how to choose and prepare a community ambassador to voice your web presence. In addition, a hands-on approach will be taken to teach you how to monitor conversations using free tactics, tools and websites, including:

• Understanding the concept of RSS feeds and how to set up an RSS reader
• Looking at key free monitoring tools and how to subscribe to search results
• The importance of keyword selection
• Knowing where to listen to online conversations
• Preparing to respond and initiate online conversations when necessary - starting to really use social media

The early bird deadlines are still available for the October and November events - but you only have until August 12 (this Wednesday) to take advantage of a reduced rate for the Social Media for Healthcare conference. In addition, at any time during the registration process, if you mention my name, you’ll get a 50% discount off the current rate.

Also, to follow along during these events, search for #ALI on Twitter while the conference is in session. You’ll get a lot out of the sessions when you keep on eye on the back channel.

Hope to see you there!

Over the last little while, I’ve been wondering why people are so focussed on collecting subscribers, friends and followers. Sure, they’re nice to have, but unless you’re focussed on delivering content that people can connect to, then all the subscribers in the world don’t matter.

That’s the topic I’m exploring over at MarketingProfs Daily Fix today. Here’s a quick excerpt from a post titled, “Are people who share better to have around than subscribers?“:

It’s the traditional marketing problem all over again. It doesn’t matter how many people subscribe to your magazine if they skip over your ad or never open the publication. Nor does it matter how many people Nielsen says are watching if they’re in the kitchen when your spot airs.

Same thing with social media. Don’t fool yourself by counting people if you’re not connecting with them.

What do you think? Join us over at MarketingProfs to discuss!

Give and take.

Over on my original blog, I talked about the notion of Give + Take Marketing quite a bit. The underlying notion of it being simple - to get something, you need to give something. Be a giving brand and you’ll see the benefits of customer loyalty, word of mouth and the sales that come with it. (Surely not as simple as it sounds…)

Lately, as I preach the importance of extending your web presence - “Planting Seeds”, a term readers here have become familiar with - to lead people back to your online hub, I’ve become reminded of the Give + Take premise by one of my favourite music bands, the Dave Matthews Band.

Earlier this summer, after seeing them in concert here in Montreal for the first time in years, I became reacquainted with one of their old hits - You Might Die Trying. The chorus in this song goes:

If you give, you, you begin to live.
If you give, you begin to live.
You begin, you get the world.
If you give, you begin to give
You get the world, you get the world.
If you give, you begin to live.

How true.

In fact, it’s the first tenant of Planting Seeds. Get out there and GIVE. Act as a resource. Be human. Get real. Point people to links. Introduce people to one another. Help others out. Give first. And give a lot. Only then can you begin to live what this whole “social media” thing is all about.

Would love to know how you feel about this. How do you give? And what have you taken from your generosity?