I was recently tagged by a meme about social media marketing best practices by Dan Thornton (aka Badger Gravling, a user name I still envy) of The Way of the Web .

Mitch Joel of Twist Image and Six Pixels of Separation fame originated this meme back on Aug. 27, 2008, so I’m a little bit behind.

Look, I’m not a social media marketer and if I were, I don’t have a lot to show as success stories in this space. However, I do have a little story to tell which might give you some insight into something that I think would be valuable, regardless of whether or not it directly applies to social media marketing.

It’s very simple: volunteer your time, knowledge, and expertise for a good cause. If you can work social media marketing into the situation LEGITIMATELY, so much the better.

Here’s the story:

This weekend I gave a short presentation to a local church group about Internet and cell phone technology. The organizers of this group knew me and knew that I know a bit about this stuff, mainly through the newspaper column that I was writing earlier this year and because of my job as an IT professional.

These people wanted help in understanding technology better, especially safety for children. They don’t work in social media for hours each day, and they weren’t early adopters: basically they were representative of the majority of people out there who hear about technology, see their children using it, and don’t understand many of the details.

  • I talked 30 minutes about some basic principles, like safety, privacy, reputation, and respect. I answered a few questions.
  • They were very grateful. I may get asked to speak there again.
  • I feel like I helped them, even if only a little bit.

My thought is that if you could take this experience and repeat it once per month for several years, you’d do more for advancing the causes of social media in general, and possibly social media marketing to boot, than attending a conference or meeting of the converted.

In short, get out there, share what you know, answer people’s questions, and do it for free. It can be with some form of non-religious group like a service club, chamber of commerce, or what have you if you prefer not to mix religion with your technology. Whatever the audience, you’ll build trust, goodwill, and more by volunteering a little bit of your time like this.

If that’s not conducive to social media marketing, I don’t know what is.

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