In January of 2009, I had the opportunity to attend M-Planet in Orlando, Florida. I was excited to attend because I had just started a new role as Social Media Manager for American Family Insurance and this AMA event looked like ‘the bomb’. It promised to provide access and insights from “the new marketsphere’s leading thinkers.”
The event bombed.
As I listened to speaker after speaker talk about how they integrated social media into their advertising campaigns, i got increasingly discouraged instead of inspired. No one seemed to realize that the rules for marketing were being re-written by social media.
I was surrounded by dinosaurs.
I thought, “If these are truly our ‘leading thinkers’, then we’re F**ked…” It’s going to take a catastrophic event for this group to realize how much things were changing. An event as catastrophic to marketers as a meteor was to the dinosaurs of yesteryear:
a social meteor.
I registered the domain ‘SocialMeteor.com’ and started blogging. A few months later, I stumbled across the above cartoon from Hugh MacLeod — and I knew there leading thinkers to be found off the beaten path.
In 2011, I left American Family Insurance to lead marketing at Sentry Insurance. I’ve made this change to demonstrate that social media in an integrated part of effective marketing for any brand. You can’t fence social media in. It doesn’t do well in a silo.
SocialMeteor.com is a blog about the intersection of marketing, social media, and personal communication. It’s not a consulting company or marketing agency. If you’d like me to explore a topic related to social media that interests you, leave a comment below. If your topic intrigues me, you’ll see posts appearing within 1-2 weeks. [circa: October, 2011]
Troy Janisch, Publisher of Social Meteor, is a digital marketing professional and social media beatnik. He is a contributor to SmartBrief on Social Media and Social Media Today. Troy leads the marketing team at Sentry Insurance but don’t let that scare you. He rarely talks about insurance in mixed company [grin].
Email: tj at social meteor dot com | Twitter: @socialmeteor
Speaker Requests:
Looking for an experienced social media speaker? Maybe I can help. I speak at a handful of national events each year. Presentations are well received (average score of 4.2 out of 5). Recent comments:
- “Fantastic! He should have been allowed Q&A”
- “Lots of good information and very well presented”
- “Excellent! Strategy through execution”
- “Great content! Addressed my local needs & challenges”
- “Very relevant to sales organization”
- “Liked customer service focus”
- “Excellent presentation and great info”
- “Love how they molded SM into their business”
- “A little rushed”
- “Fresh strategy, tools, and approach. A+”
- “Good information. You’re real. And you’re teaching, not selling. Very worth following.”
- “Provided meaningful information that we could use.”
- “Great information and presentation style.”
- “Excellent job describing what works for AmFam.”
Credits:
The Dinosaur Meteor cartoon is courtesy of Hugh MacLeod of Gapingvoid.com| Other illustrations are courtesy of Mark Anderson, aka ‘Doodlehaus.’ | Genesis Theme Framework for WordPress.
Affiliations:
I leverage affiliations and my social network when everyone wins from the outcome. I don’t hide any of these affiliations. In fact, I’ll often promote them. | I work for Sentry Insurance. All opinions expressed on the blog are my own. | I am an affiliate of StudioPress, creator of Genesis Theme Framework for WordPress. | I am an affiliate of Amazon.com.
