As I mentioned in a post yesterday, one bit of BusinessCasualBlog-relevant news relates to "parking" BusinessCasualBlog.com (this blog) in 2011.  But, you can still get all these same updates and free content from MelAclaro.com.  

Oh, I won't be shutting BCB down anytime soon.  (After all, there's a lot of content here that has been indexed, bookmarked and linked to.)  But, the fact is, it's a pain in the a## to migrate all this content over to another blog while still expecting to keep all the links intact.  

So, for the foreseeable future, I'll keep this blog live.  However, I won't likely be updating any new posts here.  Instead, I'll be publishing new content pretty much exclusively on MelAclaro.com.  I'd really like to keep in touch, but I need your help. 

Here's what you can do to stay in touch:

1.  Subscribe to my newsletter on MelAclaro.com.  (Did I mention that I bribe you with a free mini-course on social media when you subscribe?)  Here's the link:  http://www.melaclaro.com/smmtips-signup/

2.  Or, you can subscribe to my RSS feed on MelAclaro.com by copying this link (http://www.melaclaro.com/feed/) and then pasting it into your favorite RSS feed reader.  (Don't know what RSS is about? Watch my video about RSS here.)

Happy 2011.  Whatever You Do, Don't Lose Contact.

I hope you'll continue to keep in touch in the new year.  Here's a list of places you can connect with me:

• Blog:  www.MelAclaro.com
• Twitter:  Twitter.com/MelAclaro
• LinkedIn:  LinkedIn.com/in/MelAclaro
• Facebook:  Facebook.com/MelAclaro

In the meantime, I wish you many wonderful new opportunities in the new year.
Here's that link again to subscribe to my updates:
 http://www.melaclaro.com/smmtips-signup/

Breaking News About Future Articles on BusinessCasualBlog

One bit of BusinessCasualBlog-relevant news piece:  About half-way through the video above, you'll find me musing about "parking" BusinessCasualBlog.com (this blog) in 2011.  

Oh, I won't be shutting BCB down anytime soon.  (After all, there's a lot of content here that has been indexed, bookmarked and linked to.)  But, the fact is, it's a pain in the a## to migrate all this content over to another blog while still expecting to keep all the links intact.  

So, for the foreseeable future, I'll keep this blog live.  However, I won't likely be updating any new posts here.  Instead, I'll be publishing new content pretty much exclusively on MelAclaro.com.  I'd really like to keep in touch, but I need your help. Here's what you can do to stay in touch:

1.  Subscribe to my newsletter on MelAclaro.com.  (Did I mention that I bribe you with a free mini-course on social media when you subscribe?)  Here's the link:  http://www.melaclaro.com/smmtips-signup/

2.  Or, you can subscribe to my RSS feed on MelAclaro.com by copying this link (http://www.melaclaro.com/feed/) and then pasting it into your favorite RSS feed reader.  (Don't know what RSS is about? Watch my video about RSS here.)

Happy 2011!  Don't Lose Contact!

I hope you'll continue to keep in touch in the new year.  Here's a list of places you can connect with me:

• Blog:  www.MelAclaro.com
• Twitter:  Twitter.com/MelAclaro
• LinkedIn:  LinkedIn.com/in/MelAclaro

In the meantime, I wish you many wonderful new opportunities in the new year.  

If you found this post helpful, then you'll want to also download my free book, "Social Media Marketing Essentials for Small Businsesses" on MelAclaro.com.  It's free and you can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time.  Check it out now.

Last Saturday I moderated one of the panel discussions at the ProductCamp SoCal conference at CSU Fullerton.  With me were the four points of view represented by esteemed colleagues from the Social Media Mastermind Orange County (SMMOC) roundtable.

Notably my panelists included:

• Scott Schang,
• Stacey Harmon,
• Kirsten Wright
• and Cindy Ronzoni

We explored some interesting topics around social media strategies for large and small brands.

Our panel was made especially interesting because of the questions some of you contributed ahead of time through an earlier post I made requesting your help, as well as in the SMMOC group on Facebook.  Also, the other thing that made this panel so engaging was the fact that our panelists didn't do all the talking.

As barcamps are wont to do, our full house of attendees contributed quite a bit to the discussion.  You'll see from the video that a lot of our attendees were really quite keen to share some of their own experiences and case studies.

I posted the panel discussion in three parts and bundled them together above in a handy little playlist.

Highlights Include:

• Opening thoughts about (mine) about terms like "social media revolution" or "paradigm shift" perhaps no longer being accurate statements.  (I also followed that up with another video post after the conference in the post titled, "Is Social Media STILL a Shifting Paradigm?")
• Thoughts contributed by each panelist about establishing a baseline definition about any differences between "large" vs. "personal" brands.
• A discussion about differences between large and personal brands and how larger brands seem to have more infrastructure and resources while smaller (personal) brands have to be a lot smarter and resourceful.
• The role of consistency and conversation in brand persona.
• The importance that brands assign resources to monitoring and listening to the social stream.
• The importance of organizations empower employees to communicate directly with customers in the social stream.
• Further discussions (debate?) about whether or not social media is indeed still a "paradigm shift" or whether it's now a "new normal" with implicit changes being more a manifestation of change as opposed to unique effects of social media.
• Education and training's role in building an effective social media strategy.
• Some thoughts about whether or not the popularity of social media is a Gen-Y-driven phenomenon or is social media's adoption more a result of the "older" generation's championing and adoption?

If you were on the panel, what additional thoughts would you have added about strategic considerations for social media in brand development?

My panel today at the ProductCamp barcamp conference in SoCal on the topic of Social Strategies for Large and Small Brands was surprisingly engaging. We had a full house of attendees engaging with our friends Scott Schang, Stacey Harmon, Kirsten Wright and Cindy Ronzoni.

Thank you for all your questions early this week; your feedback helped a lot in my preparation for the panel.   As promised, I took your questions to our panelists and not only did they offer their insights, but --true to the nature of barcamps --many of the attendees chimed in with their own thoughts, too.

Right from the get-go, and to get the conversation flowing, I took a somewhat controversial position about social media in my opening statement.  My point: social media isn't a revolution anymore; the paradigm shift is behind us; and that the interesting questions anymore aren't about how to get hooked into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging, but rather how do we properly and ethically market online using social platforms that have traditionally been about relationship-building.

What do you think?  Take a look at my summary in the video at MelAclaro.com and leave a comment with your thoughts.  

Don't let the long list of issues dissuade you from making the trip. Even if you only feel informed on only one or two candidates or issues out of the long list they give you to put check marks next to, then go and make a mark for only those one or two things.

Happy voting!

I had the pleasure of hosting a couple of breakouts yesterday at the REBarcamp Expo in Anaheim.  On MelAclaro.com I'll be posting a series this week from yesterday's presentation on YouTube and beyond.  In this first part, I talk a bit about the implications of YouTube being the "second largest search engine in the world."  

As I mentioned in the post, I didn't "get it" initially.  But, after thinking about it more, the implications were pretty keen.  Click here to get this part of the series.  Towards the bottom of the post, I also include a link to the presentation slides.  

Question for you:  Are you using YouTube today in your online marketing campaigns?