Speaking

Brian Solis is consistently ranked as one of the top keynote speakers at events around the world. Solis actively keynotes industry conferences, summits, and corporate events.  Brian is represented by Monitor Talent.  Please contact Mel Blake for all speaking inquiries and questions, at mel_blake@monitor.com or 617-252-2472.

Why Brian:

Brian Solis is a dynamic and engaging speaker with an extensive portfolio of topics that cover business leadership and transformation, disruptive technology, new, social and mobile media, new consumerism, and the evolution of the digital lifestyle in culture and society.

Brian is not a believer in generic, “one size fits all” presentations. He tailors these important topics at various levels necessary to connect with each audience. As an analyst, he also studies how the evolution of technology, business, and culture impact specific industries based on the needs of each event. His ability to connect the dots for hosts and attendees provides tangible value and direction. And, his motivational approach leaves audiences feeling empowered.

His approach to presentations are designed to serve 3 functions:

1. Education – Help participants understand the opportunity before them, what they need to do moving forward, and how to execute and measure success.

2. Inspiration – Turns audiences into stakeholders by motivating participants to embrace new opportunities and consider new possibilities.

3. Alignment – Bring teams and organizations together around a new or renewed vision, mission, and purpose.

Topics:

BUSINESS LEADERSHIP/TRANSFORMATION

The End of Business as Usual – In Brian’s new book, he documents the rise of connected consumerism and the role people play in the future of business. In this presentation, Brian depicts how leadership can survive Digital Darwinism by understanding customer and employee behavior and expectations, disruptive technology, innovative business models, and new opportunities. He also demonstrates best practices and methodologies to align the organization around a common and meaningful vision, strategy, and objectives.

Social 22, The catch between leadership vision and social media strategy – In the study of thousands of social media strategies and comparing intentions and outcomes to that of business priorities and objective. As a result, Brian has observed what he calls a “Social 22″ the quandary between organizational focus and current social media strategies. Brian work identifies the the delta that exists between them and how to bridge the gap.

The Social Enterprise - If we look at CRM and the methodologies and technologies that support customers today, social CRM represents much more than a modernization or even socialization of an aging system of support and service. The operational side of many businesses actually works against a culture that supports change. This discussion explores how to align technology, vision, and customer expectations through new processes and change management.

Selling Disruptive Technology and New Media to the C-Suite – Social Media is leading a revolution in marketing, communication, and service. Many leaders today are unclear of the benefits that social media offers. Others see social media as a function of marketing. The focus of this session is to inspire business leaders around new possibilities, demonstrate how social media serves as enablers to business objectives, and show how to improve products, services and customer relationships in the process.

The Evolution from Social Media Champion to a Catalyst for Transformation – Many social media champions fight to help their organizations develop social media strategies to improve how companies communicate value to ultimately increase customer engagement. Social media is only one part of story. It’s the lessons learned from these new channels that opens the doors within the organization to improve collaboration and innovation internally and externally. Brian focuses on how to champion change to create a social enterprise where social media becomes an extension of a renewed business mission.

A Business of One, creating “one” brand through new channels: Twitter! Facebook! Foursquare! Who owns the tweet? The update? The check-in? Who owns the customer relationship? Who owns email? The answer = everyone! Social media is not about conversations on Twitter and Facebook nor check-ins on FourSquare or Places, or Flipped videos on Youtube. It’s about using this opportunity to build bridges to a new genre of consumers and paving paths to future relevance. We are as much competing for the future as we are for the moment. The problem is that we’re operating with the best of intentions from silos when in fact, the customer sees the company as one…not as business units. It’s time for an integrated approach to create an adaptive business, a collaborative business, an aspiration business….a business of one.

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

The Dawn of the Connected Consumer - With the rise of social commerce, we are not only are we presented with new monetization platforms, we are introduced to a new breed of consumer. The Social Consumer is empowered, connected, and influential. But, reaching them is unique and everything begins with identifying relevant social consumers, understanding what motivates them to take action, and developing meaningful advocacy programs that harness their reach and authority.

The Last Mile of Engagement – An analysis of the new roles that today’s connected consumer plays in our society and our markets and how businesses must socialize every facet of their business to directly connect value and purpose to the 5th P of the marketing mix, people.

The Rise of Syndicated Commerce: From commerce to e-commerce to mobile commerce to f-commerce - In the new Web, no brand is an island. If attention is engaged where it is focused, businesses are presented with new touchpoints and also new opportunities for commerce. The new era of Syndicated Commerce helps businesses leverage existing and new media channels to captivate customer attention and convert it into meaningful transactions while portraying a unified front and value proposition.

The New Landscape for Customer Service - The existing model for customer service is dated. New media channels and customer expectations are forcing businesses out of their paradigms to engage in uncharted territory. Here, Brian reviews new models for customer engagement, metrics for success, and best practices for solving problems and steering positive experiences.

Defining Customer Experiences - Today brands are not created, they’re co-created by the experiences customers share through social and mobile networks. Collectively, these shared experiences from a brand perception that influences decisions and without direction or engagement, connected customers will rely on the words of peers and experts and not brand-owned marketing material. What works against you also works for you and in this presentation, Brian will show how shared experiences come together, influence decisions and how businesses can learn from them to not just react, but proactively steer positive experiences to improve relationships and business outcomes.

In Social Media, Engagement Has Its Rewards - A review of how B2B and B2C customers, prospects and the people who influence their decisions are seeking, sharing and referring information online and how businesses can engage without selling.

The New Consumer Journey – What was once a traditional funnel is now far more elaborate. Connected consumers do not follow a linear path, instead their steps form a elliptical path that opens up new touchpoints for direct engagement. By learning from customer behavior, gaining empathy into their choices, challenges, and goals, and building new engagement programs, businesses can steer outcomes and experiences that contribute to a continuous cycle of customer influence.

Social Media in Small Business is Anything But Small – For entrepreneurs, business owners, investors, and consultants, one of the most exciting prospects of social media, lies in the ability to dramatically amplify your visibility and value proposition among existing and potential stakeholders. Social Media finally places small, local and emerging businesses in the spotlight in ways that up until this point, were largely unattainable.

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. 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.

MARKETING

Digital Influence – New services are ranking the stature of connected consumers based on their activity within social networks. As a result, a social customer hierarchy is emerging where organizations can identify and prioritize relevant customers based on status, experience, and interests to personalize engagement. Additionally, businesses can design influencer initiatives through strategic alliances, ambassador programs, and advocacy campaigns that influence the perception and decisions of peers through a one-to-one-to-many approach.

Social IQ, Integrating intelligence into business products, services and strategies – Many businesses are investing in social media monitoring services to assess share of voice, sentiment, number of mentions, etc. But, this data is limited to marketing and is largely designed to communicate state or progress related to existing social media campaigns. Brian believes the future of listening and business relevance lies in transforming conversations into trends and actionable insights. By applying business intelligence into the mix of social media conversations, organizations can become more adaptive and responsive, develop better products and services, improve collaboration internally and externally, and inform more effective and engaging strategies and programs.

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.

Putting the Social in Social Media – More often than not, businesses use social media channels for traditional marketing campaigns. Driven by an editorial and engagement calendar, many initiatives are are fact more anti-social than they are social. Social media is about empowerment, engagement, clicks to action, and community. It’s an opportunity to learn, listen, and improve relationships with customers and stakeholders. Brian will review how the best companies are truly social in their social media strategies and how to move forward with a new vision and mission.

The Hybrid Theory Manifesto – Hybrid Theory is the fusion of marketing, communications, and advertising to humanize campaigns in what’s called “The Last Mile.” Hybrid Theory shifts marketing from a campaign model to an going “continuum” approach that brings stories to life through direct engagement between brands and consumers. It adds a human connection to “social objects” to spark work of mouth, validate relationships, and empower communities.

R.R.S.: Relevance, Resonance, Significance – In social networks, we are no longer competing for friends and followers, we are competing for the moment in order to earn mind share. If social objects are the future of marketing and attention spans are further thinning, how can we introduce catalysts for conversation that stay alive in social streams long enough to cause action and response. R.R.S. is the key.

Defining the Online Experience…From Interactive Traffic to Static Dead-Ends: Where do you send consumers today? What is the action you wish them to take when they’re at your destination of choice? Chances are, we’re sending individuals to our Website, and to be honest, as much as we praise the socialization of the Web, our sites are still stuck in Web 1.0.  Now, however, attention is thin and consumers are now in full control of the connections and content that fills their social streams. As such, you only get one click to make a first impression.

Conversion Science - Conversations contribute to chatter and as we further compete for attention and relevance, we only get one click to make a lasting impression. Opportunity clicks and businesses must learn how to introduce clicks to action, how to define the online experience from social to branded domains, and how to measure the activity in order to study how to improve conversion ratios.

There is no such Thing as Viral Marketing – A review of the science and strategies behind viral movements and how to inspire communities and people to help you amplify visibility and reach of your social objects.

Social Media Optimization: SMO is the New SEO - The technicalities involved with wiring SEO are not the same processes required to boost visibility in social networks like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter. And it’s in social networks like these where people are increasingly spending time communicating, finding relevant and interesting content, and sharing it with their connections. So now, in addition to SEO, we have to implement and manage a Social Media Optimization (SMO) program around our content to increase visibility in these new environments.

Every Brand is Media: The Future of Marketing Starts with Publishing - In social networks, it is the shift from conversations to a thought leading editorial program that place brands on a path to becoming a valuable and undisputed resource within their industry. The new CEO will essentially assume the role of Chief Editorial Officer to turn tweets, status updates, viral videos, and blog posts into social objects that spark conversations, cause action, and earn intellectual leadership.

Going Global by Going Local, why localization improves engagement – The world is becoming a much smaller place. But even with social media contributing to a globally connected society, businesses that continue to take a global approach to social content and engagement may be missing opportunities for greater resonance and relevance. While a global presence is necessary for any organization hoping to connect with customers around the world, placing reliance on one prevailing strategy is just the beginning. In any web strategy, including social and also mobile media,   localization is king.

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.

DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY

Harnessing Emerging and Disruptive Technology for Innovation

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.

The Future of Television is Social – Many technologists, media industrialists, and marketers refer to the current landscape of content consumption as “The Three Screens,” representing mobile, PC, and televisions. The three screens are the windows of the world, your world, as you are increasingly empowered to take control of the experiences in which you wish to immerse.  What was once the water cooler effect, has given way to the social effect. Conversations are taking place around programming, yet the experience is disconnected, requiring multiple devices to view, share, and react. But as this social effect gains in influence, its true opportunity lies in its unification of  the three screens and the socialization of broadcast programming.

Can Social Media Save Journalism - Whether it’s newspapers, television shows, or online mediums and networks, the shift is in how people find, consume, and share information and in turn, form social networks around related content.  What eludes publishers is the very thing that can save them. A new model is evolving where publishers can not only survive the evolution, but also thrive in an ecosystem of connecting content with audiences—where they congregate online. In order to succeed, publishers and journalists will be versed in the art and science of online community building. The reinvention of publishing models starts with journalists, where people become the ambassadors for content and the flagship brand they represent.

The Rise of Social Nicheworks: Mapping Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks - Content Context is now king. Social Networks have evolved from a parallel friend/follower archetype to a hierarchical top-down network where individuals not only connect with those they know, but also with those they want to know based on themes and interests. I believe we are entering an era of contextual networks or nicheworks or what Twitter refers to as the “interest graph”

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.

CULTURE AND SOCIETY

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.

Digital Influence: Social Capital, Social Currency and Personal Branding – Explores the undercurrent of social economics, namely social currency and social capital. As we’re seeing with services such as Klout and PeerIndex, our stature in the social web is based on our actions and words. Essentially, your “balance sheet” is available for anyone with a web browser to review, assess, and analyze.

Reinventing Education: Channeling Distraction to Create Opportunities for Collaboration and Education - Twitter, Facebook News Feeds, Text Messaging and other digital distractions 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. Educators must not minimize social networks, they must embrace them in order to captivate their students.

Blogs vs. The Statusphere, investing in a significant online presence - While blogs are increasing in quantity, their authority is collectively losing influence to Twitter and Facebook, or is it? With the popularity and pervasiveness of Twitter, Facebook, the rise of the statusphere is simplifying the ability to publish, share and distribute ideas and information. But, is the statusphere the next blogosphere?

The Me in Social “Me”dia – Everything in social media starts with you and as such, we are creating a new society where we define our online experiences based on who we know, what we consume, and what we share. If, our attention is focused on our social graphs and the information that flows through our stream, how can we as personal and professional brands hope to capture attention now and in the future.

Digital Anthropology – The socialization of media is powerful and transformative, but while the technology has democratized information and equalized influence, it is anthropology that gives us insight into these newly forming communities.

News No Longer Breaks, It Tweets! - News no longer breaks, it tweets – with far greater speed, reach, impact, and resonance. How can media properties minimize the information divide, the time between an event and the first official report (as separated by the news spreading on social networks). Additionally, how can news organizations and everyday consumers alike harness new media to cultivate influence and drive new levels of traffic and engagement?

ENGAGEMENTS:

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