Is this because I’m brilliant?

Heck no.

If anything, I have a lot to learn. And that compels me to continually seek out new educational opportunities at meetings, workshops, webinars, teleseminars and conferences, both locally and nationally.

But lately, everything I go to has had the same soundbite loop of examples, (Zappos!) ideas, (”Listening is key”) and anecdotes, (”Gary V was just a guy with some wine and a dream…”) all framed by the uber assertion that, “Social Media is AWESOME!”

And, sure enough, there is always a hungry crowd of people sitting at these events.

These are, ironically, the same people I talked to about social media more than year ago who regaled me with questions about Twitter as if it were some sort of mythical Sasquatch–like beast that I had stumbled upon in the woods.

In time, these people got the message that social media was here to stay, so they started using these tools, too. And now they too want to get together and talk about how it works, why it works and how to use it for their business.

Don’t get me wrong … I think that’s a great thing. There should continue to be events for these people to go to. (In fact, I’ve created some of these events myself, where, I too, am guilty of using the soundbites mentioned above.)

My problem is that personally, I’m not interested in those questions or events anymore.

I’ve been working with social media intensively, extensively and exclusively for nearly two years.

I’m ready for some new dialogue.

I want to talk about questions like …

• How do we create metrics that can adequately measure the nuisances in the qualitative and quantitative data gained from measuring social media conversations? (Because, yes, we can measure this stuff. Yes, there is a science to this. And yes, there are whole conferences being devoted to this topic.)

• How do we navigate the ethics of social media when qualities like, “authenticity” and “transparency” open the door to a host of landmine issues like, “Who determines what data is private?” “Where should the disclosure line be drawn between being someone’s fan and being their marketer?” “How do you maintain authenticity while at the same time being highly strategic about your engagement?”

• How to we develop and manage a content strategy for social media when the message is not being used for the traditional two-way exchange of sender and receiver, but rather is a living dialogue that ping-pongs between senders and receiver (and each receivers’ receivers) ad infinitum?

• As more and more learning and interaction happens virtually, what will the new role be for real-time events and interactions? How can we respond to the needs of online communities for face-to-face connection? How do we capture the “a ha!” moments that occur offline and relay them back to the online network?

• How do we build and integrate social media into a larger marketing and PR strategy so that it serves as an invaluable new tool in a company’s arsenal (with its own strengths and weaknesses) rather than a “bell and whistle” to tack onto an already overextended business workload?

Where are these types of conversations happening?

Locally? Yes. These questions pop up at most every coffee meeting I have. People are creating word-of-mouth support networks, but that’s generally where the “education” ends. Most events are still being built to simply help professionals sell social media to their clients and companies (and that’s a fine goal). But this means that, for now at least, they are trapped in Social Media 101 mode.

At national conferences? Maybe some, but not at the ones I’ve been to lately. Those have been the lands where the giant corporate case study reigns supreme, even when they are entirely devoid of nimbleness and innovation. (Note to conference planners: the hottest ideas in social media are NOT coming out of giant corporations.)

Online? Always. I am currently attending Twitter U to get my Social Media MBA. The ideas are coming in a steady stream from networks and blogs, (thank you Mack Collier, Brian Solis, et al), but the answers many of us seek will still ultimately be found through application and interpretation. For those, we need community and clients – areas where offline interaction can still hold the most impact.

Not sure what the solution is to this problem. But I know it’s not one I can solve on my own.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know I do have good questions, so I’ve pitched myself to speak on these topics both locally and nationally, but have had little success.

I’d build my own events to tackle these ideas but, since I’d be trying to pull in an audience of my peers, I think it’d be an exercise in futility (especially if I had to charge money for the events to cover my costs). As Chris Brogan so aptly put it last week, the Twin Cities is still pretty siloed when it comes to forming tribes to support each other in the social media community. That’s a damn shame.

So this morning, I watched the Twitter stream as the social media faithful here in town gathered for yet another event. They likely tackled social media again, twisting the topic like some programmatic Rubik’s Cube to examine and discuss from some new angle.

Ultimately, I’m not sorry I stayed home.

I have work to do and clients to help. Not sure anything they would have found would have helped me with either.

As usual, for now, it looks like I’m on my own.

Companies everywhere seem to have received the “We gotta be on Twitter!” memo and are swarming to the application to fire up a feed.

But does anyone care?

Since I’m a “heavy tweeter” and follow a lot of people, I seem to be on the radar of many of these corporate feeds.

The number of corporate followers I get seems to double each week. While the amount of time I have to vet each follower is growing smaller.

As result, I’ve developed a Twitter litmus test to help me decide which companies I should follow back.

Corporate marketers? Take note:

1. Is Your Company’s Twitter Profile Complete?

Your Twitter profile is your company’s online business card. Make it an effective one.

• Include a picture. It’s O.K. if that picture is your company’s logo. Just make sure it’s a version of the logo that looks good on multiple color backgrounds. I view my Twitter stream in Tweetdeck against a black background. If you use a gray logo with a transparent background as your avatar, I will literally never see your tweets going by.

• Tell us where you’re located. I make it a point to follow local companies. Leave off your locale and you could be missing the opportunity to transfer the Twitter conversation to a face-to-face forum.

• Write a keyword-rich, informative company description. Don’t waste this valuable (and searchable) real estate with dippy slogans like, “We work hard, but have fun too!” or obtuse mission statements like,  “Creating authentic experiences for consumers.” I want to know, in a glance, what you do and if it’s relevant to my business.

• Include a URL. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a link to your corporate website. But it does have to be a link to a location that will provide me with more detailed information on what it is that your company does.

2. Does Your Twitter Profile Show Your Company Having Conversations with Actual People?

When I’m vetting a company, the Twitter profile page is an invaluable research tool.

• Do you have hundreds of followers, but follow none of your clients or customers back? (My first impression? You don’t seem like a very nice person to do business with.)

• Do you follow a ton of people, but have no followers in return? (My first impression? You probably post some pretty boring tweets.)

• Is your feed full of posts, but includes no @ replies? (My first impression? You like to talk…just not to us.)

• Is your feed full of @ replies, but no posts? (My first impression? You don’t have much to say, so you use gratuitous, “Me too!” and “LOL” comments to make your company appear “engaged.”)

• Is your feed full of retweets? (My first impression? You have nothing original to say, so you repeat others’ tweets so you can appear relevant in the space.)

3. Is There a Sense of Human Voice in Your Twitterfeed’s Content?

Nearly all the companies that I see jumping on the Twitter bandwagon are under the mistaken impression that it’s the world’s cheapest and fastest broadcast medium.

Couldn’t be further from the truth, my friends.

If I want to know all about your company’s news and hear how awesome you are, I will go look at your website. If I want to engage with you and learn more about why your business may be relevant to mine, I will go to Twitter.

You need to have something interesting to share with me when I arrive.

You wouldn’t just walk around a cocktail party distributing promotional flyers and call that effective networking. Treat your twitterfeed the same way.

Ask questions. Be helpful. Throw your two cents into conversations. And most importantly, give me a sense that there’s a person behind the Twitter curtain.

I don’t care if that person works in marketing, PR, or the C-suite. I just need to know that they are a human.

4. Does Your Company Use Twitter to “Sell” or to “Brand?”

What is your social media content strategy? If you don’t have one, don’t be surprised if you don’t see a big return on your Twitter investment.

Write your tweets so they sound like the sponsorship messages you hear on public radio, not the ads you hear on a Clear Channel station.

Go ahead and mention your company. Share with us what you do and how you feel about the work, (Feelings? In business communications? Why yes!) and ask people questions about their businesses in return.

Structure your content so that the process of sharing and “telling” your story also serves as the “selling” of your company.

5. Does Your Company Respond to Followers and Follow Backs in a Genuine Manner?

I met a really great business contact recently and had some lovely face-to-face discussions with him. Shortly thereafter, I looked him up on Twitter and started following his company (he manages their feed).

In response to my follow, I received an auto-generated direct message with a generic “thanks for the follow” and an offer for me to download “an exclusive whitepaper which could help me double my follower count overnight!”

Needless to say, this person is no longer one of my business contacts.

If I meet you, and you know my name, but you treat me like an anonymous cog when you reach out to me through social media channels, I will treat your business like an anonymous cog in return.

Treat your clients and customers like you’ve had a dirty one-night stand with them, and you’ll see a whole other side of Twitter’s power – a side that has the ability to break your company’s reputation just as easily as make it.

Enter online publications, eZines, eNewsletters and blogs. The content is changing, and so must the “media list.” It’s time to expand the toolbox.

If you haven’t already, you’ll want to think about stocking your toolbox with these basic tools:

RSS feeds of online publications and blogs.

The vast majority of print publications are publishing some sort of online content. Take a look at how online versions differs from print, and see who is responsible for the content. If they have a blog, subscribe to the RSS feed and read it often.

Media coverage alerts.

PR pros are notorious for tracking down every last bit of media coverage that mentions their client, but how actively are you monitoring mentions of your clients’ competition or the industry as a whole? There are so many free tools that make this process very simple – there’s really no good reason not to use them. For starters, set up keywords in Google Alerts and TweetBeep. If you’re looking for more options, subscription-based services like Radian 6, or if you’re a customer of Vocus, Cision or PRNewswire, check out options for adding online keywords to your current monitoring subscriptions.

Twitter.

If you got an invitation to join hundreds of reporters and editors at a big dinner party, with the promise that you could have some one-on-one face time with whomever you choose, would you accept? If so, tell me you’re on Twitter, right? Now, I’m not saying to use Twitter as a delivery mechanism for your press releases or pitches (maybe I’ll cover that in a future post) but Twitter can be very valuable tool for getting to know the reporters you may want to pitch. You’ll soon find that you’re saying to yourself things like, “Wow, Joe’s getting on a plane for China this week; probably not a good time to give him a call.” Or, “I didn’t know Jane also blogged about knitting! I should see if she’d be interested in talking with my client who is launching a Web site with pattern downloads.” Heck, like at a dinner party, you may find yourself in conversation with a reporter about family, industry trends, or personal pet peeves – it’s all about building the relationship. And, the next time Jane is writing about your client’s gadgets, she’s going to remember you.

How do you find these folks on Twitter, you ask? First, take a look at existing compilations. Whether you want to admit it or not, social media has been around for a while, and some generous pros like Sara Evans (@PRsarahevans) have started the work for us. Check out her MediaOnTwitter wikki.

Social media networks.

Profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn also may lend helpful glimpses into an editor or reporter’s interests and preferences, and if they have open security settings, go ahead and take a look, but I don’t suggest “friending” or “linking” unless you’ve really built a strong relationship.

After immersing yourself in all of this online content for a while, narrow down the key players. Attempting to reach everyone online could very well drive you insane. Identify the blogs that generate fresh content, have a dedicated readership or that spark insightful comments (these posts often become story leads for traditional journalists). Make a note of the Web sites that accept submissions, guest blog posts or bylined articles. Keep track or your interactions on Twitter and the bloggers/reporters who seem most approachable and interested in your subject matter.

Now, you’ll want to add some names to your media list. Check to make sure your database is ready for new media contacts. For instance, is your intern still tracking down mailing addresses and fax numbers? When’s the last time you mailed or faxed anything? Consider updating your fields to contain things like twitter ID, blog URL, LinkedIn Profile, Faceook URL, etc.

So – open up the toolbox, toss out anything that’s broken, adjust those that need a tweek, and start stocking up on some of these tools!