Speaking

Brian Solis actively keynotes, moderates, and speaks at industry conferences, corporate events, and training workshops. To discuss the possibility of having him speak or provide training, please contact Brian directly.

Topics:

The Socialization of Your Corporate Brand – analyzing how the social web, and the corresponding tools are giving way to the crowdsourcing of corporate brand visibility and perception. How not to lose control and to help steer perception using the same tools and channels where they congregate.

The State of Social Media – a view of the current landscape of social media trends, benefits, and tools, with a glimpse at the future.

Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals – A comprehensive discussion of the tools available on Twitter for community managers, marketers and PR professionals. I currently maintain an up-to-date list of the top tools (currently sitting at over 80).

On The Social Web, We are Bound By Context, Not Relationships: Mapping Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks - Social Networks have created a parallel friend/follower archetype that injects a homologous top-down network where individuals not only connect with those they know, but also with those who are interested in following their online activity, and not necessarily with the expectation of reciprocation. This injects a new dynamic into online social relationships, one that facilitates and fosters a less personal, but still meaningful engagement, creating an ambient, persona-audience interconnection. The ties that bind us together in online networks aren’t intrinsically dictated by people, but instead by constant as well as shifting contextual themes that unite us. It forms the foundation for a different dynamic for engagement and a new definition of relationships.

The individual social graph is then networked by the common interests of people as they relate to specific dialogue over time and also in the moment, and thus, it’s always expanding and contracting. We identify uniquely with different individuals across varying topics.

In the Social Web, We Are All Brand Managers – An overview of how the social web will shape corporate and individual brands and what we can do to cultivate them strategically and effectively. Nowadays, everything we create and share online is open to public discovery, interpretation, and feedback. It introduces our thoughts, emotions, passions, and insights to new people and erases the geographic borders and boundaries that prevented us from artfully and naturally connecting with like-minded people around the world. Your digital identity defines who you are. And in this genre of Web-savvy content creators and purveyors, your online reputation does indeed precede you. Perception is reality.

Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web – Conversations related to your brand, company, executives, products, and competitors take place each and every day, without our knowledge and perhaps worse, without our participation. In the era of the Social Web, a story, and the ensuing public recruitment, rallying, and support, can rapidly spread unlike any crisis wildfire witnessed or experienced in previous generations. The migration, exploration, experimentation, and education of social media and related online conversations will contribute to its significance and resilience and ultimately change behavior and expand the infrastructure for corporate communications in the process. Regardless of genre, the sum of all social channels today equate to a powerful, influential, and revolutionary archetype for exposing and diffusing public opinion. It’s the art and science of diffusing crises before they erupt.

Brand Syndication and Participation Aggregation – Digital entrepreneurs will continue to experiment with existing and arising forms of social media, many will feel the effects of social network fatigue and attention scarcity. The ability to compel those we wish to reach will require a new practice of sharing and distributing value will require frequency and range. It’s the fusion of brandstreaming and cross platform networking. Social Syndication and Aggregation will be the new content syndication and participation. Meaning, that finding social services that can broadcast your expertise, thought leadership, and vision to communities that reach your audiences while utilizing a hub that allows you to participate in each community, from one place will transform and improve our foundation for success.

The Undercurrent of a Cultural Renaissance – A discussion of how the socialization and democratization of online content is transforming our society from the inside out and shaping new digital communities cultures in the process.

The Poetry of Social Networking to Court Customers and Invest in Relationships – Social Networks have effectively introduced us to a digital land rush that allows us to stake a claim to the markets where we can excel in ways previously impossible. We’re creating and populating online societies and global neighborhoods where we can contribute to, and directly benefit from, the proliferation of innovation, interaction, and subsequent commerce. It’s nothing short of an incredible, life-changing opportunity for you to demonstrate the value, experience, and knowledge you represent to earn and invest in the relationships that propel your business as well as your professional and personal brand. Maintaining a central presence online on social networks, in addition to a company website or blog, provides you with an effective dashboard for building strategic relationships with the very people in that network who can help your business grow.

The Conversation Prism, Inside the Looking Glass of Social Media – The Conversation Prism is a living, breathing representation of Social Media. It can reveal the very people you want to reach, where they participate, and how you can engage We will observe, analyze, dissect, and present the dynamics of conversations, how and where they transpire – becoming digital anthropologists in the process. As conversations are increasingly distributed, everything begins with listening and observing. Doing so, will help you identify exactly where relevant discussions are taking place, as well as their scale and frequency. This dialog can be charted into a targeted social map that’s unique to your brand.

The Essential Discussion on Social Media – In Social Media, everything is powered by dialog, two way discussions that bring people together in order to discover and share information. Joining the conversation isn’t as simple as jumping in however. The Essential Discussion on Social Media is a “quick start” overview covering how and where to listen and participate in social media.

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR – PR, as we know it, is a dying practice having evolved away from the public and instead concentrating its energy on broadcasting disconnected messages to “media and analysts.”

What we’ve learned and what we know are quickly fading into irrelevance and obscurity. Reporters and analysts are now sharing the stage with a new generation of influencers. In addition to a still relevant process of media relations, we now need to expand our scope of participation and outreach by also identifying, understanding, and engaging the everyday people who have plugged-in to a powerful and democratized online platform for creating and distributing information, insight, and opinions – effectively gaining authority in the process.

The very people we had always wished to reach through traditional channels are now the very people we need to convince and inspire directly in order to remain part of industry-defining and market making conversations. This is a new era of influence and in order to participate, we have to rewire our DNA to stop marketing “at” audiences in order to genuinely and intelligently humanize our story to connect with real people and the online communities they inhabit.

Putting the public back in public relations is a critical and mandatory process to excel in today’s social economy. It will help businesses forge meaningful relationships with those who will bridge specific benefits to distinct groups of consumers in order to cultivate a loyal, vocal, and hyper-connected community of customers and influencers.

Attention Marketers: Drop the keyboards and step away from Facebook and Twitter: How the Conversation Prism and a unique conversation index teaches us, not only where to listen, but how we can genuinely participate and add value in the communities that are specific to our brand

In the Statusphere, A.D.D. Creates Opportunities for Collaboration and Education - Twitter, Facebook News Feeds, FriendFeed and other micro communities that define the Statusphere, are captivating and distracting our focus. But, while many argue that it’s decreasing productivity, I say it’s arousing a more active, engaging, and enlightened community of media literate information socialites.

Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere? - As the leading blog directory and search engine, Technorati maintains a coveted Authority Index which is considered amongst bloggers as the benchmark for measuring their rank and selling their position within the blogosphere. Authority is defined as the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the greater the level of Authority a blog earns.

However, a disruptive trend is already at play. While blogs are increasing in quantity, their authority—as currently measured by Technorati—is collectively losing influence.

We are learning to publish and react to content in “Twitter time” and I’d argue that many of us are spending less time blogging, commenting directly on blogs, or writing blogs in response to blog sources because of our active participation in micro communities.

With the popularity and pervasiveness of microblogging (a.k.a. micromedia) and activity streams and timelines, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and the like are competing for your attention and building a community around the statusphere – the state of publishing, reading, responding to, and sharing micro-sized updates.

Get a Job, Why “Social Media Expert” is not a Profession – It’s virtually impossible to master an medium that evolves faster than our ability to learn from it…why there’s strength and value in humility

Viral Marketing is Dead (and was Never Born) – why interactive and traditional marketers and advertisers are getting this all wrong

ENGAGEMENTS:

For a list of upcoming and previous speaking engagements, please visit “Appearances.“